Through
the passage of a law similar to the one recently enacted in the Dominion
of Canada, it could assure the employers and the public that no strike
would take place until every effort had been made to reach a fair
understanding or a compromise; and in case a strike did result, public
opinion could form a just estimate of the merits of the controversy. In
an atmosphere of discussion and publicity really prudent employers and
labor organizations would fight very rarely, if at all; and this result
would be the more certain, provided a consensus of public opinion
existed as the extent to which the clashing interests of the two
combatants could be fitted into the public interest. It should be
clearly understood that the public interest demanded, on the one hand, a
standard of living for the laborer as high as the industrial conditions
would permit, and on the other a standard of labor-efficiency equivalent
to the cost of labor and an opportunity for the exceptional individual
laborer to improve on that standard in his own interest.
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