Every organization, no matter how small, is conducted according to some system, and that system is based upon certain more or less permanent conditions, which, if suddenly changed, make the system inapplicable.  The larger the organization and the more complex it is, the more will it be deranged by any change of external conditions and the longer time will it take to adapt itself to them.

The sudden stoppage of our sea trade, including our coasting trade, by even a partial blockade of our ports, would change practically all the conditions under which we live.  There is hardly a single organization in the country which would not be affected by it.  And, as every organization would know that every other organization would be affected, but to a degree which could not possibly be determined, because there would be no precedent, it cannot be an exaggeration to declare that the blockading of our principal ports would, entirely apart from direct loss of money and other commodities, produce a state of confusion, out of which order could not possibly be evolved except by the raising of the blockade.

In addition to the confusion brought about, there would, of course, be the direct loss of money and non-receipt of imported things; but what would probably be the very worst thing of all would be the numbers of men thrown out of employment by the loss of foreign markets. So long as a country can keep its people in employment, so long the people will live in comparative order.  But when there are many unemployed men in a country, not only do their families lose the means of subsistence, but the very fact of the men being unemployed leads them into mischief.  Should the ports of any great commercial nation be suddenly closed, the greatest danger to the country would not be from the enemy outside, but from the unemployed people inside, unless the government gave them employment, by enlisting them in an enormous, improvised army.

It will be seen, therefore, that the blockading of the principal ports of any purely commercial country would be a disaster so great that there could not be a greater one except actual invasion.  Another disaster might be the total destruction of its fleet by the enemy’s fleet; but the only direct result of this would be that the people of the country would have fewer ships to support and fewer men to pay.  The loss of the fleet and the men would not per se be any loss whatever to the country, but rather a gain.  The loss of the fleet, however, would make it possible for the enemy’s fleet to blockade our ports later, and thus bring about the horrors of which we have spoken.