A very encouraging sign of the times is that both sides are discovering the uselessness of strikes. In Mr. Snowden's frank words, "a strike never did much substantial gain to the strikers." It is not only that the strike or lock-out is a crime against helpless women and children, that it wastes the substance and savings of employers and employed and embitters their relations for a generation--all that we knew before; the new and comforting message is that the strike does not "get there," it does not succeed, and therefore, as Mr. Snowden says, "just as war between nations cannot be defended either ethically or economically, so labour disputes are indefensible." And there are other indications that conciliation and agreement in labour matters are to have a fair trial. Already in the railway world an interesting experiment has been made. I have seen enough of it in the working to know that it is not such a spavined animal as some of our political jockeys would have us believe. When the railway conciliation boards were set up the employers and workmen, where it was possible, agreed upon an independent chairman to sit with them in case there was a deadlock. Several boards of different companies invited me to undertake this honourable position. I need hardly say that I fancied myself not a little at receiving such flattering invitations, and meeting a friend, who was an eminent railway solicitor, I told him the news--not, I suspect, without a note of pardonable triumph in the phrasing. "What!" he cried; "do you mean to say that the companies and the men have agreed upon you as chairman?" "That is so," I replied, with dignity, being a little hurt at his surprise and astonishment. "Well, I'm----. However you'll never have anything to do," he added with a grunt of satisfaction. "And why not?" I asked. "Because," he replied, with great deliberation, "if they could agree about you they could agree about anything." I thanked him for the compliment, but, analysing the saying since, I am not so sure that the commendation I accepted was really proffered to me. Be that as it may, it has turned out to be true. On the few occasions on which my services were required, I have found that things were capable of adjustment and settlement owing to the excellent good feeling on each side and the real endeavour made by everyone to try and understand the other's point of view. This is where the independent chairman is of real service. In explaining to his virgin mind the difficulties of the case, every point in it has to be discussed and explained anew, and in this way the weaker positions of the argument are made clearer to those who are defending them. Thus it becomes easier to give way about some matter of detail, and concession breeds concession.