promptly one side rather than the other, almost unconsciously, before we knew it we would not perhaps be able to say at once.  The other day I became a little alarmed at myself at what looked at first like a kind of moral weakness, and inability to stand still on one side or the other in the contest between Labour and Capital; and I tried to think my way sternly through, and decide why it was my mind seemed to waver from one side to the other, and seemed so inconsistent and inefficient.

It seems to me I have just discovered a certain thread of consistency, as I look back over many disputes.

As near as I can remember, I find the side that uses force, or that uses the most force, invariably turns me against it.  If, as I read, I find that both sides are using force, I find myself against both sides.  I find myself wishing, in spite of my dislike of Socialism, that the nation had the power, when a quarrelsome industry turns to the people in the street and stops them in what they are doing, and tells the people in the street that they cannot ride, or that they shall not sleep, or that they cannot eat—­when a quarrelsome industry insists on keeping the whole world up all night because it has a Stomach Ache, I feel suddenly that the people ought to be able to take the industry away and put it into such hands that the people in the streets will be protected; into hands that will make the industry behave so that it won’t have a stomach ache.  An industry with a stomach ache always has it because somebody in it has been over-eating and getting more than their share, and is incompetent and unfit; and obviously it should have its freedom, its privilege of selecting its food, taken away from it until it behaves.

Always allowing for exceptions, we may put it down as a general truth that, when we find a cause using force or mere advantage of position, it is because there is incompetence or lack of brains in those who conduct it, and the cure lies, not in more force, but in more brains.  One cannot help being angered by force, because one knows that it is not only not a remedy, but is itself the cause of all incompetence and blindness in business.  Force merely heaps the incompetence and blindness up, postpones cooeperation, defeats the mutual interest which is the very substance of business efficiency in a nation.  Force is itself the injury mounting up more and more, which it seeks to cure.

The most likely way to prevent industrial trouble would seem to be to have employers and managers and foremen who have a genius for getting men to trust and believe in them.  We are getting smoke-consumers, computing machines, and the next contrivance is going to be the employer who has the understanding spirit, and who sees the cash value of human genius, the value in the market of genius for being fair and getting on with people.  Arbitration boards are at best (as they themselves would say) stupid and negative things, and though better than nothing, as a rule merely postpone evil or change symptoms.  No one can ever really arbitrate for any one else either in industry or marriage except for a moment.  The trouble lies deep down inside the people who keep needing arbitration.  As long as these people are still there, and as long as incompetent employers or employees are there, there is bound to be trouble.