The men who are making these attempts are fairly sane and do not think they are “solving the labor problem.” They are trying to re-establish in modern industry the touch that was lost between the master mechanic and the journeyman mechanic when they stopped working over the same bench. Some are having a real success. Others cannot make it go. It depends upon the amount of sincerity in the undertaking. But there are some 700 plants in America being run on this voluntary “industrial conference” system. They do not pretend to be throwing more than a flying bridge across the gulf, but they may have some permanency. At any rate, it is the most interesting experiment in American industry. If it succeeds it will establish new standards in industry and we shall be able to say that America has succeeded in working out another way the industrial problem that has led to the social revolution in Europe. INDUSTRIAL COUNCILS SHOW EMPLOYER AND WORKER WAY TO REAL PEACE AT HOME _By Arno Dosch-Fleurot._ Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World). There is a way to peace, at least comparative peace, in industry. The warfare that is forever being carried on through the open shop, the closed shop, the strike and the lockout, is coming to be considered just as uncivilized as any other form of warfare. All that is considered necessary is the give-and-take of “industrial councils.” The idea is being worked out in one way in England and in another way here. The English have had to come to it, forced by the fact that their factory workers are organized in industrial unions. Here it is voluntary, for the industrial workers are not organized in America. The British factory workers are organized because they are all, or nearly all, British. The American factory workers are largely foreign. In England it is a question of Englishmen dealing with Englishmen. Here it is Americans dealing with foreigners. The British have tried to get down to a uniform system or “industrial conference,” known as the Whitley system. There it is an even game, with organization and intelligent leadership on both sides. Here the homogeneous leadership is all on one side. The industrial workers are at such a disadvantage, in the fact of their not being all Americans, that they cannot get together and hold together, like the workers of England, France, Belgium or Germany, where industrial unionism is already traditional. American Employee Has Powers Which Boss Thinks Best for Him