ally successful.

The successful issue of strikes has demonstrated their value as
weapons of warfare, and they have been accepted by society as
allowable, but they tend to violence, and produce feelings of hatred
and distrust, and would not be countenanced except as measures of
coercion to secure needed reforms. The financial loss due to the
cessation of labor foots up to a large total, but in comparison with
the total amount of wages and profits it is small, and often the
periods of manufacturing activity are so redistributed through the
year that there is really no net loss. Yet a strike cannot be looked
upon in any other way than as a misfortune. Like war, it breaks up
peaceful if not friendly relations, and tends to destroy the
solidarity of society. It tends to strengthen class feeling, which,
like caste, is a handicap to the progress of mankind. Though it may
benefit the working man, it is harmful to the general public, which
suffers from the interruption of industry and sometimes of
transportation, and whose business is disturbed by the blow to
confidence.

200. =Peaceful Methods of Settlement.=--Strikes are so unsettling to
industry that all parties find it better to use diplomacy when
possible, or to submit a dispute to arbitration rather than to resort
to violence. It is in industrial concerns very much as it is in
international politics, and methods used in one circle suggest methods
in the other. Formerly war was a universal practice, and of frequent
occurrence, and duelling was common in the settlement of private
quarrels; now the duel is virtually obsolete, and war is invoked only
as a last resort. Difficulties are smoothed out through the diplomatic
representatives that every nation keeps at the national capitals, and
when they cannot settle an issue the matter is referred to an umpire
satisfactory to both sides. Similarly in industrial disputes the
tendency is away from the strike; when an issue arises representatives
of both sides get together and try to find a way out. There is no good
reason why an employer should refuse to recognize an organization or
receive its representatives to conference, especially if the employer
is a corporation which must work through representatives. Collective
bargaining is in harmony with the spirit of the times and fair for
all. Conference demands frankness on the part of all concerned. It
leads more quickly to understanding and harmony if each party knows
the situati