Now, what is the essential difference between Tariff Reformers and the advocates of the present system? I must dwell on this even at the risk of appearing tiresome, because there is so much misunderstanding on the subject. In the eyes of the advocates of the present system, the statesman, or at any rate the British statesman, when he approaches fiscal policy, is confronted with the choice of Hercules. He is placed, like the rider in the old legend, between the black and the white horseman. On the one hand is an angel of light called Free Trade; on the other a limb of Satan called Protection. The one is entirely and always right; the other is entirely and always wrong. All fiscal wisdom is summed up in clinging desperately to the one and eschewing like sin anything that has the slightest flavour of the other. Now, that view has certainly the merit of simplicity, and simplicity is a very great thing; but, if we look at history, it does not seem quite to bear out this simple view. This country became one of the greatest and wealthiest in the world under a system of rigid Protection. It has enjoyed great, though by no means unbroken, prosperity under Free Trade. Side by side with that system of ours other countries have prospered even more under quite different systems. These facts alone are sufficient to justify the critical spirit, which is the spirit of the Tariff Reformer. He does not believe in any absolute right or wrong in such a matter as the imposition of duties upon imports. Such duties cannot, he thinks, be judged by one single test, namely, whether they do or do not favour the home producer, and be condemned out of hand if they do favour him.