So, also, with any attempt to devise principles which might serve as the basis of a policy of wage settlement in the United States. They would represent the effort to develop standards by which conflicting claims could be resolved. It is not desired to signify agreement by this admission with those who believe that all principles of wage settlement must be purely passive, with those who argue that wage settlement must perforce be nothing more than a recurrent use of expedients produced on the spur of the occasion out of the magical hat of the arbitrator. All that is meant is that no policy of wage settlement will succeed if its results diverge too greatly from the interests which it, in turn, would guide and restrain. Any policy of wage settlement must take into consideration the moral and social circumstances pertinent to the dispute as well as the economic. It must express active social and ethical claims as well as recognize economic facts. It must be supported by the sense that it is at least moderately just. Most attempts, furthermore, to settle wage disputes by the use of defined principles have resulted in an incoherence of policy due to the necessity of bowing to the facts of force. This interference of force and the consequent disturbance of policy is likewise to be expected in all future attempts. For, in all human affairs private interest will, on favorable occasions, revolt against laws or rules which restrain it. Again, in the United States all past attempts to settle wage disputes by reference to principles have been isolated and sporadic. They have, therefore, been virtually foredoomed to failure. For as will be made clearer as we progress, any successful attempt to base wage settlements upon principles will demand the consistent and courageous application of these principles for a not inconsiderable period, and to all important industries alike. Otherwise compromise and a search for any way out of the immediate crisis is the only possible principle of settlement. Any well-conceived policy of wage settlement must have regard for a far wider set of forces and facts than are presented by any single controversy. The objects of any policy could only be attained through a long series of decisions ranging throughout the field of industry, and related to each other. This, it is trusted, will become plain as the difficulties of formulating policy are discussed.