It serves their private gain by lending effectual countenance to such restraint of international trade as would not be tolerated within the national domain.

In so doing it has also the secondary and more sinister effect of dividing the nations on lines of rivalry and setting up irreconcilable claims and ambitions, of no material value but of far-reaching effect in the way of provocation to further international estrangement and eventual breach of the peace.
How all this falls in with the schemes of militant statesmen, and further reacts on the freedom and personal fortunes of the common man, is an extensive and intricate topic, though not an obscure one; and it has already been spoken of above, perhaps as fully as need be..