han those which Germany
is now experiencing. If all diplomatic intercourse were withdrawn; if
the international postal and telegraphic systems were closed to a
public law-breaker; if all inter-State railway trains stopped at his
frontiers; if no foreign ships entered his ports, and ships carrying
his flags were excluded from every foreign port; if all coaling
stations were closed to him; if no acts of sale or purchase were
permitted to him in the outside world--if such a political and
commercial boycott were seriously threatened, what country could long
stand out against it? Nay, the far less rigorous measure of a
financial boycott, the closure of all foreign exchanges to members of
the outlaw State, the prohibition of all {243} quotations on foreign
Stock Exchanges, and of all dealings in stocks and shares, all
discounting and acceptances of trade bills, all loans for public or
private purposes, and all payments of moneys due--such a withdrawal of
financial intercourse, if thoroughly applied and persisted in, would be
likely, to bring to its senses the least scrupulous of States.
Assuming that the members of the League included all or most of the
important commercial and financial nations, and that they could be
relied upon to press energetically all or even a few of these forms of
boycott, could any country long resist such pressure? Would not the
threat of it and the knowledge that it could be used form a potent
restraint upon the law-breaker? Even the single weapon of a complete
postal and telegraphic boycott would have enormous efficiency were it
rigorously applied. Every section of the industrial and commercial
community would bring organised pressure upon its government to
withdraw from so intolerable a position and to return to its
international allegiance."

It cannot be assumed that the attempt to organise such a boycott would
be invariably successful. Not all nations would be equally injured,
for while a boycott of Italy or Greece would be fatal, the United
States or Russia might survive such economic pressure. A boycott would
not be easy to enforce. It would be necessary to secure a concert of
opinion and action in states, which, however they may agree upon any
particular question, have widely divergent interests in other matters.
Different boycotting nations would be variously affected. A boycott of
Germany, while it might injure the United States or Japan would almost
certainly ruin Holland and B