actual consumer, seems to feel very slowly and imperfectly the effect of competition; and, when competition does exist, [pg 177] it often, instead of lowering prices, merely divides the gains of the high price among a greater number of dealers. The influence of competition is making itself felt more and more through the principal branches of retail trade in the large towns.
All professional remuneration is regulated by custom. The fees of physicians, surgeons, and barristers, the charges of attorneys, are nearly invariable. Not certainly for want of abundant competition in those professions, but because the competition operates by diminishing each competitor's chance of fees, not by lowering the fees themselves.
These observations must be received as a general correction to be applied whenever relevant, whether expressly mentioned or not, to the conclusions contained in the subsequent portions of this treatise. Our reasonings must, in general, proceed as if the known and natural effects of competition were actually produced by it, in all