This experience consists, firstly, of the principles worked out and applied in the decisions and orders of the courts or boards which have served as agents of wage settlement in the United States, England, Canada and the Australian dominions. Of almost equal value is the material growing out of those great industrial conflicts of recent years, in which claims have been put forward and agreement has been sought on the basis of some definite theory of wages. Such, for example, is the material prepared and presented in the course of the railway wage arbitrations in the United States and England. Such also is the evidence and material presented in the course of the inquiry recently held in Great Britain upon the wages of transport workers. 2.--It should be understood that the principles which have been used in wage settlements in the past were not ideal solutions. That is to say they were not arrived at solely by the use of reason, directed to the discovery of what is just and what is for the general good. The situation has been rather that described by Mr. Squires, when he writes: "Too often in the past arbitration has followed the line of least resistance. With much unction, the lion's share has been awarded to the lion. Decisions proposing another settlement were speedily forgotten because not enforced. Those submitting to arbitration frequently did so with the mental reservation that the decision to be acceptable must at least approximate the conditions they felt they would be able to establish by a show of strength. From this position to one of complacent acceptance of arbitrary decisions, applied not to an isolated group but seeking to comprehend all labor or a given class, is a long step for both employers and employees." And again: "In arbitrary wage adjustments the absence of well defined and acceptable standards to be used in wage determination as well as the difficulty in enforcing awards that did not conform closely to the law of supply and demand has forced arbitration to resort to the expediency of splitting the difference. Cost of living, proportionate expense of labor, and net profits, when taken into account have been more often evoked in defense of claims made than as a means of determining what claims were just under the circumstances."[1]