In active securities where there are very many transactions, Mr. Hirst is disposed to think that the separate existence of jobbers makes for a free market and close prices the very essence of an Exchange’s functions. This may be true, since the jobber is a host in himself, specialist, speculator, trader and jobber--all in one. Where there is a free market, the presence of such a participant undoubtedly adds to it, as any one knows who has dealt with him in lots of from 5,000 to 10,000 shares, at a difference of only a sixteenth. Such a market is a close market _in excelsis_. But in the New York Stock Exchange the same result is obtained far more openly and above-board by the presence in all active securities of a host of such jobbers--brokers, traders, specialists, and speculators--each actively bidding and offering by voice and gesture, and without collusion, and each thereby contributing to the making of the freest possible market and the closest possible price. In New York no middleman stands between the public and the market. It is a fact recognized by all economists that the larger the number of dealers and the freer the competitive bidding, the more accurate the resultant price and the nearer its approach to true value; hence it would seem to follow that in this highly desirable attainment the New York system is superior to that of London. The same comment applies to the market for inactive securities. In London, notwithstanding the quotations printed in the Official List, the public has no assurance that jobbers can be found to deal at those prices, or at prices approaching them. “And when there is a slump in the market and a rush of selling orders with no support,” as Mr. Hirst candidly admits, “as happened in rubber shares in the months of June and July, 1910, the jobbers are apt to be away at lunch all day, and the brokers have to report to their clients that they simply cannot find a purchaser.”[107]