Sec. 2. A policy of wage settlement composed out of the principles already set forth. Sec. 3. What results might be expected from the adoption of these principles as a policy? Sec. 4. The matter of economic security for the wage earners likely to be important for industrial peace. Hardly considered in this book. The question has been presented to the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations. Sec. 5. Certain new ideas concerning industrial relationship have come to stay. They indicate the probable current of future change. THE SETTLEMENT OF WAGE DISPUTES CHAPTER I--INTRODUCTORY Section 1. In any attempt to formulate principles for use in the settlement of wage disputes, past experience furnishes much guidance. What this experience consists of.--Section 2. Such principles as have been used in the settlement of wage disputes have usually resulted from compromise; reason and economic analysis have usually been secondary factors. However, industrial peace cannot be secured by a recurrent use of expedients.--Section 3. The attitude most favorable to industrial peace. 1.--The industrial life of the United States is marked by an almost continuous series of open struggles between the employers and wage earners of its highly organized industries. No one defends these struggles for their own sake. There is a general inclination, however, to regard them as a necessary accompaniment of industrial activity and change. It must not be supposed that all labor troubles are merely wage controversies--that is to say, that they are all incidental to the settlement of the wage incomes of the laborers. Many of them arise in whole or part from a shifting and conflict of ideas about various other aspects of the industrial order. It is possible, however, to concentrate attention upon those conflicts which center around the settlement of wages. There is a quick and somewhat tumultuous stream of investigation directed to the invention and formulation of principles which could be used as a basis of settlement of wage controversies. In various countries such principles have been formally set forth and used. The awards of the War Labor Board are an example of their imperfect application. In the Industrial Court of the Commonwealth of Australia we have an example of the consistent use of one set of wage principles. The material that has arisen out of this process of discussion and experimentation is of the utmost value to any one endeavoring to work out a wage policy for industrial peace in the United States. It forms a body of doctrines. It gives evidence both as to the chief subjects of wage controversy, and indicates the suitability or the shortcomings of many of the principles or doctrines that might be proposed. Thus in any investigation of principles of wage settlement--with a view to industrial peace--we are not without the guidance of experience.