ARBITRATION ONLY A TEMPORARY PALLIATIVE.
It is becoming more and more evident that merely human schemes for peace between man and man never can produce more than a temporary cessation of active hostilities. Respect for the law of God, as comprehended in the Golden Rule, is the only preventive of selfishness in deal. Great stress has been laid on arbitration as a settler of all troubles; but while arbitration is better than open war between individuals, or classes, or nations, it never can fully satisfy both parties. Its first test as a government scheme between capital and labor is far from satisfactory to either of the contracting parties, or to the people at large. Neither of the principals enter into the spirit of the compromise enforced upon them by the arbitration commission; and it is evident that if the anthracite coal barons could make as much profit out of another strike as they have gained through the last one, they would not hesitate to provoke a repetition of that terrible event. The consumers of coal, both of anthracite and bituminous, have far more than paid, in increased price, for all the temporary loss to the companies, caused by the strike. The reckless disregard of the prophetic Word is sure to precipitate the inevitable crisis set forth as a precursor of the coming of the Lord. The Herald, of this city, gives the following pertinent statement of the situation and the prospect:— Accounts which come from the anthracite district of Pennsylvania are not reassuring. The temper of the miners is not satisfactory. A year and a half has gone by since the settlement of the strike by an arbitration that it was hoped would not only bring permanent peace to the distracted district, but afford an object lesson for the rest of the labor world that would contribute to its lasting satisfaction. These roseate anticipations seem to be poorly warranted. There is time before the contracts expire for the establishment of better relations, but if they are established, a different spirit from that now manifested will have to characterize both operators and miners. There is little or no reciprocity of sentiment or interest between them. Both sides have knives up their sleeves, and the likelihood seems to be that they will use them without mercy at the first opportunity. The basic trouble appears to be that the operators have not lived up in good faith to the terms of the arbitration findings. They have kept the letter of the contract, while outraging its spirit. They have not only been exacting with the men, but provokingly so, and the men have not found their condition improved by the terms of settlement of the strike. The spirit manifested by the operators has begotten in the minds of the men a kindred spirit of reprisal and retaliation. This prompts them to do as little work as will pass for the money, and do that in a surly humor that makes them difficult of discipline. The feeling on both sides is that when the three-year contract is up the war will be renewed, and that arbitration will not be submitted to next time. The fight will be to that bitter end, which those engaged in industrial warfare appear to look upon as a goal greatly to be desired. A second conflict is made all the more probable because the last one proved a source of great profit to the mine operators. They not only made an advance on all the coal they had out of the mines, or could get out during the strike, but ever since the settlement of the strike they have netted a profit of $2.72 per ton, instead of $1.60, as before the strike. These profits have been estimated to be as high as $75,000,000 in the aggregate. The innocent public has paid all the bills which the operators incurred by reason of the half-year of warfare, and also a part of the money which the men lost. Nearly all of our labor troubles arise not out of a clashing of interest or any other thing that should tend to make the strife between labor and capital an irrepressible conflict, but in the main from a spirit of bad faith, and a disposition to be unfair rather than fair, or to apply the pressure of force where there is no moral justification for its application. So long as this spirit remains in the industrial world will there be strikes and lockouts, destruction of property and suffering of privation. The whole industrial problem is involved in the single issue of fair play and good faith. Like all other public issues, this one also resolves itself into a question of good morals.