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What, then, can a government do to see that its laws are obeyed and essential services maintained? The answer seems to lie not in punishment but in the provision of practical alternatives to work stoppages. One obvious alternative is the adoption of realistic pay scales and desirable working conditions. Another is the development of machinery capable of preventing deteriorating government-employee relations from reaching the strike stage. Such machinery might include fact finding, mediation, conciliation and, when all else fails, compulsory arbitration that binds both the government and the union. As with other forms of protest, there must be means short of a test of raw strength to settle arguments. Most important, those means must enjoy the confidence of the workers and the public if they are to have any chance of working.
Meanwhile, the costly postal strike continued to raise havoc with the nation's economy and inconvenience its citizens. Members of the striking unions have shown that, like Chesterton's postmen, they share the same passions as other men, particularly for a decent wage. Until they go back to work, however, the corpse that they carry in their mailbags can only be that of the public interest.