a smaller number do vs a smaller number does

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Some examples from the web:

• Mostly deploying south, a smaller number east.
• If necessary, we should involve a smaller number of countries.
• Look, I guess I could take you on at a smaller number.
• All eurozone members, then, have an interest in concentrating in a smaller number of constituencies, with the EFSF representing their collective interests within the IMF.
• If in the message implementation manuals a smaller number is used than the ISO standard requires, then this shall be indicated within brackets.
• But it is also true that a smaller number of indicators would make it much more difficult to interpret the reality we are trying to understand.
• Firms have followed the same trend by keeping a smaller number of production, storage and distribution centres.
• If it didn't produce a lot of this toxin, then you might find a smaller number.
• But, rather surprisingly, a smaller number, seven, works even better.
• In fact, incomes have been preserved due to the concentration of productivity in a smaller number of producers and the abandonment of the land from small farmers.
• The subsidy therefore allows consumers to enjoy a much wider offer at the same price as a previously available, much simpler decoder giving access to a smaller number of services.
• The fact that the economic cost of concentrating on a smaller number of large projects far outweighs increased expenditure on staff brought about by adopting appropriate solutions appears to be a matter which is of interest to no-one.
• Over the past 30 years, a smaller number of the Psiloriti and Sfakia breeds have also been reared; they are also suited to middle-mountain conditions.
• For one thing, there is a smaller number of exceptions in its field of application, and less scope for the deviations that made it substantially ineffectual - if not burdensome - for exactly those regions which are supposedly facing particularly acute problems.
• We have the impression that the problems in Serbia and Macedonia are largely due to human trafficking, and that this definitely affects a smaller number of people, even if it causes serious problems.
• We have deliberately chosen to focus on a smaller number of targets rather than the plethora of targets that got lost in the Lisbon Strategy.
• It is a threat to solidarity between the generations, because a smaller number of professionally active people than at present will have to bear the ever-increasing cost of benefits, allowances, pensions, care and health services for those who are not in work.
• The market shares were calculated taking into account not all airports in Europe, but a smaller number of airports, which are most likely to exert a competitive pressure on VIE.
• Still they return, in smaller numbers, to remind their power.
• On the size of the Commission, for instance, the formulas that are likely to be adopted tomorrow will refer either to one Commissioner per Member State or to a smaller number, a fixed number of Commissioners.