This, then, is the clear issue raised by the Order in Council for the judgment of any tribunal, national or international, to which it may hereafter be submitted, and of the world to which it is now submitted. And the position is, in my humble judgment, and in spite of the critics on our own side, unassailable. Nations, no more than individuals, are not to be bound by mere phraseology, especially in such a subject as this, without knowing what the terms used mean. ‘Blockade’ is a mere term, explaining what belligerent nations do, but not why they do it nor why neutral nations silently acquiesce.[51] It tells nothing of the right to do it. On the contrary it seems, for a hundred years, to have successfully blinded men by its technical conditions to the fact that the so-called right to declare a blockade is no more than a declaration of an intention by a belligerent to stop _all_ supplies from going to the enemy, and stopping them. Is it not abundantly clear that that intention cannot be nullified by the cleverness of the neutral merchant in ‘darkening and disguising’ the fact that they are going to the enemy? That, then, we have declared by the Order in Council to be our intention, and we have acted on it. It may be that, in regard to cotton, we have exercised it imperfectly; some neutral merchants may have successfully evaded the vigilance of our ships. Human agencies are never quite perfect; of all, even though they be official, Rostand’s philosophy is, alas! too true: Sache donc cette triste et rassurante chose, Que nul, Coq du matin ou Rossignol du soir, N’a tout-à-fait le chant qu’il rêverait d’avoir. But because the ingenuity of the neutral merchant and his confederates has, as it is said, so far greatly baffled the vigilance of the mightiest fleet that ever stood guard upon the sea, the critics of the Government protest that we should fall back on the lesser remedy of declaring cotton contraband, and revoke, abandon, or ignore the more strenuous remedy provided by the Order in Council. It is difficult to appreciate the position these critics take up; it can only be explained by a lack of understanding of the real meaning of the Order. This these articles have endeavoured to do.