on. It is designed to prevent the losses through cessation of
production due to conflict but, beyond this, to build up such
relationship between employer and employees as will not only mitigate
such disaster but will ultimately extend further into the development of
the great mutual ground of interest of increased production and under
conditions of satisfaction to both sides. It is a part of the conception
of the Conference that only in bargaining and mutual agreement can there
be given that free play of economic forces necessary to adjust the
complex conditions under which our industries must function.

Reduction of conflict in industry is the phase that not only looms large
in the public mind, but conflict is the public exhibit of the greatest
mark of failure in industrial relations. The imminence of conflict is
evidence of failure to have discussion or to arrival at mutual
agreement. Therefore, under the plan of the Conference that mutual
agreement is the best basis for prevention of conflict, the second step
in the Conference proposals is that there should be a penalty for
failure to submit to such processes. That penalty is a public inquiry
into the causes of the dispute and the proper ventilation to public
opinion as to its rights and wrongs. The strength of the penalty is
based upon the conviction that neither side can afford to lose public
good will. Pressure to rectitude by government investigation is
distinctly an American institution. It is not an intervention of public
interest that is usually welcomed. In the plan of this Conference, this
general repugnance to investigation is depended upon as a persuasive
influence to the parties of the conflict to get together and settle
their own quarrels. They are given the alternative of investigation or
collective bargain under persuasive circumstances. In order to increase
the moral pressures surrounding the investigation, either one of the
parties to the conflict may become a member of the board of
investigation, provided he will have entered on an _a priori_
undertaking that he is prepared to submit his case to orderly and simple
processes of adjustment. Thus his opponent will be put at more than
usual disadvantage in the investigation. If both sides should agree to
submit to normal processes of settlement, the board of investigation
becomes at once the stage of a collective bargain and the investigation
ceases.

I will not trouble you with the elaborate details o