quently culminate in a necessity for repression by force. . . . Frequently the injuries sustained by the public are more grievous than those of either contestant, or both combined, for that matter. Several times this situation has existed in Indiana, and disastrous consequences have followed. . . . Those with experience and observation know that often labor troubles progress with an ever-increasing intensity; both sides become deaf to reason, refuse to yield, compromise, or arbitrate. . . . Meantime, the helpless public must drift defencelessly along, suffering from evils for which it is in no wise responsible, and from which there is no relief until the combatants are either coerced by force or have expended their illdirected strength, and by their exhaustion are forced to quit the fight. Thus upon innocent persons are entailed pecuniary losses."1

The consolidation of industries has already gone so far that a strike in any one of many of the giant corporations may cut off nearly the whole supply of one article, and it may be an article that the public cannot be deprived of without entailing suffering or loss. If it is a necessity for the poor, the injury which the stoppage would cause would be most grave, but even though it be not an absolutely necessary article, and even though the consumers of it be not the very poor, the sudden closing of the source of supply would bring injury to a vast number of people who would have no part in the

pending dispute, but do have an undoubted right to protection.

A strike or a lockout is one of the very few customs handed down to this generation from early days. It was the ancient barbaric way of settling private controversies. In olden times, all matters of difference were tried by a personal contest between the parties in dispute. The stronger man won. Might made right. But as the world grew older, and the principles that underly an enlightened civilization developed, men saw that such contest did not determine the merits of the controversy, but only the strength of the contestants; so courts were established to act as arbitrators, in order that the controversies might be decided on their merits.

"Viewed from ideal conditions," writes John Mitchell, "a strike is a barbarous method of settling industrial controversies. It is a struggle of endurance, a question of might, not right. It is a war carried into the industrial field, and, like all war, attended by cruelty and suffering; it is a feudal conflict, in which many besides the immediate contestants are grievously injured. Thus, from an ideal point of view, the necessity for even occasional strikes constitutes one of the strongest indictments against civilized society."

Daniel J. Keefe, president of the Longshoremen's Association, has recently said:

"Labor strikes are but another species of war. As modern war, owing to the invention of modern appli

ances for the destruction of life and property, becomes more terrible, so also does the strike of to-day become more serious, owing to the general strength and intelligence of the forces of labor, and the loss to the victor and vanquished correspondingly heavy. Let us try to consider the meaning of a strike in the United States, where the entire force of organized labor was arrayed against capital. The mere contemplation of such a crisis makes my blood run cold. Imagine for a moment what this would mean. It would mean nothing if not war."

So long as the law provides no court for the effective settlement of labor controversies, the only weapon labor has for the defence of its interests is the refusal to work, except upon agreed terms. As conditions now exist, once the laborer refuses to work on the employer's terms, he immediately sees another man taking his place, thus rendering his one and only weapon powerless. What wonder, therefore, that the working man, facing permanent loss of employment, and hunger threatening his helpless family, so often resorts to violence and brings into existence conditions so deplorable? How much more just it would be for the public generally to substitute, in place of condemnation, a legal tribunal in which the working men may obtain redress for their grievances and where the questions in dispute between the employer and his employees may be settled on the basis of right and equity.

Mr. Nicholas Paine Gilman sums up the situation very clearly from the stand-point of the public in these words:

"The public is the supreme court of appeal, and it does not approve of trade-unions making war on employers' associations; or of employers' associations fighting trade-unions to the bitter end; or of tradeunions and employers' associations banded together to fleece the public.1

1 Methods of Industrial Peace, p. 15.

II

THE SOLUTION

PLAN I

HE final solution of the "labor problem" in

THE

all its phases will ultimately be found in the substitution of the Golden Rule, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," for the David Harum golden rule, "Do unto the other fellow the way he 'd like to do unto you, an' do it fust," which to-day is the guiding policy of both employer and employee.

But the millenium is not yet in sight; it is still a long way off. And until this happy period is ushered in, it is imperative that some means be found, in addition to the spreading of Christian doctrines, to prevent the shutting down of factories, the closing of mines, and the stoppage of industry by strikes and lockouts.

Many thoughtful minds have come to consider the adoption of co-operative trade agreements as the most sane, reasonable, and equitable solution of this problem.

Mr. John R. Commons has well stated the