the disadvantages which may result from the performance by this country
of her duties as a neutral.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.
Athenæum Club, July 26 (1893).


PACIFIC BLOCKADE

Sir,--The letter signed "M." in your issue of this morning contains, I
think, some statements which ought not to pass uncorrected. A "blockade"
is, of course, the denial by a naval squadron of access for vessels to a
defined portion of the coasts of a given nation. A "pacific blockade" is
one of the various methods--generically described as "reprisals," such
as "embargo," or seizure of ships on the high seas--by which, without
resort to war, pressure, topographically or otherwise limited in extent,
may be put upon an offending State. The need for pressure of any kind
is, of course, regrettable, the only question being whether such limited
pressure be not more humane to the nation which experiences it, and less
distasteful to the nation which exercises it, than is the letting loose
of the limitless calamities of war.

The opinion of statesmen and jurists upon this point has undergone a
change, and this because the practice known as "pacific blockade" has
itself changed. The practice, which is comparatively modern, dating only
from 1827, was at first directed against ships under all flags, and
ships arrested for breach of a pacific blockade were at one time
confiscated, as they would have been in time of war. It has been purged
of these defects as the result of discussions, diplomatic and