Excerpt from Conciliation and Arbitration in Labour Disputes: A Historical Sketch and Brief Statement of the Present Position of the Question at Home and Abroad Many strikes have no doubt occurred in consequence of the ignorance of the workmen, or of their leaders and advisers, as to the actual conditions of the business in which they were engaged. There is often a wide difference between the prices as published in the newspapers or trade circulars, and the realised prices received by employers. This is especially so in the case of coal. The realised price of coal is affected by the proportions free for sale, and sold under contracts of longer or shorter duration. It often happens, moreover, that the employers, in busy times, find it necessary to check sales and while not refusing orders, they put up a prohibitive price when they see that they have already as many orders as they can execute. These quotations are mistaken by the workmen for realised prices. Of course, all this liability to mislead would be got rid of, if, for the purposes of a sliding-scale or some other amicable mode of settlement, the employers and em ployed agreed upon the ascertainment of the actual realised selling prices from period to period; but the employers are not to be blamed if they do not attempt such an ascertain ment, unless they have guarantees that it will be accepted as a basis of settlement. Labour disputes are more or less liable to occur in every industry, according as the rate of wages paid is more or less liable to sudden and frequent fluctuations. Thus, in the textile industries, where the wages are usually fairly steady, and where oscillations of any account are comparatively infrequent, the occurrence of a general strike is rare. In the mining industry, on the other hand, the variations of wages are more common than in almost any other, and hence labour disputes are specially frequent. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.