Many European museums hold objects taken from other countries during the colonial period, and requests for their return have grown harder to refuse. Museums have long argued that they preserve the objects and display them to a wider public than a smaller national museum could reach. Critics reply that this argument would justify holding anything from anywhere, and that it was never applied to objects taken from European countries in wartime, which were returned without much debate. The inconsistency, rather than the principle, has done most to shift opinion.