Page:Economic Development in Denmark Before and During the World War.djvu/79

Rh the government to guard their own interests. In these conflicts, with their constantly threatened strikes and lockouts, they see a struggle which in the long run will be beneficial. Records furnish proof of many declarations of open war, to be sure, and consequently of many lost working-days; besides these, however, many disputes have been quietly settled either by a satisfactory agreement between the local organizations or by a decision of the central organizations. Only occasionally have the conflicts been fought out before the open curtain.

The great lock-out of 1899, culminating in the September Agreement, has already been mentioned. Some years later, in 1908, a new conflict arose between the newspaper proprietors and their typographers. Here for the first time the government intervened, and it was the Secretary of the Home Office who finally conciliated the contending parties. Out of this intervention grew certain measures for the settlement of all such conflicts, conformably with other social developments in Denmark. By an act of 1910 the existing Court of Arbitration, which had been established for the settlement of all disputes concerning violations of the September Agreement, was superseded by a Permanent Court of Arbitration (den faste Voldgiftsret), which also was empowered to settle all violations of other agreements. Its composition rests on the principle of parity representation. An equal number of judges is chosen from each of the two contending organizations, the members of which then appoint by vote their chairman and one or two deputy chairmen; if they cannot agree upon the appointment, they are appointed by the chairman of the Supreme Court in Copenhagen. The state pays the expenses. The Court has the power to sentence the organization found guilty of violating the agreement to a so-called 'penance' and can execute the sentence. Before the establishment of this Court of Arbitration some general rules for the settlement of trade disputes had been adopted, and the central organizations recommended that these rules be