Socialism for Great Britain only

A correspondent (W. Langham, W. Eallng) asks how this country will obtain food supplies from abroad after the establishment of Socialism here. It is, of course, inconceivable that Socialism could exist in Great Britain alone while the rest of the world remained capitalist. But this pesents no special problem, since it is equally inconceivable that capitalist development and Socialist propaganda could convert a majority to Socialism in this country without comparable progress having been made in the rest of the capitalist world.

When Socialism has been established on an international basis, the problem of producing and distributing goods will naturally call for organisation, and society will set up administrative machinery for that purpose. The organisation of production and distribution will not be fettered by the present national frontiers, and the problem of moving goods from one country or continent to another will not be different in kind from the problem of distribution within these areas. The world already shows many instances of smoothly-working international machinery, such, for example, as the Universal Postal Union, which co-ordinates the international transport of postal matter.

Ed. Comm.