has had to be supported by the army of the national government.
There is no nation in the world, and there never has been one,
in which the enforcement of the necessary laws for the protection
of the lives, property, and trade of the people has not depended
ultimately on the army; and the reason why the army could enforce
the laws was simply the fact that the army had the power to inflict
suffering and death.

As long as a maritime country carried on trade within its own borders
exclusively, as long as it lived within itself, so long as its
people did not go to countries oversea, a navy was not necessary.
But when a maritime country is not contented to live within its
own borders, then a navy becomes essential to guard its people
and their possessions on the highways of the sea; to enforce, not
municipal or national law, as an army does, but international law.

Now the desire of the people of a country to extend their trade
beyond the seas seems in some ways not always a conscious desire,
not a deliberate intent, but to be an effort of self-protection,
or largely an effort of expansion; for getting room or employment.
As the people of a country become civilized, labor-saving devices
multiply; and where one man by means of a machine can do the work
of a hundred, ninety-nine men may be thrown out of employment; out
of a hundred men who till the soil, only one man may be selected
and ninety-nine men have to seek other employment. Where shall it
be gotten? Evidently it must be gotten in some employment which
may be called "artificial," such as working in a shop of some kind,
or doing some manufacturing work. But so long as a people live
unto themselves only, each nation can practically make and use all
the machinery needed within its borders, and still not employ all
the idle hands; and when the population becomes dense, employment
must be sought in making goods to sell beyond the sea. The return
comes back, sometimes in money, sometimes in the products of the
soil and the mine and the manufactures of foreign lands.

In this way every nation becomes like a great business firm. It
exports (that is, sells,) certain things, and it imports (that
is, buys,) certain things; and if it sells more than it buys it is
making money; if it buys more than it sells it is spending money.
This is usually expressed by saying that the "balance of trade"
is in its favor or against it.

In a country like the United States, or any other gre