AND ON THE CONTINENT.

55

by side with spinning, the raw-material market was already themost advanced product-market of the world, with which thetechnicalities of the modern world’s commerce were perfected. Itenjoyed already in the “thirties” a division of labour developedin the highest degree. As, however, on the other hand, weaving,being in closer proximity to the consumers, was technically stillbehind, so was it also with the mediating commercial elementbetween manufacturers and consumers.

The reasons for these results are also similar. As CentralisedIndustry in weaving required first that of spinning, so- the wholecotton industry required the cotton market. The investment oflarge sums in centralised industries was not possible until theinvestors were certain of the regular delivery of the raw material,and an organised market already lessened the dangers of extremevariations of price. But the possibility of such a market wasproduced because purely commercial, calculating people came hereinto contact with one another. It was otherwise with the relationto ,the consumer. As long as the English factory owner, as therepresentative of the oldest centralised industry, found himselfin a sort of position of monopoly as compared with his customers,the formation of a highly developed organisation for sale was notnecessary. This appeared in proportion as these advantages dis-appeared, and it was solely economical superiority which assuredto the English industry its market for sale.

To the following of every industry, from tho buying of the rawmaterial to the sale of the finished article, there are connected agreat many dangers of the most variable kind—dangers which,however, allow themselves to be extraordinarily diminished byan intimate practical knowledge of the controlling conditions.Hence division of labour, wherever it is possible, in such a mannerthat, for every risk which demands control of one of the groupsof certainties contained within it a special organ is created.

Now this was already in a high degree the case in the “ thirties”in the cotton market. Here, on the one hand, stood the importingmerchant with his office in Liverpool. His task was to makehimself conversant with the American market—a risk of suchgreatness, with the difficult traffic and communication conditionsof the time, that he at first even imported the cotton, not at hisown risk, but on commission for account of the Americans againstcash on account. But already in the first half of the centurycame, in place of the importing commission house, the real