carried on by means of cruisers amounts to no more than an operation of secondary importance.

How far war on commerce has been actually effective in the past in bringing wars to a conclusion, and how far, in the altered circumstances of the present day, it is likely to have the same efficacy as has been attributed to it in the past, is a question which merits consideration. Lord Loroburn, in discussing this point, states that

Louis XV was compelled to make peace in 1763 largely by the ruin of French trade. Other examples occur in the record of the Napoleonic wars. All this is true; but why was the strain so severe in those days? It was because the want created by closing the sea could not then be compensated by land-borne supplies. In those days the doctrine that a neutral flag covers enemy goods had not been established; and land transport from any great distance, even from shorter distances, was impracticable on the necessary scale. Therefore, to check sea-borne trade was to check a very great proportion of all trade. Only canals and navigable rivers remained, and they were none too frequent.'

In a somewhat similar sense, Sir J. Macdonnell says: The only plausible instance adduced is the Peace of Paris of 1708 between this country and France; the close of the war, it is said, was hastened by the losses sustained by English shipowners at the hands of French privateers.

case proves little; historians are agreed that many causes favourable to peace were at work in both countries.'

The late Sir William Laird Clowes was of opinion that in the war of 1812

the commerce-destroying exploits of the Americans had a very distinct effect in furthering the readiness of Great Britain to come to terms... but it cannot be too often insisted that the blockading squadrons of Great Britain almost destroyed both the foreign and the coast commerce of the United States.' (Royal Navy,' vi, 157.)

During the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, the French, unable to maintain at sea a purely naval force, resorted to commerce-destroying on a large scale, in the hope of forcing England into bankruptcy. This was carried on mainly by privateers. The French Admiral Bruix, as we learn from a letter dated in 1798, reproduced

by Cauchy in his Respect de la Propriété privée dans la Guerre,' condemned this practice, because it attracted men from the navy. Admiral Mahan estimates the prizes made by French cruisers at not more than 2 per cent. of British commerce afloat, and adds that the percentage of losses arising from the perils of the sea was as great. On the other hand, the French merchant-flag was driven from the seas; and the restrictions imposed by England on the commerce of neutrals gradually led to the financial exhaustion of the Empire. The injury to English trade was far less effective than the complete extinction of French commerce. Napoleon's retort was the Berlin and Milan decrees (1806, 1807), by which he affected to place the whole of the British Isles under blockade. The rejoinder of England was the Orders in Council (1807). The strain upon the resources of the French Empire and its unwilling allies became insupportable. Alexander I broke away from the 'Continental System,' rather than suffer the economic ruin of Russia. His defection provoked the fatal expedition of Moscow, of which the downfall of Napoleon and the restoration of peace were the consequences. It seems not unreasonable to infer that commerce-destroying, if carried on by a belligerent strong enough to exclude his adversary from the sea, might, in those days at least, contribute powerfully, even though indirectly, to the termination of war.

But the conditions have a good deal changed since then. While, on the one hand, the connexion of foreign commerce and national prosperity was then much less close than it is to-day, and nations depended much more on their own resources, the improvement of roads and the construction of railways have rendered the transport of goods far easier and more expeditious throughout the continent of Europe. Perhaps these two factors may be regarded as neutralising each other. Further, the Declaration of Paris (1856) has, by the abolition of privateering and the acceptation of the principle of 'free ships, free goods,' considerably restricted the power of a European belligerent to interfere with the commerce of his adversary. Another very influential change has been brought about by the substitution of steam for sails as the propelling force of ships; and a still further alteration of the conditions is due to the constantly increasing

tonnage of the vessels employed in commerce. It seems reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the experience of former wars affords no absolutely trustworthy guide for estimating the efficacy of commerce-destroying in modern maritime warfare.

Of all the wars that have taken place since 1815, the American civil war alone exhibits an example of war on a large scale against the enemy's commerce. In that war, however, it was not the capture or destruction of enemy ships and cargoes that affected the final result, but blockade, which, rigorously carried out over the whole coast-line of the Confederate states, greatly weakened the resisting power of the secessionist armies. Consequently we cannot refer to any war fought under modern conditions as exemplifying the effect produced by commercedestroying in its more limited aspect-the capture of enemy ships on the high seas-in determining the issue of a conflict between maritime nations.

It is argued that, even if a maritime Power were able to establish the command of the sea, and put a stop to the carrying trade of its adversary, the latter would nevertheless be able to import all the foreign goods it required and to export its own productions in neutral vessels or by railway across its frontiers. The replacement by neutral vessels of the ships confined to port would depend, however, on the proportion of the external commerce of any particular country carried on respectively by its own ships and by the shipping of other countries in time of peace. In cases where foreign shipping is, as a rule, employed by any country for, say, nine-tenths of its oversea trade, the remaining tenth could no doubt easily be supplied by neutral flags. But, if the proportion be reversed, it seems improbable that, even with the assistance of several neutral Powers, the required amount of tonnage could be obtained. On the other hand, not every nation is so situated geographically as to be able to resort to railway carriage. The British Isles obviously are not; nor is the United States, nor Japan. Again, even in the case of countries forming part of the continent of Europe, the rolling-stock of domestic and foreign railways is hardly so superabundant as to admit of any considerable addition to the quantity of goods transported by land in normal times. And

Mr Bowles points out with great justice that, were it possible to divert the trade of a continental Power from sea to land, it could only be accomplished by greatly increasing the cost of carriage.

We take from Dr Wehberg the following statistics of exports and imports by land and sea of five principal commercial States:

The object of this table is to show to what extent different Powers would be affected by a blockade; but it is equally useful as giving a partial measure of the extra burden which would be thrown on neutral shipping and foreign railways if the commercial fleet of any of the nations mentioned were driven to take refuge in its own ports. In the case of a country which employs a large mercantile fleet and carries on its maritime export and import trade chiefly in its own ships, the effect of that fleet being confined to port will be to compel dependence on neutral ships and foreign railways. These will probably be inadequate to the task. Even if they should prove adequate, that will be at the cost of higher freights; while the earnings of the mercantile fleet shut up in port will be reduced to nothing. These two factors combined would seriously affect the financial stability of the country. The United Kingdom is said to derive an income of £90,000,000 from its carrying trade. If that could be stopped, and if, instead of receiving payment for freights, it had to pay out large sums, it would hardly be able to carry on a war. This is, of course, an extreme case.

We have seen that the carrying trade in the present day is almost entirely confined to steamers, of constantly increasing tonnage, which the exigencies of coal supply compel to follow certain well-defined ocean routes. Cruisers cannot keep the sea for any great length of time. They must put into port frequently to coal.

Whether a rightly understood and faithfully observed law of neutrality would permit of their receiving supplies in neutral ports, in order to sally forth again to attack the adversary's commerce, seems extremely doubtful. Unless the fighting fleet is able to establish the command of the sea, the cruisers will be liable to be bottled up' in a neutral port, as has happened before now to men-ofwar belonging to the weaker belligerent.

It is argued that the risks to which the commercial fleet of any nation will be exposed will depend on its numerical size. Omitting sailing vessels, and taking steamers of 2000 tons and over, we find that the United Kingdom had, in 1906, 2079 such steamers, aggregating 6,212,095 net tons; Germany 587, with 1,637,472 gross tons; the United States 456, with 2,027,448 gross tons; France 136, with 394,854 net tons; and Italy 90, with 245,203 net tons. The average tonnage of the American steamers is nearly 60 per cent. larger than that of the Germans; or, in other words, a larger tonnage goes to a smaller number of ships. A comparison between the total number of steam vessels of all sizes belonging to Norway and Germany shows that the number of ships is nearly equal, while the average tonnage of the German vessels is two and three-quarter times as large. The risk of the larger ship falling in with a cruiser (or an auxiliary cruiser disguised as a merchant-steamer) is the same as that of the smaller vessel; and therefore, although the larger vessel has probably the higher speed and hence a better chance of escape, it is clear that the risks must be calculated, ceteris paribus, on the number of ships, not on gross tonnage. It seems therefore, at first sight, that the risk to which an English steamer of that class is exposed is three-and-a-half times as great as that of a German, over four-and-a-half times that of an American, fifteen times that of a French, and over twenty-three times that of an Italian. A factor that would modify these proportions would in each case be the number of swift cruisers available for the attack and defence, supposing the course of the war be such as to leave the sea equally free to both sides. It might prove too that in a war between any two of these Powers a larger number of such steamers might be captured, and yet their loss be less felt because of their being in a