standard of living would be brought to an end by the accompanying inefficiency of labor.  At any rate the employers are now fighting for an illusory benefit; and because they are fighting for an illusory benefit they are enabling the unions to associate all sorts of dangerous conditions with their probable victory.  The proposed plan does not do away with the necessity of a fight.  The relations between labor and capital are such that only by fighting can they reach a better understanding.  But it asks the employers to consider carefully what they are fighting for, and whether they will not lose far more from a defeat than they will gain from a successful defense.  And it asks the unions to consider whether a victory, gained at the expense of labor-efficiency, will not deprive them of its fruits.  Let the unions fight for something they can keep; and let the employers fight for something they will not be sure to lose.

The writer is fully aware of the many difficulties attending the practical application of any such policy.  Indeed it could not be worked at all, unless the spirit and methods of collective bargaining between the employers and the labor organizations were very much improved.  The consequences of a strike would be extremely serious for both of the disputants and for the consumers.  If disagreements terminating in strikes and lock-outs remained as numerous as they are at present, there would result both for the producer and consumer a condition of perilous and perhaps intolerable uncertitude.  But this objection, although serious, is not unanswerable.  The surest way in which a condition of possible warfare, founded on a genuine conflict of interest, can be permanently alleviated is to make its consequences increasingly dangerous.  When the risks become very dangerous, reasonable men do not fight except on grave provocation or for some essential purpose.  Such would be the result in any industry, both the employers and laborers of which were completely organized.  Collective bargaining would, under such circumstances, assume a serious character; and no open fight would ensue except under exceptional conditions and in the event of grave and essential differences of opinion.  Moreover, the state could make them still less likely to happen by a policy of discreet supervision.  Through the passage of a law similar to the one recently enacted in the Dominion of Canada, it could assure the employers and the public that no strike would take place until every effort had been made to reach a fair understanding or a compromise; and in case a strike did result, public opinion could form a just estimate of the merits of the controversy.  In an atmosphere of discussion and publicity really prudent employers and labor organizations would fight very rarely, if at all; and this result would be the more certain, provided a consensus of public opinion existed as the extent to which the clashing interests of the two combatants could be fitted into the public interest.