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competition among traders reduction of prices, till the rate of profit in the trade in question is brought down to the same level as in others.
Were it possible for monopoly to keep prices lower than they would be otherwise, would it be possible for any body to tell how much lower, and how many sixpences a year were saved to sugar-eaters by so many millions imposed upon the people? No, never: for since, where the monopoly subsists against the producers, there is nothing but the monopoly to prevent accession of, and competition among the producers, competition runs along with the monopoly, and to prove that any part of the effect is produced by the monopoly and not by the competition, is impossible.
Oh, but we have not done with them yet? We give ourselves another monopoly—we give ourselves the monopoly of their custom, and so we make them buy things dearer of us than they would otherwise, besides buying things of us which otherwise they would buy of other people, and so we make them pay us for governing them. Mere illusion—In the articles which you can make better and cheaper
than
