analogous means at sea, the
object for which we fight battles almost ceases to exist. Defeat the
enemy's fleets as we may, he will be but little the worse. We shall have
opened the way for invasion, but any of the great continental Powers can
laugh at our attempts to invade single-handed. If we cannot reap the
harvest of our success by deadening his national activities at sea, the
only legitimate means of pressure within our strength will be denied us.
Our fleet, if it would proceed with such secondary operations as are
essential for forcing a peace, will be driven to such barbarous expedients
as the bombardment of seaport towns and destructive raids upon the hostile
coasts.

If the means of pressure which follow successful fighting were abolished
both on land and sea there would be this argument in favour of the change,
that it would mean perhaps for civilised States the entire cessation of
war; for war would become so impotent, that no one would care to engage in
it. It would be an affair between regular armies and fleets, with which the
people had little concern. International quarrels would tend to take the
form of the mediaeval private disputes which were settled by champions in
trial by battle, an absurdity which led rapidly to the domination of purely
legal procedure. If international quarrels could go the same way, humanity
would have advanced a long stride. But the world is scarcely ripe for such
a revolution. Meanwhile to abolish the right of interference with the flow
of private property at sea without abolishing the corresponding right
ashore would only defeat the ends of humanitarians. The great deterrent,
the most powerful check on war, would be gone. It is commerce and finance
which now more than ever control or check the foreign policy of nations. If
commerce and finance stand to lose by war, their influence for a peaceful
solution will be great; and so long as the right of private capture at sea
exists, they stand to lose in every maritime war immediately and inevitably
whatever the ultimate result may be. Abolish the right, and this deterrent
disappears; nay, they will even stand to win immediate gains owing to the
sudden expansion of Government expenditure which the hostilities will
entail, and the expansion of sea commerce which the needs of the armed
forces will create. Any such losses as maritime warfare under existing
conditions must immediately inflict will be remote if interference with
property