A Significant Demand by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 17, 1903

A Significant Demand

By L. A. S.

At the session of the coal strike commission held in Philadelphia, Pa., February 9, Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, speaking for the miners' union, made the following significant statements regarding the establishment of a permanent agreement for the settlement of disputes between the miners and the mine owners, which agreement is to include a provision for arbitration:—

The miners want more than the mere recognition of the union. They want an agreement for the negotiation of contracts, and a settlement of grievances with provision for arbitration if necessary. Arrangements of this kind are every year becoming more common in Europe and in this country. This voluntary system and the compulsory arbitration of New Zealand are twin brothers traveling by converging paths toward the same goal—industrial peace.

The moment the award is made, there will arise questions between the mine owners and the men as to its interpretation and its scope. Some of the operators claim the right to refuse work to a man for being “a gross agitator,” and they claim also the right to define to suit themselves what constitutes a gross agitator.

The most precious power of all for the pacification of industry, the power to prevent disputes from beginning, will be absent unless the commission exercises the power it has to provide a “permanent” remedy. Unless permanent methods of adjusting such questions as may arise long after this commission has ceased to exist, can be found, the country may find itself at any moment threatened again with the agony from which it thought it had escaped through the intervention of the president.

The trade agreement is the most modern and most important development in the methods of industrial peace here or in Europe.

It would be well indeed if all differences between labor and capital could be settled by mutual agreement of the parties concerned, without recourse on either side to an appeal to force. It is said that in the bituminous coal industry many controversies are adjusted in this way, there being an “annual joint interstate conference of operators and miners,” at which all matters of controversy are considered and decided. But it is demanded that there shall be provision made for arbitration. Between separate nations, arbitration is a proper means of settling disputes, since it is the only alternative to war. But between private parties subject to the same law and government, compulsory arbitration to secure the rights of either party should never be necessary. The preservation of their rights is the purpose of the government itself. Arbitration becomes necessary only where the government fails, and it is a sad confession indeed that government in the United States—a government of the people by the people for the people—is a failure. But as is now a matter of history, government in the State of Pennsylvania and in the United States did fail to bring the great coal strike to an end, and it was necessary for the president to intervene and find some means of relief outside both State and national constitutions, which he did by appointing the coal strike commission to arbitrate between the contending factions. This established a notable precedent, and the disposition to follow it in future emergencies is already evident.

The great federations of this day, both of capital and of labor, conscious of their great power, show a strong disposition to override the law and make arbitrary demands not justified by the principles of free government, and the introduction of government by arbitration as a substitute for government by constitutions is the natural outcome of such conditions. It remains to be seen how rapidly the constitutional government set up by the statesmen of the eighteenth century and preserved by those of the nineteenth, will be set aside for some form of monarchy.

L. A. S.