n of
immigration. A thoroughgoing experiment in collectivism, therefore,
could not be made under favorable conditions in New Zealand or any
other country, unless that country were _isolated_ from the rest of
the world, _or_ unless the whole world made the same experiment at
the same time."

As between comparative isolation possibly in the near future and
world-wide or at least international Socialism, certainly many years
ahead, the Australian Labour Party, under similar circumstances to that
of New Zealand, has chosen to attempt comparative isolation. It does not
yet propose to keep out immigrants, but it makes a beginning with all
non-white races, and it stands for a policy of high protection and a
larger army and navy. Naturally it does not even seek admission into the
International Socialist Congress, where if any Socialist principle is
more insisted upon than another it is Marx's declaration that the
Socialists are to be distinguished from the other working class parties
only by the fact that they represent the interests of the entire working
class independently of nationality or of groups within the nation.

Moreover, the militarism necessary to enforce isolation may cost the
nation, capitalists and workers alike, far more heavily than to leave
their country open to trade and immigration. Indeed, it must lead, not
to industrial democracy, or even to capitalistic progress, but to
stagnation and reaction. The policy of racial exclusion will not only
increase the dangers of war, but it will bring little positive benefit
to labor, even of a purely material and temporary kind, since the
farming majority will not allow it to be extended to the white race.
Instead of restricting immigration, the new government projects require
a thicker settlement, and everything is being done to encourage settlers
of means and agricultural experience, and we cannot question that the
coming of white laborers will be encouraged when they are needed.

The size of the farms the government is promoting in New Zealand proves
that the country is deliberately preparing for a class of landless
agricultural laborers, and Australia is following the example. Since
these new farms average something like two hundred acres, we must
realize that as soon as they are under thorough cultivation they will
require one or more farm laborers in each case, to be obtained chiefly
from abroad, producing a community resting neither on