ABSTRACT
In October 1913, the Central Committee of the Women’s Co operative Guild received a letter from the general secretary of the Catholic Federation of the Diocese of Salford. A pamphlet on the subject of divorce law reform, circulated for the spring sectional conferences earlier in the year, had come to his attention and he wished ‘to draw your attention to the disabilities that Catholic members of the Co-operative Movement are suffering in your per sistent propaganda of the cause of divorce’. The Central Committee were reminded that the Guild was dependent on grants from the Co-operative Union, the Co-operative Wholesale Society, space in Co-operative News, and the subsidies of local societies; through these various channels Catholic co-operators were being ‘mulcted of a portion of their dividends in order that your Guild may propagate divorce’. In this way, ‘the power and the prestige of the Co-operative Movement’ was being used for ‘purposes alien to it and opposed to the religious convictions of its Catholic members’ and of many non-Catholic members. The Central Committee was doubdess aware ‘that any person who believes in the principles of Co-operation is eligible for membership of the Co-operative Movement, but you may not be aware that exploitation of legitimate membership for illegitimate purposes will ultimately disrupt the movement’.1
