In such circumstances the conflict of rights which finds expression in industrial warfare does not arise, because the rights of one party have been extinguished. The simplicity of the remedy is so attractive that it is not surprising that the Governments of industrial nations should coquet from time to time with the policy of compulsory arbitration. After all, it is pleaded, it is only analogous to the action of a supernational authority which should use its common force to prevent the outbreak of war. In reality, compulsory arbitration is the opposite of any policy which such an authority could pursue either with justice or with hope of success. For it takes for granted the stability of existing relationships and intervenes to adjust incidental disputes upon the assumption that their equity is recognized and their permanence desired. In industry, however, the equity of existing relationships is precisely the point at issue. A League of Nations which adjusted between a subject race and its oppressors, between Slavs and Magyars, or the inhabitants of what was once Prussian Poland and the Prussian Government, on the assumption that the subordination of Slavs to Magyars and Poles to Prussians was part of an unchangeable order, would rightly be resisted by all those who think liberty more precious than peace. A State which, in the {102} name of peace, should make the concerted cessation of work a legal offense would be guilty of a similar betrayal of freedom. It would be solving the conflict of rights between those who own and those who work by abolishing the rights of those who work.