FROM HOAVL FOR 'RECIPROCITY' TO PRESENT DAY 253 



paid for so many years both for subscription to our 

 stakes, &c., which they had small chance of winning, 

 and for the horses and mares we sold them (at great 

 prices very often), and because by so liberally inviting 

 them to come and be beaten we encourasjed them to go 

 on buying and persevering, at the same time that by 

 continuing to beat them we raised our prestige and the 

 value of our produce, if anybody should want to buy 

 any. Furthermore the French had not asked us to 

 open our racecourses to them ; it had been quite 

 voluntary (not without some a7Tiere-pensee, not alto- 

 gether unlike that with which the sjDider invites the 

 fly) on our part, and they really had some reason when 

 they said that they had already opened (partly only, 

 because of that aw^kward Sunday) the Grand Prix (the 

 most valuable of all races on the Continent and not 

 less valuable than any in England, as a general rule), 

 that we had taken considerable advantage of the chance, 

 that there were almost insurmountable difficulties in 

 the way of opening all their races just at present, that 

 they would very likely, however, be all opened in good 

 time, but that it was for them and not for us to sav 

 when that time had arrived. Moreover, if w^e did 

 exclude their horses, just when they were beginning to 

 show a general superiority to ours, it was evident to 

 the meanest capacity that such a step would be very 

 likely to endanger our prestige and to depreciate our 

 thoroughbred produce. Lastly, what would be the 

 good of reciprocity? For the owner of horses England 

 was still and was pretty sure to be always a better sort 

 of Tom Tiddler's ground than any Continental country ; 

 and, so far as the French were concerned (against 

 whom the howl for reciprocity was chiefly directed, 

 not only because they were sinners above all foreigners 



