The fourth principle of the Labour Party’s policy of social reconstruction is “the diversion to the common good of the surplus over the expenditure required for the maintenance of the national minimum of life.” This surplus is said to be embodied in the riches of the mines, the rental value of lands superior to the margin of cultivation, the extra profits of fortunate capitalists, now alleged to be absorbed by individual proprietors, and devoted to the senseless luxury of the idle rich. It is to be secured by nationalization and municipalization, and by steeply graduated taxation of private income and riches. From it is to be drawn the new capital which the community day by day will require for the perpetual improvement and increase of its various enterprises, and for which it is said to be dependent now on the usury-exacting financier. “It is in this proposal for the appropriation of every surplus for the common good—in the vision of its resolute use for the building up of the community as a whole instead of for the magnification of individual fortunes—that the Labour Party, as the Party of the producers by hand or by brain, most distinctively marks itself off from the older political parties, standing as these do essentially for the maintenance unimpaired of the perpetual private mortgage upon the annual product of the nation that is involved in the individual ownership of land and capital.” International Co-operation From Labour’s home policy we turn to foreign affairs. Its international aims are “peace and co-operation between nations; the avoidance of anything making for international hostility; the development of international co-operation in the League of Nations,” and “an ever-increasing intercourse, a constantly developing exchange of commodities, a steadily growing mutual understanding, a continually expanding friendly co-operation among all the peoples of the world.” “Imperialism,” defined to mean extension of empire over countries without reference to the wishes of the inhabitants of those countries, is repudiated as rooted in capitalism, and springing only from a desire for profits and for selfish exploitation of the natural resources belonging solely to those inhabitants. “Protectionism” in any form, whether by prohibitions on imports, embargoes, tariffs, differential shipping or railway rates, for the purpose of limiting the amount or restricting the free flow of foreign commodities into this country, is unreservedly condemned. Protection for the benefit of a particular trade, or all trades, while it may conduce to the immediate advantage of Labour, is presumed to operate to the greater ultimate advantage of the capitalist, and to strengthen his position. Anything tending to such a result is “contrary to the true interests of Labour.” Protection is said to lead to capitalistic rings, combinations and trusts, higher prices, diminished consumption, reduced employment.