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Show A SHOCK OBSORBER FOR PEACE By MALCOLM MUIR Editor and Published of News. week; Director of the American Arbitration Association. What will happen to the industries indus-tries 100 per cent devoted to war production when peace "breaks out" on some unpredictable future fu-ture "November 11th"? Can we apply the lessens the war Is so painfully teaching us? Can we translate "preparedness" into a dynamic concept of action? Can we spare ourselves another postmortem post-mortem on failure on thinking too 'little, and too late? What we will need is a shock absorber for peace for industry's greatest post-war problem will be to absorb the impact of the peace settlement of war contracts. con-tracts. No matter how sound or how thorough our ;prelimmary planning may be, a mis-step or delay in the. proper handling cr these problems can well be a major catastrophe for any company, com-pany, no matter how big or how small. Failure to think this problem through and to plan for all emergencies is simply courting disaster for American industry. Arbitration can be made one of the shock absorbers for peace. The practical application of the principles of arbitration can protect pro-tect the whole country, including includ-ing the Government administrators administra-tors as purchasing agents, the taxpayers as the final purchasers, purchas-ers, the contractors, their millions mil-lions of employees and stock- iiuiucia cvciuiic, uiieuuy ui indirectly in-directly involved in seeing that the stopping of the wat-ichine does not wreck the erl ,n which we must depend V the peace. We -will have the fact that in the im 1 . post-war period there -vur many disputes disputes doubly hard to handle because there will be right on both sides. Only arbitration can bridge the gap between contract cancellation and settlement and payment. Great and just men from George Washington and Abraham Abra-ham Lincoln to Cordell Hull and Charles Evans Hughes have advocated advo-cated voluntary arbitration as an equitable, speedy and fair method for the settlement of disputes. Today, To-day, not only is it possible to submit to . arbitration any type of commercial controversy in the United States, but as a result of the pioneer work that has been done by the Inter-Amarican Com-mercal Com-mercal Arbitcation Commission, disputes, difficulties, misunderstandings misunder-standings between our citizens and the nationals of our neighbors neigh-bors to the South, as well as be- tween citizens of South American and Central American countries are being handled in the same effective manner. During its seventeen years of active work, the American Arbitration Arbi-tration association has handled thousands of voluntary arbitra. tions. From its Panel of nine thousand just and competent men only those mutually approved by the parties in dispute sit as arbitrators. ar-bitrators. These men, trained and experienced in every form of commercial, com-mercial, business and professional life, give fully of their time. The ir common denominator is their belie in voluntary arbitration arbitra-tion 'as the democratic way of ending honest controversy. The ground work is already laid. Arbitration the modern and streamlined method is standardized, stand-ardized, tried and ready to use. If we can put into effect the ex perience gained by years of successful suc-cessful and equitable settlement cf all types of claims, we CAN avert many oisIhe catastrophies o peace byf J shock absorber o arbitration. |