their hardships and bloodshed; neither do they dare to question
the wisdom of the statesmen who directed that the war should be
fought mainly by the army. Their sole intention is to point out
that, if a meagre naval force could produce so great an effect
against a country _mainly agricultural_, a very powerful naval
force, blockading effectively the principal ports of a _manufacturing
country_, would have an effect so great that it can hardly be estimated.

It is plainly to be seen that the effect of a blockade against a
purely commercial country by a modern navy would be incomparably
greater now than it was fifty years ago, for two very important
reasons. One reason is that the progress of modern engineering
has made navies very much more powerful than they were fifty years
ago; and the other reason is that the same cause has made countries
very much more vulnerable to blockade, because it has made so many
millions of people dependent upon manufacturing industries and the
export of manufactured things, and forced them to live an artificial
life. While the United States, for instance, does not depend for
its daily bread on the regular coming of wheat from over the sea,
yet millions of its people do depend, though indirectly, upon the
money from the export of manufactured things; for with countries,
as with people, habits are formed both of system and of mode of
life, which it is dangerous suddenly to break; so that a country
soon becomes as dependent upon outside commerce as a man does upon
outside air, and a people suddenly deprived of a vigorous outside
commerce would seem to be smothered almost like a man deprived
of outside air.

A rough idea of the possible effect of a blockade of our coast may
be gathered from the fact that our exports last year were valued