Conciliation

“ Conciliation is a fixed and everlasting duty, independently of the political results it might have. If they despaired of winning the Protestants to Repeal, conciliation would still be their duty, as men and Christians. But there is every ground for hope. ”

“ While none had the courage to go to an extreme either in aggression or in conciliation, there was a multitude of counsel vehemently wrangling over the wisdom of little concessions and little aggressions. ”

“ The same disposition to reasonableness, to conciliation, to recognition of the other side's point of view, the same provision of fair and recognized tribunals and processes, ought to make it possible to solve the one set of questions its easily as the other. ”

“ The existence of the machinery makes it difficult for either party in a serious dispute to refuse to employ it; the prestige of the government behind the conciliator enables him to deal freely with each party, and to throw the full light of day upon the real condition of affairs. This done, the full strength of the system of voluntary conciliation comes into play. ”

“ Conciliation. Though the compulsory fixing of wages is evidently objectionable, much good may be done by conciliators, who are men chosen to conduct a friendly discussion of the matters in dispute. The business is arranged in various ways; sometimes three or more delegates of the workmen meet an equal number of delegates from the masters, who place before the meeting such information as they think proper to give, and then endeavour to come to terms. ”

“ For the victories of peace
Suffer no frustration.
Ah, poor simpleton! You seek the post of counselor, and are ignorant of the very name of conciliation. Your ambition is vain, since you love harsh measures. ”

“ The state of mind which makes conciliation possible is an elementary attitude which, entirely apart from objective grounds, seeks to end struggle, just as, on the other hand, a disposition to quarrel, even without any real occasion, promotes struggle. ”

“ All other questions, when compared to this, sink into insignificance. The present is no time for palliations. Action, prompt action, is required. A delay in Congress to prescribe or to recommend a distinct and practical proposition for conciliation may drive us to a point from which it will be almost impossible to recede.
A common ground on which conciliation and harmony can be produced is surely not unattainable. ”

“ A Conciliation Committee, having the confidence of the community, and composed of men possessing practical knowledge of industrial affairs, can therefore aid in mitigating this antagonism, in preventing avoidable conflicts, in bringing about a truce ”

“ Moreover, a conciliation committee can do best work when the trouble is in its beginning, or at least has not come to a head. When the break has actually occurred, damage has been done, and each side feels sore and angry ”

“ Conciliation aims solely to secure internal peace in a department of industry. To avert strikes or reduce their duration is all that it can do and all that the parties directly interested wish to have it do. ”

“ The prudence and temperance of your discussions will promote, within your own walls, that conciliation which so much befriends rational conclusion; and by its example will encourage among our constituents that progress of opinion which is tending to unite them in object and in will. ”

“ And it is for the interest of all serious and earnest people on all sides, that there should be no needless and additional confusion introduced into theology—such confusion as is but too likely to follow, when a design of conciliation, with the aim of which so many, for good reasons or bad ones, are sure to sympathise, is carried out by hands that are not equal to it. ”

“ In a survey of the forces making for self-government in industry, the Conference considered that definite encouragement must be given to the principles of collective bargaining, of conciliation, of arbitration, but that such forces could not develop in an atmosphere of legal repression. ”

“ But when concession is made, when tears of penitence are wept, and when, in moments of returning confidence, that luckless tendency of temper is candidly confessed, and sincerely bewailed; when all the different acts committed under its influence, are acknowledged to have been wrong, how complete ought to be the reconciliation thus begun, and how zealous our endeavours for the future to avert the consequences of this sad calamity! ”

“ Of this kind is a large part of "a plea for arbitration and conciliation," as embodied in a pamphlet on "Labor Differences and their Settlement," by Mr. Joseph D. Weeks, of Pittsburg, which has been sent us, bearing the imprint of the Society for Political Education. If workmen were always the gentle, much-enduring lambs that this author assumes them to be, there would be a place to make the peaceful ways of settlement between them and their employers which he suggests the rule. ”

“ Thus it will be seen that the spirit of conciliation, of a calm but earnest desire to obtain a firm grasp of the most reasonable relations between Church and State through patient study of the phenomena exhibited in other countries, were the leading motives of the man. ”

“ New problems are arising daily and new work is waiting to be done. But whether the results of conciliation would be to the injury of the profession or not, before anything is done the lawyers will have their say on it in the Houses of Parliament, where their number is legion, and where, as far as I can make out, the poor litigant, the client whose interests I am saying a word for to-day, is wholly unknown and unrepresented. ”

“ Boards of conciliation are often provided for, which endeavor by means of conference and concession to prevent a dispute from arising; they succeed best where both employers and employes are organized. ”

“ Proceedings in a court of law is a last resort. Political leaders also deliver sermons on amity and harmony in industrial relations. However actual experience is in the opposite direction. The picture becomes clear when you look at the end of conciliation proceedings how many settlements are reached and how many failure reports are submitted. ”

“ Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence. ”

“ Success against friends and enemies is always achieved by complicated means; for strategic means help each other. In the case of suspected ministers of an enemy, the employment of conciliation does not need the use of the other means; in the case of treacherous ministers it is by means of gifts; in the case of combination of states, it is by means of sowing the seeds of dissension; and in the case of the powerful, it is by means of coercion. ”

“ If, in picking a quarrel, each party declined to go more than three-eighths of the way, and if, in making friends, each was ready to go five-eighths of the way—why, there would be more reconciliations than quarrels! ”

“ It behoves each party to strive to understand the other, with the conviction that the other has something worthy to be understood; and with the conviction that when mutually recognized this something will be the basis of a complete reconciliation. ”

“ The most valuable element of union, mutual kindness, the feelings of sympathy, the fraternal bonds, which now happily unite us, will have been extinguished for ever. One section will stand in menacing and hostile array against the other. The collision of opinion will be quickly followed by the clash of arms. ”

“ As that union, which is ordained to be the source of the purest felicity, or of the bitterest anguish, and which nothing but death or guilt can dissolve, is the most important that can be formed, no one ought to propose it, or consent to it, till after the most mature deliberation. ”

“ We may have arbitration and we may have meetings of our conciliatory committees, but unless we have the sympathy of the people, who in the end are the final arbiters on this question, we cannot hope to succeed. ”

“ The courts have proved, in every case in which they have been called upon, that there are remedies, that they are adequate, and that they can be brought to bear upon the cases. The chief need seems to be more power of voluntary combination and co-operation among those who are aggrieved. ”

“ The elected and the ex officio members may be expected each to improve the other, and important social benefits may arise from their frequent mingling, and from the necessity for mutual concession and forbearance which such mingling cannot fail to teach. ”

“ How delightful, as well as imperative, to go into a committee of ways and means periodically, talking over everything confidentially, and feeling the sweet bond of union growing closer and dearer because of the cares and worries none can escape, though love and sympathy can make them light! ”

“ Now, brethren, I want every one of you to let these principles sink deep in your hearts, that we may cultivate a principle of union, and look first at ourselves, reckon first with ourselves, and dwell upon our own faults, instead of dwelling upon the faults of others. ”

“ For such is your character, and such I desire mine to be, that, fate having brought us face to face with the same condition of public affairs, I would fain hope that our union and friendship will turn out to be for the credit of us both. Wherefore how much consideration should in your judgment be shewn to me, you will yourself decide, and that decision, I hope, will be in accordance with my position in the state. I, for my part, promise and guarantee a special and unequalled zeal in every service which may tend to your honour and reputation. ”

“ To draw the line between necessary subordination and vexatious interference—to apportion to each a fair share of work, and to see that the work is done—to be liberal and considerate without over-indulgence,—these are duties requiring judgment, moderation, method, decision, often no small share of moral courage; in other words, precisely the same qualities which are wanted in governing bodies of workpeople. ”

“ We must have patience and long endurance with our brethren, &c., and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left are a dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. ”

“ There will be special reason why those who have had special concerns together in this world, in their state of probation, and whose mutual affairs will be then to be tried and judged, should especially be set in one another’s view. Thus we may suppose that rulers and subjects, earthly judges and those whom they have judged, neighbors who have had mutual converse, dealings and contests, heads of families and their children and servants, shall then meet, and in a peculiar distinction be set together. And especially will it be thus with ministers and their people. ”

“ The union, assemblage, or incorporation, if one may so speak, of these involuntary desires, affecting and affected by them all, becomes our universal moral sense or conscience, which in each of its propensities is gratified or mortified, according to our conduct. ”

“ Since the primary means for securing the peace and tranquillity of the people, and the most effective agency for the advancement of high and low alike, is this all-important matter, it is incumbent on those learned members of the great consultative assembly who are thoroughly versed in the Divine law to evolve a single, direct and definite procedure for the settlement of litigations. ”

“ At length, one of the party proposed a remedy, which, though not directly benefitting any one present, seemed to promise a settlement of the dispute.
“By a codicil in the will,” said he, “we are enjoined to shew some mark of kindness, to a poor relation of the testator, who lives hard by in the village. ”

“ The making of union consisteth in this, that every man by covenant oblige himself to some one and the same man, or to some one and the same council, by them all named and determined, to do those actions, which the said man or council shall command them to do ”

“ Conciliators to the Worlds. Whenever the supervising personalities of the individual worlds become greatly perplexed or actually deadlocked concerning the proper procedure under existing circumstances, and if the matter is not of sufficient importance to be brought before the regularly constituted tribunals of the realm, then, upon the receipt of a petition of two personalities, one from each contention, a conciliating commission will begin to function forthwith. ”

“ You may trace the counsels that have been given to us from the beginning, one step following another in natural order and succession; one principle leading to another, and one important truth engendering, as it were, another important truth, revealing it and bringing it more forcibly home to our minds, until finally co-operation and its necessity have been brought to our attention and enforced upon us. ”

“ When he moved his second conciliatory proposition, in the year 1776, he entered into the discussion of this point at very great length, and, from nine several heads of presumption, endeavored to prove the charge upon that people not to be true. ”

“ Today the kings are taking counsel of one another, while the working men are forming unions; hence two great powers are consolidating. In course of time, like angry clouds driven by different winds, they will dash upon each other, until they are broken. ”