In order to free Europe from “the rivalries of Capitalism—Imperialism—Protectionism, which poisoned international relations between 1880-1914,” Labour desires to see an economic side of the League of Nations developed so as to secure the removal of all economic barriers and maintain equality of trade conditions. But surely it was Labour itself that called loudest for self-determination, which has so grievously impaired the economic restoration of Europe. A World Economic Council of the League ought to apportion the supplies of food-commodities and raw materials and maintain credit in the various countries so as to ensure fair allocation of raw materials, the furtherance of production, the development of international lines of communication, and the prevention of exploitation by trusts. As an alternative to “the present profit-making capitalistic economic system,” Labour proposes to use for purposes of international trade, an organization on a world-wide basis of the different national Co-operative movements. So long as foreign trade remains under the control of the competitive and capitalistic system, Labour asserts that its general international aims can never be attained. CHAPTER III THE LABOUR PARTY’S ADOPTION OF SOCIALISM I. MEANING OF SOCIALISM The Common Characteristics of all Socialistic Creeds—State Socialism—Syndicalism—National Guildism—Nationalization and Democratic Control. Socialism is too amorphous to admit of any workable definition. Each age exhibits schools of thought, industrial and philosophic, which define Socialism in different ways according to contemporary political circumstances, economic conditions and industrial tendencies or their interpretation of them. There is no more interesting study than to trace out the variant meanings of “Socialist” from its first appearance in the _Co-operative Magazine_ of November 1827 up to the present time, and to note its successive contractions and extensions in political, ethical, economic and social implications as decade succeeded to decade. The Common Characteristics of all Socialistic Creeds