The accomplished Dr. Martin Garcia Mérou remarks: "The situation of the United States is unique in the world. The amazing prosperity of this country is based upon the producing and consuming power of her forty-five independent States, which stretch over an immense continent, and of which some differ in climate and conditions as widely as Spain differs from Norway, but they all have a single system of land and river communication which is without rival and without precedent. The absence of fiscal barriers between those different States is the permanent and fruitful cause of their greatness and prosperity. In this manner a country, which is apparently the most Protectionist in the world, is the very one which demonstrates in the most practical and visible fashion the incalculable benefits of free commerce." This conviction is gaining ground, and there are many persons, intimately conversant with trade and industry, who wish for changes in a liberal direction. Señor Ricardo Pillado, the able chief of the Agricultural Department, has penned many minutes urging a reduction of tariffs, but it is doubtful whether the opinions of a few men, however accomplished, will ever penetrate among an ill-informed population; and even if their views were understood it is most unlikely that they would have power to eradicate the ingrained protective opinions of the masses and to create a feeling among them powerful enough to overcome the resistance of vast interests whose policy is now in complete accord with the feelings of the masses. Señor Pillado says[115]: "For a considerable number of years Protection has been a heavy obstacle to the progress and expansion of our country. Most sincerely do I declare that we all ought to use our utmost efforts to reform a financial system which is grounded in such fundamental errors as protective tariffs."