COMPROMISE 123 



introduce harmony where now is division, it 

 may hasten and not thwart the coming of the 

 supreme object of the nation. What possible 

 change is there, by which conditions so different 

 may be simultaneously fulfilled ? Hitherto all 

 that has been done has taken the form of 

 compromise. Men who must have known well 

 the workmen and their employers have spent 

 all their energies in advocacy of this plan. 

 Only lately a well-known British statesman de- 

 clared compromise to be the one and only remed}'. 

 Yet, by its very nature, compromise cannot get 

 far beyond the fringe of things : it tries to alter 

 a little here and a little there, to soothe and hush 

 and induce acceptance of small advantages ; or 

 else it is not compromise. It never really 

 touches, it shrinks from touching, as too danger- 

 ous, the true deep-seated ill. 



What is compromise but a palliation ? If com- 

 promise be only a palliation, it must be con- 

 demned as not equal to what is called for now. 

 It tends to keep in existence the evil it just 

 puts a little out of sight, to simmer on in 

 preparation for the next palliation. 



The conditions of the problem seem to be 

 pretty clear. It is not compromise that is 

 wanted ; compromise fends off change for a time, 

 but it leaves work just as monotonous, and men 

 just as discontented. It is a change that is 

 wanted, a change that adds one new condition 

 to existing conditions. Who is capable of saying 

 exactly what that change must be ? It is quite 

 possible some one will arise, to whom will appear 



