The economic structure of the United States rests today upon the assumption of the interdependence of international trade, upon an international division of labor, where England makes some things, Germany others, and we still more, all of which are exchanged.  In a sense each country manufactures and produces for the whole world, and in turn expects the rest of the world to buy its products and to manufacture and produce things for its consumption.  While something of this sort has always been true in international trade, the process reached during the nineteenth century an unprecedented development which actually made countries interdependent, or, if you will, actually dependent for the necessities of life upon each other’s prosperity and continued activity.  Hand in hand went the expansion of the international credit structure, based upon public confidence in the mutual honesty of merchants, until finally personal checks have begun to be exchanged (between the United States and England at least) at par and without investigation or previous indorsement by the banks on which they were drawn.

With the outbreak of war a striking and artificial change, a totally uneconomic and unnatural factor, came to transform the situation and leave the United States for all practical purposes in contact with only two of her really large customers.  We have no merchant marine and cannot therefore avail ourselves of our neutral status to trade with the belligerents.  We shall be compelled (for a time at least) to ship in English bottoms to such ports as English ships can make—­which will practically be limited to England, France, Portugal, Spain, and the Mediterranean ports.  The ordinary commercial roads to Russia through the Baltic are automatically closed by the location of the German fleet, and probably England and France, deprived of other outlets for their own trade, will nearly monopolize the trade with Russia through the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

On the other hand, the mobilization of armies and fleets in Europe will draw millions of men from the field and factories where they have been accustomed to make what we have usually bought.  The war will vastly diminish and in many cases stop altogether the stream of imports to the United States.  These millions of men in the field and on the sea will not possess most of the economic wants they had in time of peace and will become conscious of many which they usually did not feel.  The war will diminish and in many cases entirely stop the stream of ordinary American exports to Europe.  Because of the stoppage of the European supply of things we have usually bought of them, and the cessation of a European demand for things we have usually sold to them, the conditions of the home market, both in regard to what we must buy in it, and to what we must sell in it, will be vitally changed.  When our present supplies of European importations are exhausted, we shall be obliged to make for each other and buy from each other the things which we happen to be no longer able to import or export.  A great readjustment of the economic fabric in the United States will take place if the war lasts longer than a comparatively short time.