La Grande evening observer., January 25, 1917, Image 6

THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1917.
LA GRANDE EVENING OBSERVER
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18-13
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THE Hi COMPULSORY ACT
Is It a Success in Canada, and Does It
Hold Any Promise of Success as a
Way Out to the United States?
By Ralph M. Easley
Chairmun Executive Council, The
National Civic Federation, New York
In the present controversy over the
Canadian Compulsory Investigation
Act, which Act Congress is consider
ing ns a means, to quote its advocates,
for preventing a recurrence of a
threatened railway tie-up in. this
country, there are several very im
portant points generally overlooked.
First, and most important, it will
not prevent a recurrence at all; it was
not intended to prohibit strikes and it
does not prevent them in Canada. It
is only intended to dealny them until
after a Hoard has heard both sides of
the issue and made a public recom
mendation. Then either side or both
sides, which has happened in Canada
time and again, can go ahead nd fight
it out. This fact can be easily as
certained by examining the recent re
port of the Conciliation Board to the
Labor Department of Canada, which
purports to give the history of every
case thut has come before the Board
since the enactment of the law, grow
ing out of disputes in the Railway,
Municipal Utility and Mining interests
of Canada, and their employees, Min
ing being classed as a public utility
in the law.
However strongly one may feel that
the paramountcy of the public's right
nnd interest in an uninterrupted ser
vice of public utilities should be main
tained at all hazards however strong
ly one may feci that the railway bro
therhoods, in threatening to paralyze
the traffic of the country, were wrong
and deserve drastic legislative treat
ment as it has been said, "to teach
them that the public has rights as
well ns they," there is no use in fool
ing ourselves about "securing a pre
vention of a railroad strike" in this
country by adopting the Canadian Act.
Personally I feel that the railway
brotherhoods should have excepted the
proposal of the railway managers for
arbitration, notwithstanding their
gr?at disappointments in previous ar
bitration, and in the acknowledged
serious defects inherent in all arbitra
tion where the public representives on
the Hoard have the deciding voice.
Also, 1 believe in the paramountcy of
the public interest!:; but that has no
bearing on the question ns to whether
the Canadian Compulsory Investiga
tion Act is the vehicle through which
the public voice can be made effective.
It is not a question of sentiment, but
, question of fact.
A proposition that might work well
in Canada with its almost homogone
ousc population of 7,2011,043 does not
throw much light on what will work
in a country of 100,000,000 population
composed of over forty nationalities.
When we consider that Greater New
York and vicinity has large popula
tion than the whole Dominion of Can
ada, comparing problems in Canada
to those in the United States seems a
little grotesque.
raronthatically it might be recalled
that some years ago wo were flooded
with wonderful ideas of the successful
operation of the novel and so-called
progressive legislation in New Zea
land, and the Socialists. Single Taxcrs
and other radicals in the country
I started at once ' a movement
to "New Zealandize" the United
, States. , Well, those beautiful dreams,
even in little Now Zealand, which is
only one-sixth as large as Canada,
,and whose population is even more
; homogeneous, there being only 823
i aliens, have been smashed to smither
eens, and if there is any country more
chaotic in its industrial situation than
New Zealand, it -is not on the latest
maps available at this writing.
Futhermore, a commission composed
of employers, labor leaders and pub
licists, is now on its way to the United
States to learn from us how to get
out of their mess.
Tho official reports of the Board of
Conciliation to the Labor Department
of Canada on the operation f the Com
pulsory Investigation Act rom its
enactment 1907 to 1910, although writ
ten by officials who are trying to.
make it seem as important and succ
essful as possible, and which conceals
a number of very important facts
that the average reader would never
discover, furnished enoueh informa
tion to dissipate all beliefs that an'j
industrial Utopia has been developed
by our numerically speaking little
neighbor on the north.
In the whole nine years of its ex
istence it dealt with disputes involv
ing only 14G.000 employers, and 32,000
of them, or nearly 22 per cent, struck
in spite of the award nnd in many in
stances in spite of the law itself,
striking before making any applica
tion. Nothing in the record shows
I that any effort was . made to inflict
the penalties of the law upon them
' by fining or sending them to jail,
j Much is made by advocates of a
statement in the reports that out of
: 191 disputes there were only twenty
strikes. An examination of the re
port referred to shows that that means
very little. There are dozens of little
; "Jim Crow" strikes, running from
four to one hundred employees, sixty
three cases to be exact which would
been settled by any voluntary medi
ation board, but under the law the
cumbersome and costly machinery of
the National Government had to be
invoked for the four, the six and the
ten employee class as well as in cases
of real consequence. There are 109
eases, with 250 employees and loss;
while the largest numlier in any one
case involved was 8.000, and they
struck.
As against that record, under the
Newlands Mediation Act, which has
no compulsory power, out of 74 rail
way disputes 73 were settled by med
iation or arbitration, and in several
instances the employees numbered
more than all tho Railroads, Municipal
Utility, Coal Mine, and other employ
ees dealt with by the Canadian Board
in the whole nine years of its ex
istence. The United States Department of
Labor reports 300 cases, 27f of which
were adjusted, this without any
power whatever. Futhermore, the
Hoard being a Federal one and most
of the cases having to do with State
Industries, either side could have poli
tely asked them to tend to their own
business. Rut their services were
gladly accepted.
There are twica as many disputes,
involving five times as many employ
ees, settled by voluntary board in New
York City every year, as in all the
disputes under the Canadian Compul
sory Investigation Act during its life.
iBut let us examine a few of the
strike cases that are referred to in the
official Canadian report and see if we
can find anything worth copying in
the United States, for all the argu
ments for the adoption of this mea-
sure here are based upon a general
feeling that its operation in Canada
has been a phenomenal success and
is the answer to the question: Hew
can we, in the United States, insure
ourselves against the danger of a
paralysis of the traffic of the country ?
In a dispute between the Grand
Trunk Railroad and its machinists the So far as the penalty for striking
Board unanimously found in favor or locking out before applying for a
of the men but the road refused to Board is concerned, there is no at
eomply, and the men struck. tempt to enforce it, and it might just
In the Cumberland Railway and as well be repealed. To jail ten or
Coal Company controversy, with its fifteen thousand men is neither a phy
1,700 employees, there were four dis- sical nor a political possibility in Can-
putes in one year, and in three of
them the men refused the award and
struck, while in a fifth dispute the
next year they struck again
In the city of Toronto, in a dispute
between the electric workers and the
city-owned electrical works, the award
favored the men, but the city refused
to comply, and the men struck.
The Michigan Central Railroad pro
posed a reduction in pay in one class
of service, whereupon the men struck
without reference to the law, but no
penalty was enforced against them.
Six thousand members of the United
Mine Workers' Union struck against
the Western Coal Operators' Associa
tion in defiance of the law. After
wards they were persuaded to apply
for a Board, and an award was hand
ed dowin that they did not like, so
they struck-again and tied up the
mines for seven months.
In the Grand Trunk Railway dis
pute, with its 3,000 conductors and
trainmen, both sides were so displeas
ed with the award that they began
negotiations independently of the
Board. After a month of fruitless
endeavors the men struck and the
situation became
so serious that theUh honor bound to stand by the award
ent itself, similarly f however distasteful it may be, but
National Governmen
as did our Federal Government in the
matter of the recent railway con
troversy after the Mediation Board
had failed, took up the question and
brought about a settlement after a
ten days' strike.
In a sixth dispute that the Cumber
land Railway and Coal Company had
with its l,.r)00 milkers, the award was
refused by the men and the mines
were shut down for eight months.
dn a dispute between the Western
Coal Operators Association and 2,100
miners, after the award was handed
down neither side accepted, but be
gan negrotiations and worked out an
ugrecmnct themselves, all of which
looks very well in a report, were it
not that the men had been on strike
all the time, even before applying for
a Board. There is nothing to explain
how the Board could with propriety
be offically hearing the dispute while
the men were openly flouting the law.
In the Canadian Pacific Railroad
dispute, with 8,000 men in its mech
anical departments, the award was
accepted by the company under pro
test, but the men would have none
of it nnd struck, remaining out for
two months.
In a dispute between the St. John's
Street Railway Company and its em
ployees, the Hoard handed down a
unanimous award, but the company
refused to accept, and the men struck
In a dispute between the British
Columbia Telephone Company and its j adian Act will not meet the situation, ,
321 electrical workers, the men struck what will?" Destructive criticism is j
without asking anybody's permission, (always easier than constructive, but I
Instead of putting them in jail the do not believe that by any form of I
Concilition Hoard did the much more compulsory legislation we can meet the j
sensible thing of, bringing about a , issue. The Newlands Act, while suc
nettloment by mediation, forgetting ccssful in 73 cases, was unsuccessful I
about the jail. But what about the in the largest and most important case
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majesty of the law?
In a dispute between the Canadian
Pacific Railway and 1,300 of its em
ployees, which the report says also
affected indirectly 15,000 employees,
there was both a defiance of
the law and a confession of utter in
efficiency. The Board does not put it
in exactly that language, but puts it
in this naive way:
"Report of Board was accompanied
by a minority report signed by Mr.
Duval. Prior to the date of the ap-
plication the employees had gone on
strike and remained out from Novem-
ber 1 until February 3, when the de-
partment was informed that an agree
ment had been reached by the parties
concerned and the employees had ac
cordingly resumed work."
da any more than it is a physical or
u political possibility for the United
State .to jail 400,000 of the members
of the Railway Brotherhoods in case
we had the Canadian Act, and they
struck in spite of it.
The author of the Canadian law is
official authority for the statement
that the compulsory feature of the
Canadian Act has made more law
breakers than all the jails in the
Dominion of Canada could hold.
If we had had the Canadian Act in
this country last spring when the
Railway 'Brotherhood men started
their controversy, and the Board had
not granted the demands of the men,
in my opinion they would have been
on strike in August, about the time
they were negotiating at the White
House; that is, of course, if they had
not flouted the law, as is openly done
n Canada, and struck without waiting
for an investigation and a decree.
It must be borne in mind that in
submitting a case, under the Canadian
Act, to a Board does not mean sub
mitting to arbitration, but simply an
enforced investigation. Where both
sides submit to arbitration, they feel
lone of this moral force is back of an
award handed down through an-en-forced
investigation.
I have confined this statement to an
examination of the actual operation
af the Canadian Act as reported by its
most partisan advocates, without dis
counting the self interest of the sal
aried officials in perpetuating their
jobs by making their administration
appear most successful and my con
viction is that the adoption of its
principles in this country would not
only grievously disappoint the hopes
of its advocates, but would tend to
make of our wage earners a horde of
law breakers.
The difference between compulsory
arbitration, which many strongly op
pose, and compulsory investigation,
which the same people just as strongly
propose, and the constitutional aspect
of the matter I will not dicuss in
this statement and in what I have
said I am only voicing my own senti
ments. The National civic Federa
tion has not officially passed upon the
question, although in earlier days the
officers of the organization, from Mr.
Low down, were all opposed to cither
compulsory arbitration or compulsory
investigation. This is also the per
sonal view of Mr. Low's successor.
Mr. V. Event Macy.
I realize that his statement is not
a constructive one, in that it does not
. answer the question, "If the Can-
no
of all, the one that was temporarily
settled at the White House last Aug
ust. While there is no liklihood of any
solution of the socallcd labor and cap
ital problem being arrived at this side
of the millennium, as in fact we have
found no solutions for hundreds of
other very grave problems, govern
mental, industrial and financial, yet
we are getting along, and I believe
that some kind of mediation board,
named by the President and mutually
agreed upon by tho railroad managers
and tho railway brotherhood leaders,
under Federal supervision, would meet
the present dilemma. It should not
absolutely prevent a recurrence of the
crucial situation that faced the country
last fall, nor do I believe htat there
is any schemo that could absolutely
prevent such a recurrence. It is pro
posed by some thixt the Government
should take over the railroads and put
them under military operation not
a simple process with the ideas of the
American people as to the proper fun
ctions of government. It, also, might
be like "jumping from the fryingpan
into tho fire,'' and even then strikes
would not absolutely be prevented, as
we nee in those European countries
where the governments own the rail
roads. However, this is only an ac
ademic proposition at this time. But
if the present crucial difficulties were
composed it is not likely that there
would be for many years a recurrence
of the ugly question that now con
fronts us. By that time, it is possible
we may be so much bettor that we
shall know what to do in case a sol
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