Can competition among buyers possibly take place, when the provision made is more than sufficient to supply the quantity demanded? On the other hand, can competition take place among the sellers, when the quantity demanded exceeds the total provision made for it? I think it may in both cases; because in the one and the other, there is a competition implied on one side of the contract, and the very nature of this competition implies a possibility of its coming on the other, provided separate interests be found upon both sides. But to be more particular. 1. Experience shews, that however justly the proportion between the demand and the supply may be determined in fact, it is still next to impossible to discover it exactly, and therefore buyers can only regulate the prices they offer, by what they may reasonably expect to sell for again. The sellers, on the other hand, can only regulate the prices they expect, by what the merchandize has cost them when brought to market. We have already shewn, how, under such circumstances, the several interests of individuals affect each other, and make the balance vibrate. 2. The proportion between the supply and the demand is seldom other than _relative_ among merchants, who are supposed to buy and sell, not from necessity, but from a view to profit. What I mean by _relative_ is, that their demand is _great_ or _small_, according to prices: there may be a great demand for grain at 35 shillings _per_ quarter, and no demand at all for it at 40 shillings; I say, among merchants. Here I must observe, how essential it is, to attend to the smallest circumstance in matters of this kind. The circumstance I here have in my eye, is the difference I find in the effect of competition, when it takes place purely among merchants on both sides of the contract, and when it happens, that either the consumers mingle themselves with the merchant-buyers, or the manufacturers, that is, the furnishers, mingle themselves with the merchant-sellers. This combination I shall illustrate, by the solution of another question, and then conclude my chapter with a few reflections upon the whole. Can there be no case formed, where the competition upon one side may subsist, without a possibility of its taking place on the other, although there should be separate interests upon both? I answer. The case is hardly supposable among merchants, who buy and sell with a view to profit; but it is absolutely supposable, and that is all, when the direct consumers are the buyers; when the circumstances of one of the parties is perfectly known; and when the competition is so strong upon one side, as to prevent a possibility of its becoming double, before the whole provision is sold off, or the demand satisfied. Let me have recourse to examples.