DIVIDEND WEEK
By WALTER BRIERLEY
THE Co-operative Societies have held their quarterly meetings, the Dividend has been declared and posted on the windows of the central store and the branches— posted loudly to serve informative and advertising purposes—and the millions of members have received their Purchase Warrants telling how much they have spent during the quarter. If one has saved every check given over the counter against every payment for purchases, the Purchase Warrant can be checked for ac- curacy, and the office will adjust the account if discrepancy occurs—which is rarely. In some districts the Warrants are sent to the branch stores for the members who shop there ; in others, as in the district where I live, each member has to go to the central office and leave his share-book until Dividend-drawing day, when he collects the amount due to him or allows it to be added to his account.
Though the members at each quarterly meeting, and in the intervals of the concerts which the Educational Committee arrange during the winter, are adjured to loyalty to the movement and asked to make the present period a record one for sales, co-operators fall into very varying categories. There are the hundred per- centers, who buy every article they need and which the Stores supply, irrespective of price ; these usually are they whose idealism is backed by a wage large enough to make pondering over " ends meeting " unnecessary. Others use the Stores to get articles with a standard price at that price less the dividend. There are not many of either class. Between them is the treat body of members, individually greater than the Movement, who spend their money to the best advantage, comparing prices and value ; if the Store price is a penny more, but the percentage of Dividend will take twopence off, then the penny more will be paid.
The Dividend is an important factor in holding working- class people to the movement. They know that four times a year some ready money will be available, -which they could not possibly have saved. Though the fact may not be in the house-wife's mind each time she makes a purchase, the Stores, in her whole system of domestic management, stand for it. Dividend is con- sciously worked for in only a few cases—men buying small quantities of cigarettes and tobacco and re-selling to fellow workmen in the-shops.
Now that the dividend has been declared—it is two and twopence in the pound in this district—and the Purchase Warrants are out with the amount spent, varying to each member according to the combined factors of loyalty, size and earning capacity of the family (the limits can be put at £10 and £40), the woman is considering to what use the pound or few pounds can best be put. The Sunday School Anniversaries are almost here, and her children must have dresses and suits equal in material and colour to any other who will " sit on the platform." She, too, needs a bright dress to walk out in on summer Sunday evenings. There may be other needs, but this of clothes is an important item at this season, and some of the extra money of Dividend week will go that way.
She, however, as a wife and mother and as a member of the Stores, is not the only one to be interested in the pounds, shillings and pence of her Dividend. Just as she has made plans for spending it, so have others made plans for the attempt at relieving her of it. All the private traders and companies other than the Co-op. know well enough when it is " Divi " week at the Stores, and it is an entertaining experience to walk about the streets of a small industrial town a week or so before the women come from the Co-operative offices with the extra pounds in their purses. Drapers are decking their windows anew and splashing SALE about the plate glass, sticking to displayed material tickets. with two prices on, the larger amount crossed through. Milliners are doing the same,—two-and-eleven- hats are now half a crown. Grocers and provision merchants have " special lines " prominent. In the larger towns this baiting process is not so marked or noticeable, but for all that it is there. Even the large establishments rake something out and flourish it before the easier purses coming about their windows. And the " Sales " begin at nine o'clock on the first morning of the Dividend drawing I Those mobile business concerns, the fruit-barrow men, furnish the most comical element of all. In the large town were I live the Co-op. Offices are fifty yards along a narrow side street, and normally there is one forlorn barrow-man at the entrance. During " Divi " week there are at least a dozen parked side by side in the gutter, reaching to the very gates of the offices, crying raucously at the women filing continuously down the pavement.
But the Co-operative Societies have an eye on the easy money, too, and do not let it out of their hands without making some effort to keep it in the Movement. In this large town one has to take. one's share-book and leave it when the Purchase Warrant is collected. It is handed over again on Dividend day, and it is quite easy for the member to say, " add it to my account " ; indeed, the presence of the share-book suggests such a course. If the member draws it, however, and brings away the money, there is a barrow-man belonging to the Society in the office yard, some feet before the first private barrow-man in the street. The Co-op, too, has its sale windows, but now these have to compete on equal terms with others in the street. In the smaller society to which I belonged before moving into the larger town, the Dividend was paid over the counter of the branch stores, and some of it at least was handed back in purchases before the member left the shop.
There are cases where the Society is certain of keeping in its hands the greater part of a member's Dividend. Any credit given to members must be settled by the quarter end ; if this cannot be paid over the counter in the normal way, the amount is deducted from the Dividend. Subtle motives seem to govern the posting Up of the amount of Dividend declared. If it is equal to or more than the preceding quarter, prominent notices line the shop windows ; if less, the notice, so far from being conspicuous, may easily escape the eye altogether.
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