A SOLUTION OF THE LABOR PROBLEM. BY HARRY EARL MONTGOMERY. WHATEVER the merits of a strike or a lock-out may be, the contending par ties have no right, moral or legal, to inflict injury on any innocent party. And as the public is injured as a result of every strike or lock-out of any magnitude, the public has the right to be protected. There are three parties to every labor controversy,—the em ployer, the employed and the public. The public can and should be protected. But how? By preventing strikes and lock-outs, provided it can be done without taking away the rights of the employer and the employed. The principle of arbitration is being urged to take the place of strikes and lock-outs. Voluntary arbitration cannot be relied upon by the public for protection. Strikes are so frequent as to show the ineffectiveness of this remedy. Compulsory arbitration is strongly, vehemently, and passionately op posed by both the employer and the em ployed. The labar union says that compul sory arbitration would mean that working men would be reduced to slaves,—by being compelled to work for the hours and the wage determined by the arbitrators, thereby depriving the men of the liberty of contract; while the capitalist asserts that compulsory arbitration might mean to him the closing of his business and the ruin of his fortune, by the arbitrators deciding that he must pay wages in amount beyond what his business could afford. Both positions are based on sound reasons. Compulsory arbitration might mean all that the capitalists and the unions claim. Such being the case, the pub lic has no right to require such a method of settlement, except as a last resort. Then how can the public be protected? By adopt ing a plan of arbitration lying just half-way between these extremes. As strikes and lock-outs are generally local,
that is, located within the boundaries of the State, and as conditions vary among the dif ferent States, requiring different treatment, a national act would be less satisfying in its results than would a State law. A board of mediation composed of three members should be appointed by the gover nor. One of them should be an employer or selected from some association representing employers of labor, one of them should be selected from some labor organization and not an employer of labor, the third should be appointed upon the recommendation of the other two, provided that if the two appointed do not agree on the third man at the expira tion of thirty days, he should be appointed by the governor. One should be appointed to serve for three years, one for two years, and one for one year. At the expiration of the term for which each member is selected, his successor should be appointed to serve for the term of three years. Whenever any controversy or difference, not involving questions which may be the subject of a suit at law or a bill in equity, exists between the employés and their em ployer, if at the time he employs not less than twenty-five persons in the same general line of business, in any city or town in the State, the board should, as soon as practica ble thereafter, visit the locality of the dispute and make careful inquiry into the cause thereof, obtain personal interviews with the parties, hear their stories, offer suggestions which look generally to a conference, advise the respective parties what, if anything. ought to be done or submitted to by either or both to adjust their dispute. The employer who fears a strike and the employé who dreads a lock-out will be likely to advise the board of any threatened diffi culty. And with the assistance of a news
