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But the public would be a gainer, the work of all artificers

coming in this way much cheaper to market.

It is to prevent this reduction of price, and consequently of

wages and profit, by restraining that free competition which

would most certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the

greater part of corporation laws have been established. In order

to erect a corporation, no other authority in ancient times was

requisite, in many parts of Europe, but that of the

town-corporate in which it was established. In England, indeed, a

charter from the king was likewise necessary. But this

prerogative of the crown seems to have been reserved rather for

extorting money from the subject, than for the defence of the

common liberty against such oppressive monopolies.