the favourite pursuit of the most intelligent nations— its possession and security the greatest prize that can be obtained by any people. For as trade increases so does wealth increase, and wealth, which has always been the chief, may now be said to be the sole measure of material power, since there is no form of that power which cannot readily be had in exchange for it. The result is that, so soon as nations began to reflect and to reason upon, and, as a consequence, to provide for, their own interests in competition with the interests of other nations, those of them who have any intelligence have always addressed themselves to the development of their own trade, to the capture of the trade of others, and too often to the attempt to gain for themselves a monopoly of all trade. It is from the struggle for trade that all the great conflicts between nations in modern times have arisen. The Renaissance, not improperly so-called, of moral, material, and intellectual activity, which succeeded the darkness of the Middle Ages, nowhere showed itself so markedly as in a renascence of trade; and if we take England alone-though it would be equally true of other nations-it will be found that, although the many bloody and costly wars she waged from that time downwards often appeared upon the surface to have as their motive personal, dynastic, or political considerations, strictly so-called, yet, if their real origin be traced, it will always appear that they were wars either to gain a new trade or to maintain and develop a trade already enjoyed. Nor is it less true in the present day-indeed, it is notoriously far more true -that although some of the most desperate, and, it may be added, some of the most injurious wars of our own times have been fought, not with the sword, but with the tariff, the conflict is not less but rather

more real and more serious, and often far more fraught with mischief; to which may be added that, as in the wars with the sword, the combatants have often blundered, erred in their conduct, mistaken their own true object and thus inflicted occasionally more damage upon themselves than upon their enemy, so in the modern wars of the tariff the mischief which is intended to be done to the opponent often falls in its greatest intensity upon the doer.

Since, then, Trade is of such overweening importance to all nations which are so happily situated by Nature, and whose people are so happily gifted with qualities as to be able to pursue it successfully; and since, as has been shown, trade must in the main be carried on by sea, it seems to follow, as a matter of necessity, that whether in peace or in war, that nation must be foremost, predominant, and powerful beyond all others whose power is on the sea, and whose position is therefore such as to enable it to act with the greatest stress upon the great roads of Trade, whether in defence of its own commerce or in offence against the commerce of its enemy.

In Peace as in War, the important consideration for a Nation is its Supplies. In peace a prosperous nation secures them in ample variety and ample quantity, but always with the greater completeness and facility in proportion to its greater command of and access to the Sea-Roads given to it by its geographical position and its practice of seafaring.

In War it is an elementary axiom that to obtain and to retain the command of the enemy's channels of Supply is to acquire over him a superiority for which neither numbers nor valour, nor any other thing whatever will compensate.

And now, since it has been shown that Trade, the

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source of Supplies, is in general mainly and increasingly carried on by Sea, it seems undoubtedly to follow as a necessary corollary to the strategic axiom just quoted, that a nation which possesses supremacy at sea, and the consequent power to stop at sea the enemy's Supplies, must have an enormous advantage over all others which lack that power. Neither has experience failed to prove that this is indeed the case.

CHAPTER VII.

CAPTURE OF ENEMY'S PROPERTY IN NEUTRAL

VESSELS.

THE law of nations allows war for the resistance of aggression and the prosecution of a right, at sea as well as on land, and it consequently must and does allow the effectual prosecution of that war by the infliction of injury on the enemy through the capture of his property. For it allows the destruction of life and cannot therefore but allow the capture of property. If it allows the taking of life it must allow the taking of property. Nor has there ever been, nor is there any dispute that it does allow this.

But the point to be observed is this-that unless a belligerent may take his enemy's property out of neutral as well as hostile vessels, he is practically debarred from taking it at all; since his enemy can, and for the sake of avoiding risk undoubtedly will, ship his goods under the neutral flag so long as the war lasts. When this is remembered the importance of the point becomes at once apparent.

Let us first examine the reason of the matter, next consult the authorities upon it, and finally ascertain what the practice has been with regard to it.

The reason of the matter is this: A nation when at war has the right to injure its enemy, both in his person and in his property, wherever it can find him, and those only can contest this who contest the right

to go to war at all. A belligerent therefore has the right to inflict injury by capturing his enemy's property, for he has the right to inflict it by taking his enemy's life. But while this is admitted, it is said that the neutral has a conflicting right, the right, namely, to carry on his commerce as freely as he is accustomed to do in time of peace.

With this neutral right it is said the belligerent must not interfere any more than the neutral must interfere with the right of the belligerent. And, moreover, it is argued, the belligerent cannot interfere with it since a neutral ship is held to be neutral territory which cannot be violated.

Now if it were true that there were two rights, and if they conflicted as is said, there can be no doubt as to which of the two should have the preponderance. The belligerent has his existence, for that is the final stake in war, to defend; upon the exercise of his powers of offence depends his power to defend it, and just in proportion as he is shorn of these so is he brought near to destruction. Not so the neutral. He is secure since no man assails him; if his right be touched, nay, if it be overthrown altogether, no harm can come to him beyond a temporary loss of profit ending with the war which, if it be so, occasions it. And if it were true that a nation defending its existence by the exercise of a right must by exercising it cause a temporary diminution in the profits of a nation in no peril of its existence, the law of Reason and of Nature must allow and sanction the injury.

But the argument does not rest upon this ground. It rests upon the very nature of neutrality itself. Neutrality consists in standing utterly aloof from taking any part whatever in a struggle between