340 



SCIEJSTCE. 



[.Vol. VII., No. 167 



coming just at this time, both its value and its 

 influence will be increased. The pamphlet is en- 

 titled "Labor differences and their settlement, a 

 plea for arbitration and conciliation," and it is an 

 able exposition of the causes underlying our 

 present labor difficulties, together with an argu- 

 ment in favor of arbitration as the best method 

 for their settlement. 



No thoughtful man can have watched the de- 

 velopment of labor troubles during the last few 

 years with any feeling short of anxiety. The in- 

 crease in the number and frequency of strikes, 

 the growing percentage of them that are success- 

 ful, the hostility and ill feeling too often shown by 

 employers and employed, have all forced them- 

 selves upon our notice, but society seems helpless 

 before them. 



Much of this, perhaps all of it, is due, we dare 

 assert, not so much to a misunderstanding of the 

 questions immediately under discussion as to abso- 

 lute ignorance of the conditions underlying those 

 questions, and moulding their form. Philosophy 

 and science have taught us to view society as 

 having developed from its early militant to its 

 present industrial type along certain well-defined 

 lines. But some how or other we feel an irresisti- 

 ble desire to view this process as complete, to 

 consider the book of evolution closed, and to con- 

 gratulate ourselves on being the summation of 

 an infinite series. This false conception affects 

 our actions. We fail to see that society is still 

 changing and developing, that the laws that 

 operated in the past are still at work. 



This crude philosophy enters as a factor into our 

 present labor complications when they are seen 

 from a scientific stand-point. Old theories will not 

 fit new facts, nor will antique remedies cure new 

 troubles. Almost without an exception, employ- 

 ers look upon the employees as their inferiors, 

 and treat them as such. From this follows ill 

 feeling, desire for retaliation, perhaps criminal 

 recklessness. We overlook the fact that the old 

 feudal relation of master and servant is a thing 

 of the past, and is not represented in our present 

 economic organization. As Mr. Weeks acutely 

 points out, discussions between employers and 

 employed are * permitted ' by the former, inter- 

 views are 'granted,' committees are ' recognized.' 

 Now, we need not blind ourselves to the ethical 

 fact that there is a superiority of possessions as 

 well as a superiority of physical force and of in- 

 tellect, but in economic matters it cannot safely 

 be pushed very far. The employers must climb 

 down from this feudal pedestal, and meet their 

 workmen on a level. Before the law and at the 

 ballot-box, every man counts as one, and no more ; 

 and it is unreasonable to expect that in economic 



relations one party to a contract shall count as in- 

 finity, and the other as zero. 



In the second place, a false political economy 

 must bear its share of the responsibility. The 

 employers have come to think that they pay the 

 wages, and therefore may settle them as they see 

 fit. But the wages question is, as Mr. Weeks 

 says, a problem in distribution, and wages are 

 paid out of the product (p. 11). By a figure of 

 speech, they are paid by the employer, because, 

 as industry is now organized, the product — the 

 result of the combined effort of capitalist and 

 laborer, we must always remember — goes into 

 the hands of the employer as trustee, and he ad- 

 vances to his laborers each one's share as previously 

 determined upon. Perhaps not even the laborer 

 himself understands this clearly. The present 

 methods have been in operation so long and on so 

 enormous a scale, that it is not easy to look beyond 

 them and see what they really stand for. 



These two facts are typical of the steps to be 

 taken in settling any labor dispute. The method 

 laid down for scientific procedure by Bacon can 

 find application in the field of industrial problems. 

 First, we must clear our minds of all idols, all 

 false notions and mistaken prejudices as to the in- 

 equality of the employer and the employed ; and, 

 second, we must observe facts and relations as 

 they are, and not as it may suit our ideas to have 

 them. 



It is in these fundamental conditions that labor 

 troubles arise. Strikes, lock-outs, boycotts, and so 

 on, are the effects, not the causes, of labor troubles. 

 By repressing them we are only sitting on the 

 safety-valve. Hidden but potent forces are at 

 work, and as sure as fate they will break out in 

 another place if repressed in one. What we want 

 is prevention of strikes, not a cure for them. 



Have we any such prevention to suggest ? Yes : 

 we follow Mr. Weeks in favoring permanent 

 boards of arbitration in which employers and em- 

 ployed are equally represented, presided over by a 

 disinterested umpire. The great advantage of a 

 permanent board of arbitration, holding stated 

 meetings, is that it builds up an entente cordiale 

 between the capitalist and the laborer. They 

 learn to sympathize with each other, to know that 

 an industrial problem may present two very differ- 

 ent aspects from two different points of view ; to 

 see, in a measure, through each other's spectacles. 

 The trouble with a temporary board of arbitration 

 is that it is formed after the friction between the 

 two parties has begun. It meets after a declara- 

 tion of hostilities, not before ; and its members, 

 feeling that they have a certain position to defend, 

 assume a semi-belligerent attitude. The theoreti- 

 cal advantages of a permanent board are forcibly 



