AN INDUSTRIAL CODE.

The industrial conference at Washington, although a failure as regards any tangible results, disclosed the need of an industrial code founded on some such basis as the common law practice of today. It was shown that there is no standard which an arbitration board can fall back on and say, "This is the fundamental principle that applies in the case in hand." There has been no uniformity of decisions and sometimes injustice has been done to one side sometimes to the other. Formed, as the usual arbitration board is, with an equal number of members representing labor and capital and a third neutral party, usually some man of local prominence who has little or no comprehension of labor requirements, it is not strange that its decisions have been hit or miss. Furthermore, it was brought out that after a neutral member had once decided a case he was never chosen again because he had lost the confidence of the side against whom he had made the decision. The knowledge thus gained in the study of a wage dispute was lost and an inexperienced man was called upon in the next dispute. In this way our labor problems have been solved by men who did not understand their task.

A committee of the Chamber of Commerce of Cleveland has drawn up what is said to be the first definite declaration of labor relations for a community. The plan embodies the sound principles of collective bargaining, the eight-hour day, non-compulsion in regard to the open and closed shop, and the cost of living as the basis of wage scales. This plan is a most constructive effort to found an industrial cods upon which standard labor decisions may be handed down. It should spread throughout the country and as it does so it will gradually solidify into the needed code of industrial relations. The document of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce committee is likely to become historic as the first declaration of Industrial Democracy.