n we may form from dwelling on the
more reasonable effects and teaching of organization. Although the very
growth and existence of the larger industrial units implies, as we saw,
a laying aside of smaller conflicts, we cannot assume that the forces at
present working directly for the pacification of capital and labour, and
for their ultimate fusion, are at all commensurate in importance with
the concentrative forces operating in the two industrial elements
respectively. It is indisputably true that the recent development of
organization, especially of labour unions, acts as a direct restraint of
industrial warfare, and a facilitation of peaceable settlements of trade
disputes. Mr. Burnett, in his Report to the Board of Trade, on Strikes
and Lock-outs in 1888, remarks _a propos_ of the various modes of
arbitration, that "these methods of arranging difficulties have only
been made possible by organization of the forces on both sides, and
have, as it were, been gradually evolved from the general progress of
the combination movement."[40]

Speaking of Trade Unions, he sums up--"In fact the executive committees
of all the chief Unions are to a very large extent hostile to strikes,
and exercise a restraining influence"--a judgment the truth of which has
been largely exemplified during the last two or three years. But our
hopes and desires must not lead us to exaggerate the size of these
peaceable factors. _Conseils de prud'hommes_ on the continent, boards of
arbitration and conciliation in this country, profit-sharing schemes in
Europe and America, are laudable attempts to bridge over the antagonism
which exists between separate concrete masses of capital and labour. The
growth of piecework and of sliding scales has effected something. But
the success of the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration in the
manufactured iron trade of the north of England has not yet led to much
successful imitation in other industries. Recent experience of formal
methods of conciliation and of sliding scales, especially in the mining,
engineering, and metal industries, as well as the failure of some of the
most important profit-sharing experiments, shows that we must be
satisfied with slow progress in these direct endeavours after
arbitration. The difficulty of finding an enduring scale of values which
will retain the adherence of both interests amidst industrial movements
which continually tend to upset the previously accepted "fair rates," is
th