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( 23 ) than foreigners can, which you can furnish them with upon better terms than foreigners can, not a penny do you get in consequence of the monopoly, more than you would without it. You prevent their buying their goods of any body but your own people: true: but what does this signify? you do not force them to buy of any one or more of your own people to the exclusion of the rest. Your own people then have still the faculty of underselling one another without stint, and they have the same inducement to exercise that faculty under the monopoly as they would have without it. It is still the competition that sets the price. In this case as in the other, the monopoly is a chip in porridge. It is still the proportion of the profit of these branches of trade to the average rate of profit in trade that regulates this competition: it is still the quantity of the capital which there is to be employed in trade that regulates the average rate of profit in trade.

In the instance of such articles as you can not make better or cheaper than foreigners can, in the instance of articles which you can not furnish them with on better terms than foreigners can, it is still the same