Compromise

Report Outline
Compromise for Avoidance of Deadlocks
Compromise in the American Democracy
Compromise in International Relations

Compromise for Avoidance of Deadlocks

Deadlocks in International and Domestic Affairs

Resumption of the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers at Paris, June 15, will provide what may be the final opportunity to resolve the deadlock between the western powers and Russia which has prevented any real progress in European peacemaking. The deadlock in the effort to draft peace treaties has been the most conspicuous but is not the only example of stalemate in current attempts to clear up troubled political situations. The clash of Arab and Jewish interests still bars solution of the long-standing problem of Palestine. In the Far East the United States and Russia remain at loggerheads over plans to prepare Korea for independence. Freedom for India is only just beginning to come into sight after being held up in recent years primarily by the adamant adherence of Hindus and Moslems to opposing views on the future status of that country.

In the ten months since the war ended, political deadlocks in the foreign field have been matched in the United States by deadlocks over such questions as draft and O. P. A. extension, labor legislation, and the proposed Army-Navy merger, and by a series of far-reaching deadlocks on economic issues. Prolonged strikes in the automobile industry, the steel industry, and the bituminous coal industry have delayed reconversion and crippled production. For two days in May the economic life of the nation was paralyzed by a general stoppage of transportation by rail. More recently, a deadlock between maritime workers and employers has been threatening to halt virtually all American shipping activity.

The foreign and domestic records alike suggest that the process of compromise, so essential to reconciliation of differences between parties of roughly equal strength, is becoming a lost art. Lack of a willingness to compromise, on the part of one or more of the nations or economic groups involved, has been responsible for the persistent deadlocks of the last year. Yet it is clear that if the world is to emerge from a general condition of stalemate and get on with the work of making peace and restoring production, it must bring into play the now largely dormant practice of adjustment by compromise.