But it is not sufficient to cite poetry and Psalms and the “Song of the Shirt”—for then your Thomas Gradgrind comes along—a man of realities, sir, a man of facts and calculations, a man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four and nothing over, and who is not going to be talked into allowing for anything over—Thomas Gradgrind shakes his square finger at you and says: “How are you going to do it?” And I agree that Gradgrind is deserving an answer. I do not say we must wait until we convince him, for Gradgrinds are obstinate, stubborn fellows, but we must satisfy the majority that we have a fair answer to his objections and a practical programme to propose. The problem cannot be shirked for ever. Even in the prophet Carlyle’s day it was a matter in regard to which “if something be not done something will do itself one day and in a fashion that will please nobody.”
And shortly the way in which it will come about is by voluntary conciliation, the erection of joint boards of employers and workmen with a right of appeal to a business legal tribunal—something akin to the Railway Commission—which shall have power to make and enforce a decree to the worker of at least so much of his fair share of an industry as shall amount to a living wage. I can see nothing revolutionary in this proposal. It really only follows out the trend of modern legislation. If a man has a smoking chimney, or pollutes a river, or goes about in public with an infectious disease, we fine or imprison him for his anti-social misconduct. Surely a man who pursues an industry that does not make a living wage for the workers in it is equally an enemy of the people, to be dealt with as such by the law! As Mr. Justice Gordon laid it down in the Australian Labour Courts: “If any particular industry cannot keep going and pay its workpeople a living wage it must be shut up.” Some day that will be the law of England. No one can deny the common sense of it.
A very encouraging sign of the times is that both sides are discovering the uselessness of strikes. In Mr. Snowden’s frank words, “a strike never did much substantial gain to the strikers.” It is not only that the strike or lock-out is a crime against helpless women and children, that it wastes the substance and savings of employers and employed and embitters their relations for a generation—all that we knew before; the new and comforting message is that the strike does not “get there,” it does not succeed, and therefore, as Mr. Snowden says, “just as war between nations cannot be defended either ethically or economically, so labour disputes are indefensible.”
And there are other indications that conciliation and agreement in labour matters are to have a fair trial. Already in the railway world an interesting experiment has been made. I have seen enough of it in the working to know that it is not such a spavined animal as some of our political jockeys would have us believe. When the railway conciliation boards were set up the employers and workmen, where it was possible, agreed upon an independent chairman to sit with them in case there was a deadlock. Several boards of different companies invited me to undertake this honourable position. I need hardly say that I fancied myself not a little at receiving such flattering invitations, and meeting a friend, who was an eminent railway solicitor, I told him the news—not, I suspect, without a note of pardonable triumph in the phrasing.
“What!” he cried; “do you mean to say that the companies and the men have agreed upon you as chairman?”
“That is so,” I replied, with dignity, being a little hurt at his surprise and astonishment.
“Well, I’m——. However you’ll never have anything to do,” he added with a grunt of satisfaction.
“And why not?” I asked.
“Because,” he replied, with great deliberation, “if they could agree about you they could agree about anything.”
I thanked him for the compliment, but, analysing the saying since, I am not so sure that the commendation I accepted was really proffered to me. Be that as it may, it has turned out to be true. On the few occasions on which my services were required, I have found that things were capable of adjustment and settlement owing to the excellent good feeling on each side and the real endeavour made by everyone to try and understand the other’s point of view. This is where the independent chairman is of real service. In explaining to his virgin mind the difficulties of the case, every point in it has to be discussed and explained anew, and in this way the weaker positions of the argument are made clearer to those who are defending them. Thus it becomes easier to give way about some matter of detail, and concession breeds concession.