of money and non-receipt of imported things;
but what would probably be the very worst thing of all would be
the numbers of men thrown out of employment by the loss of foreign
markets. _So long as a country can keep its people in employment,
so long the people will live in comparative order_. But when there
are many unemployed men in a country, not only do their families
lose the means of subsistence, but the very fact of the men being
unemployed leads them into mischief. Should the ports of any great
commercial nation be suddenly closed, the greatest danger to the
country would not be from the enemy outside, but from the unemployed
people inside, unless the government gave them employment, by enlisting
them in an enormous, improvised army.

It will be seen, therefore, that the blockading of the principal
ports of any purely commercial country would be a disaster so great
that there could not be a greater one except actual invasion. Another
disaster might be the total destruction of its fleet by the enemy's
fleet; but the only _direct_ result of this would be that the people
of the country would have fewer ships to support and fewer men
to pay. The loss of the fleet and the men would not _per se_ be
any loss whatever to the country, but rather a gain. The loss of
the fleet, however, would make it possible for the enemy's fleet
to blockade our ports later, and thus bring about the horrors of
which we have spoken.

While it is true that an absolute blockade of any port might be
practically impossible at the present day, while it is true that
submarines and torpedo-boats might compel blockading ships to keep
at such distance from ports that many loopholes of escape would be
open to blockade runners, yet it may be pointed out that even a
partial blockade, even a blockade that made it risky for vessels
to try to break it, would have a very deleterious effect upon the
prosperity of the country and of every man, woman, and child within
it. A blockade like this was that maintained during the greater
part of the Civil War by the Northern States against the Southern
States. This blockade, while not perfect, while it was such as to
permit many vessels to pass both ways, was nevertheless so effective
that it made it impossible for the Southern States to be prosperous,
or to have any reasonable hope of ever being prosperous. And while
it would be an exaggeration to state that the navy itself, unaided
by the army, could have brou