ures
extravagant. The employer will close his mill if his offer is not
accepted, and he will have to do it if his offer is absurdly low. Very
much is involved in the fact that an actual severing of the relation
between employers and employed impends over them as a possibility.

_The Chief Advantage of Arbitration over Conciliation._--We are now in
a position to measure the real difference between conciliation and
voluntary arbitration. If a strike comes after nothing has been tried
except conciliation, there is often nothing to prevent the strikers
from resorting to all the devices which are available for guarding
their tenure of place--in other words, for keeping "scabs" out of the
field. The local community is in its usual position of uncertainty as
to the equities of the case, and is likely to show its usual
hesitancy in giving to the new laborers the complete protection which
the laws enjoin. There is the customary dread of the effect of letting
a strike-breaking force have full sway and the opportunity for
disciplining the former workmen into submission. The chance that the
resulting rate of pay may be too low to do justice to the laborers
remains before the eyes of the local community, and has the effect to
which we have earlier called attention--that of taking much of the
vigor out of the official arm when violence occurs.

How is it when a tribunal of arbitration has studied the case and
announced a decision? Though the workmen may be as free to strike as
ever, such an action would put them at a fatal disadvantage. The
arbitration has given to the public a basis for a judgment as to the
equities of the dispute. If the tribunal is one which commands
respect, a refusal to abide by its decision puts the men _prima facie_
in the wrong. If they strike now, they reject a rate which is
authoritatively pronounced just. Even this they have the privilege of
doing if they so desire; but if they go farther and forcibly prevent
other men from accepting the equitable rate and doing the work, they
forfeit their right of tenure; and it would be a strangely constituted
public which, under such circumstances, would let them use fists,
missiles, or clubs in defending it.

There may be an agreement between employers and employed to submit to
impartial arbitration such disputes as are not otherwise settled; and
when this has been actually done and a decision has been reached, it
is made by the contract to be too binding to be lig