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ARBITRATION,
international tration and conciliation so far as regards disputes affecting commerce between different States. Thus an Act of June 1898 provides that in a dispute involving serious interruption of business on railways engaged in inter-State commerce, the Chairman of the inter-State Commerce Commission and the Commissioner of Labour shall, on application of either party, endeavour to effect a settlement, or to induce the parties to submit the dispute to arbitration. While an arbitration under the Act is pending a strike or lock-out is unlawful.
those of Massachusetts and New York providing for the formation of State boards of arbitration. The Massachusetts board, founded in 1886, consists of one employer, one employed, and one independent person chosen by both. The New York board (1886) consists of two representatives of different political parties, and one member of a bona-fide trade organization within the State. In both States it is the duty of the board, with or without application from the parties, to proceed to the spot where a labour dispute has occurred, and to endeavour to promote a settlement. The parties may decline its services, but the board is. empowered to issue a report, and on application from either side to hold an inquiry and publish its decision, which (in Massachusetts) is binding for six months, unless sixty days’ notice to the contrary is given by one side to the other. Several States (including Massachusetts and New York) provide not only for State boards, but also for local boards. In Massachusetts, during 1899, the State board nad its attention directed to 25 disputes (several, as in previous years, being in the boot and shoe trade). Of these it settled 1 by arbitration, and in 6 others promoted a settlement by conciliation. The remaining cases were settled independently of the Board, or were unsettled when the Report was issued. Federal legislation can only touch the question of arbi-
ARBITRATION
Authorities.—For the recent development of arbitration and conciliation in the United Kingdom, see the Annual Reports of the Labour Department of the Board of Trade on Strikes and Lock-outs from 1888 onwards. Since 1890 these reports have contained special appendices on the work of arbitration boards. See also the Labour Gazette (the monthly journal of the Labour Department) from 1893 onward. The Reports of the Royal Commission on Labour (1891-94) contain much valuable information on the subject. For the working of the Conciliation Act see the Reports of the Board of Trade on their proceedings under the Conciliation Act, 1896. For the earlier history in the United Kingdom— Crompton, Industrial Conciliation (1876) ; Price, Industrial Peace (1887). For foreign and colonial developments—the Report of the French Office du Travail, Be la Conciliation et de V Arbitrage dans les Con flits Collectifs entre Patrons et Ouvriers en France et d VFtranger (1893) ; the Annual Reports of the same Department on Strikes, Lock-outs, and Arbitration; the Reports of the Massachusetts and New York State Arbitration Boards, and of the New Zealand Department of Labour ; and the Labour Gazette.
I NTERNATIONAL.
INTERNATIONAL arbitration is a proceeding in which two nations refer their differences to one or more selected persons, who, after affording to each party an opportunity of being heard, pronounce judgment on the matters at issue. It is understood, unless otherwise expressed, that the judgment shall be in accordance with the law by which civilized nations have agreed to be bound whenever such law is applicable. An international arbitrator may be the chief of a friendly power, or he may be a private individual. When he is an emperor, a king, or a president of a republic, it is not expected that he will act personally ; he may by tacit consent appoint a delegate or delegates to act on his behalf, and avail himself of their labours and views, the ultimate decision being his only in name. In this respect international arbitration differs from civil arbitration, since a private arbitrator cannot delegate his office without express authority. The analogy between the two fails to hold good in another respect also. In civil arbitration the decision or award may be made a rule of court, after which it becomes enforceable by writ of execution against person or property. An international award cannot be enforced directly; in other words, it has no legal sanction behind it. Its obligation rests on the good faith of the parties to the reference, and on the fact that public opinion can, with the help of a world-wide press, always be brought to bear on any state that may seek to evade its moral duty. The obligation of an ordinary treaty rests on precisely the same foundations. True it is that an international award may be disregarded for excess of jurisdiction, ambiguity of language, or corrupt conduct on the part of the arbitrator. But each of these flaws would be equally fatal to a private award. We have said that it is the duty of an international arbitrator to decide in accordance with international law. The eminent jurist, M. Bluntschli, considers that if he does not the award may be set aside. To admit this doctrine would, however, lead to endless disputes, since international law has never been codified. A fresh arbitration might have to be entered on in order to decide, first, what the law was,
and, secondly, whether it applied to the matter in hand. As a matter of fact, there is but a single instance on record of an award being repudiated, viz., that of the king of Holland in 1831 with regard to the north-eastern boundary of the State of Maine. That case was, however, a very peculiar one. The arbitrator was unable to draw the frontier line by reason of the imperfection of the maps then extant, and his direction for a further topographical inquiry was beyond the terms of the reference. The award was, therefore, void for excess just as a private award would have been. An account of this subject divides itself naturally into four parts : a brief sketch of past history an examination of a few selected instances in which international arbitration has been successfully resorted to; an account of the various treaties and projects for securing its future employment j and a short discussion of the limits outside which it appears to be inapplicable. In the sense in which the term is now used, international arbitration is essentially a modern product, since the very existence of international relations is modern. The nearest History% approach to it before the Christian era was intermunicipal arbitration, as practised in ancient Greece. For example, the Amphictyonic Councils occasionally acted as arbitiators between one town and another ; in this way a dispute was settled between Athens and Delos with regard to a right of precedence in the temple of Apollo in 344 B.c. The ancient Greek towns also sometimes referred their differences to a third town, or even to private individuals. Thus Sparta arbitrated between Athens and Me<wa with regard to the possession of Salamis ; Periander between Athens and Mitylene with regard to the promontory of Sigeum ; and Themistocles between Corinth and Corcyra with regard to the island or (as it formerly was) the peninsula of Leucadia. At the period of the Peloponnesian war, the practice of arbitration had become so well recognized that Thucydides (i. 85) puts into the mouth of Archidamus, king of Sparta, the words, “It is impossible to attack as a wrong-doer any one who is willing to answer before an arbitral tribunal.” But in all these cases the arbitration was between two Hellenic communities. It would have been no more possible for a Greek to arbitrate with a “barbarian” than to sacrifice at the same altar with him. The exclusiveness which checked the development of arbitration in Greece told against it with tenfold force in Rome.
