These con?icts have been on a titanic scale. They have led to the ending of the liberties of free peoples, to colonies and protectorates, to the closed door, to the imprisonment of the Mediterranean, to the raising of obstacles and Gibraltars to free dom of trade and commerce. They have created a thousand rumors, suspicions, and hatreds, a great increase in armaments for the protection of private investments they have glven birth to diplomatic intrigues and demonstrations of force that have changed a con?ict of private groups into a con?ict of peoples.