ing of strikes is enough to aim at, and
even the public sometimes accepts this easy-going view and thinks that
everything desirable is gained merely by averting strife or ending it
when it occurs. Uninterrupted production--the saving of the great
wastes that strikes entail--does, indeed, promote the public welfare.
When conciliation does this, it indirectly does something for the
public. The essential thing about conciliation, then, is that it does
not consciously try to do anything but to make the two parties in the
dispute over wages contented enough to go on producing. A board which
aims only to do this is careful not to introduce any one who
represents an outside interest. The procedure must be kept "within the
family." As is often said, "those who understand the business" must
settle disputes within it. What is really desired is that only those
who are _interested in_ the business should have anything to say about
it, and there is a dread of giving representation, either to the
general public or to independent labor. Moreover, when the defects of
conciliation are spoken of, what is mentioned is the uncertainty as to
its working, the probability that in many cases it will not bring the
disputants to an agreement and cause production to go on. There is no
dread of the rates of pay that it yields. There is practically no
dread on any one's part of what happens when employers and employed
are contented because they jointly thrive at the expense of the
public. Rather than have production stopped, the public is often
willing to let a dispute be settled on almost any terms, though the
result may be to let some men thrive at the expense of consumers and
of other laborers. There is a monopolistic grab the sharing of which
makes both parties better off than are men of their class elsewhere.
Singular as it may seem, even this attitude of the public is
justifiable. It is entirely right not only to welcome conciliation
where it can be made to work, but to try it as often as possible
before resorting to arbitration.

_Rates resulting from Conciliation not Unlike those resulting from
Strikes._--The results of collective bargaining, with conciliation in
cases of dispute, come within a certain distance of those which would
be gained by a perfectly natural adjustment of wages. All that we have
said about the relation of wages adjusted by strikes to their natural
standards applies here; potential competition generally keeps the
actu