committees representing the employés. The representatives of the employers were at first appointed at meetings of the employers called for that purpose, but latterly there has been a Manufacturers' Association, which has acted in this respect.

At first the agreements were in force until formal notice -generally sixty days' notice-had been given to abrogate them. Latterly the agreements are from year to year.

This system has many defects, while it has, at the same time, its advantages. It has by no means prevented strikes and lockouts. The employé members of the committee have, until the past year, usually been no more than a committee to present to the manufacturers the rates of wages the Union had decided upon-having no power to accept any terms but those which they had been instructed to accept. At the same time, it is fair to say that the information gained at these conferences has often led to modification of demands. These agreements, once reached, have in every instance been faithfully kept; the terms have been strictly adhered to, and, if any change in the terms of the agreement has been desired, the agreement has always been abrogated in the way named in its terms. A possible exception to this statement is in cases where certain classes of employés working under these scales have struck, though there was no question as to their wages, to assist in enforcing the demand of some other class of labor,-as when the rollers would strike to assist the puddlers to obtain a scale; but even in such cases it should be stated that the workmen do not regard it as in any fair sense a violation of their agreement.

CHAPTER IX.

SOME OBJECTIONS TO ARBITRATION.

THERE are certain objections both to the system and to the practice of arbitration that it is necessary to notice. Some of these have already been considered in discussing the relative merits of the different forms of arbitration and conciliation. There are others that are urged not against any particular form of the system but against the system itself and its results. It will appear that many of these objections to arbitration grow out of the adherence to certain economic theories, the soundness and applicability of which to labor differences have already been discussed. In discussing these objections it will be necessary to notice incidentally some of the benefits of the system.

One objection to arbitration grows out of the assumption that the right to decide questions that arise between employer and employed rests with the employer alone. When a decision is given labor's only choice is to accept the result or go elsewhere. An employer holding this belief naturally refuses to recognize a right of interference on the part of any employé or any committee or board or arbitrator, and treats the suggestion of a conference as an impertinence. Stripped of verbiage, this is an assertion that the right to dictate the terms upon which that labor, the wages of which are necessary to the very existence of the laborer, shall be performed, rests with the employer. It is a monstrous doctrine. It means slavery

or starvation, and it is a theory that society for its own safety should not tolerate for a moment. Labor is no longer in a state of industrial subjection, nor does it acknowledge even in theory that its wages come out of the employer's pocket. The employé on the one hand asserts both his industrial independence and his equality with his employer, and demands and will have, as his right, not as a favor, a voice and an equal power in the decision of the questions that affect his interests and his relations to his employer, his work, and his product. To attempt to abridge this right or to deprive him of it will prove ultimately a costly and abortive experiment. He insists further that as wages are paid out of product in which his labor as well as his employer's skill and the money of the capitalist are found, it is as truly his right as it is that of the employer to have a part not only in the distribution of that product, but in the decision as to the basis on which it shall be distributed. Capital is under no necessity to invest its accumulations in industries that shall employ labor, nor is an individual employer compelled to become an entrepreneur, but when capital invests and the employer undertakes and labor is brought in that production may result, then capital and the employer, equally with labor, must submit to the conditions into which they have voluntarily entered. The workman is a partner in production; his labor under the present methods is one of the three indispensable factors in production, and as such is entitled to participate in the decision of questions that affect his interests, and to which he is a party. If this is true the objection urged is not valid. The decision of these questions is not with the employer alone.

Probably the most strongly urged objection to arbitration and conciliation is that it seeks to settle the terms

upon which work shall be done in the future.

These, i: is held, cannot, in the very nature of things, be subjects of agreement or award, as they depend on the course of future events, which is unknown. A decision, therefore, may not only be erroneous and injurious, but it may also interfere with what the economists of a certain school call industrial freedom, by which is meant an impulse to seek surely and swiftly the best markets.

So far as this objection is based on the assumed authority and sufficiency of competition, it has already been discussed. There is apparent force, however, in that part of it which asserts the liability to error arising from want of knowledge of the future. The elements necessary to accurate determination are wanting, and it is possible that the judgment of the board or umpire may be at fault and errors may occur, but are errors more likely to happen in a system which brings reason and deliberation to the estimation of probabilities than in one that takes passion or greed as its prophet? For it is to be remembered that these questions as to the future must be answered. They are ever present. They will not down. They cannot be ignored. They must be met, and whatever view may be taken of their legitimacy, they must be answered. Labor demands to know the terms upon which it is to toil before it will work. An answer to its demand being imperative, is there any method that has yet been suggested that promises to answer as justly or correctly as arbitration?

But it is by no means clear that the future is not a proper subject of agreement or award. There are many questions relating to methods of work and administration that most certainly are. Endless confusion and innumerable conflicts would result were not these details subjects of agreement beforehand. Further, the fixing of future

rates of wages is not only not theoretically unsound, but it is in accordance with the most obvious business practice and prudence. It is absolutely impossible in the present organization of industry that work should go on one moment without an agreement as to what wages shall be. This is too obvious to need discussion, and whether that agreement is for a year or for a day it is fixing future rates of wages. There may be a question as to the proper duration of the agreement, that is, how long the rates shall obtain, but there can be no question as to the necessity of some agreement. Further, such fixing of future rates of wages is exactly analogous to the very common and commendable practice of buying and selling goods for future delivery. Its advantages, in view of modern commercial methods, are beyond question. A rate of wages established for a fixed period justifies an employer in entering upon contracts for the purchase of materials and the delivery of goods with a certainty that cannot exist when these rates may be advanced tomorrow. As has been stated, the length of time an agreed rate of wages shall be in force is a subject for agreement the same as the rate itself, but even here the difficulties and injuries arising from frequent adjustments may be largely overcome by the adoption of sliding scales. Indeed these sliding scales remove many of the objections to fixing future rates of wages. Once agreed upon, under their operation, wages conform themselves to selling price, to the course of events, without confusion, without friction. It may also be said in passing that they are a practical recognition of the true theory of wages.

Another objection to arbitration is, that the awards and decisions are usually compromises. By this is meant that neither party to the submission gets what it asks, or there is what is termed "splitting the difference." Even if this