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.
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