proportion
to that sum of money, because the individual loss of every loser
would be felt by everybody else.

Since to a great manufacturing nation, like ours, the greatest
danger from outside (except actual invasion) would seem to be the
sudden stoppage of her oversea trade by blockade, we seem warranted
in concluding that, since _the only possible means of preventing
a blockade is a navy_, the primary use for our navy is to prevent
blockade.

This does not mean that a fleet's place is on its own coast, because
a blockade might be better prevented by having the fleet elsewhere;
in fact it is quite certain that its place is not on the coast as
a rule, but at whatever point is the best with relation to the
enemy's fleet, until the enemy's fleet is destroyed. In fact, since
the defensive and the offensive are so inseparably connected that
it is hard sometimes to tell where one begins and the other ends,
the best position for our fleet might be on the enemy's coast. It
may be objected that the coast of the United States is so long
that it would be impossible to blockade it. Perhaps, but that is
not necessary: it would suffice to blockade Boston, Newport, New
York, the Delaware, the Chesapeake, and the Gulf, say with forty
ships. And we must remember that blockade running would be much more
difficult now than in the Civil War, because of the increased power
and accuracy of modern gunnery and the advent of the search-light,
wireless telegraph, and aeroplane.

It may also be objected that the blockading of even a defenseless
coast would cost the blockading country a good deal of money, by
reason of the loss of trade with that country. True; but war is
always expensive, and the blockade would be very much more expensive
to the blockaded country; and though it might hold out a long while,
it would be compelled to yield in the end, not only because of the
blockade itself but because of the pressure of neutral countries;
and the longer it held out, the greater the indemnity it would
have to pay. The expense of blockading would therefore be merely
a profitable investment.

The author is aware that actual invasion of a country from the
sea would be a greater disaster than blockade, and that defense
against invasion has often been urged in Great Britain as a reason
for a great navy; so that the primary reason for a navy might be
said to be defense against invasion. But why should an enemy take
the trouble to invade us? Blocka