Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1919-10-22
POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBLE
lTX
(World, New York;

NWOTlu, new YORK..
The total cost of the British railway
strike is estimated at $250.000,00O Ev-
erybody is pleased with the terms of
the settlement-the government, the
| railway employees and the general pub
lie; yet there is nothing in this settle
ment that might not as well have been
agreed to without the stopping of a
single wheel.
If wages were to be stabilized until
Sept. 20, 1920, II tho minimum pay of
any adult worker was to be fixed at 81
shillings a week and IL negotiations
were to be resumed for a general
agreement as to hours and wages. why
was 1t necessary to have a strike, to
subject millions of people to most Sc
rious privation and to inflict damages
| upon the general public aggregating a
quarter of a billion collars? The gov
eminent could as readily have sur
rendered first as last.
In the circumstances the average
person must be more and more mysti-
| fled in trying to find out what it was
all about.
Secretary Wilson said in his speech
at the opening of the Industrial con-
ference in Washington yesterday that
we have found ways of regulating all
| the other relations of mankind. Sure
| ly human intelligence can devise some
more acceptable method of adjusting
the relationship between employer and
employee"
| 1t might, but it does not, and it new
er will until government, under pres
sure of public sentiment. takes the
initiative and asserts some of the
power that Is inherent in 1t.
There are three parties to every
strike, not two. The third party is
| ha y,t,1~1 Il \
whose welfare are trampled under
foot, which pays the ultimate cost of
the conflict and in addition Is sad
| died with the expense of maintaining
some semblance of law and order be
tween the belligerents. That third
party Is never consulted and has nc
rights that anybody is bound to re-
Ispect.
When the government happens to
be the employer, as it was in the Brit
ish railway strike. the same condi-
fused to grant the demands of the
employees, the employees refused to
work, and in the end millions of peo-
pie who were not consulted in the
controversy and had only the most
fragmentary knowledge of the issues
are forced to pay the bill, including
arrears of wages to the men who SUBJ
l JeCteu lHeIi 10 All the narQSnlpS and
losses.
Organized labor insists that the
right to strike is vital and that with
out it all wage workers are in dan
ger of being enslaved. There may be
an element of truth in this contention
but this does not imply that the strike
must be the first resort, and that la
Dor, which vociferously demands the
right of organization, is privileged to
use that power in any way it sees fit
Capital was once under that delu :
sion. but it has been cured. and labor
will eventually have to submit to the
same kind of treatment.
II Organization implies responsibilities
as well as power, and organized labor
as now led recognizes no responsible
tiles. Even its signed contracts are
unenforceable. If the Washington
conference fails to establish the fact
that the right to organize carries with
lit the right of public regulation
whether labor or capital is concerned
1t will make little Roadway toward
establishing basis for Industrial
peace.