There is no available evidence that it has any effect of the kind.

What is not an open question is the patent fact that such an extension of trade confers no benefit on the common man, who is not engaged in the import or export business.

More particularly does it yield him no advantage at all commensurate with the cost involved in any endeavour so to increase the volume of trade by increasing the nation's power and extending its dominion.

The profits of trade go not to the common man at large but to the traders whose capital is invested; and it is a completely idle matter to the common citizen whether the traders who profit by the nation's trade are his compatriots or not.[6] [Footnote 6: All this, which should be plain without demonstration, has been repeatedly shown in the expositions of various peace advocates, typically by Mr.Angell.] The pacifist argument on the economic futility of national ambitions will commonly rest its case at this point; having shown as unreservedly as need be that national ambition and all its works belong of right under that rubric of the litany that speaks of Fire, Flood and Pestilence.

But an hereditary bent of human nature is not to be put out of the way with an argument showing that it has its disutilities.