country at the opening of the century was such as to
make the carriage of goods long and expensive. Agricultural produce
was almost entirely for local consumption, with the exception of
cattle and poultry, which were driven on foot from the neighbouring
counties into London and other large markets.[24] In the winter, even
round London, bad roads were a great obstacle to trade. The
impossibility of driving cattle to London later than October often led
to a monopoly of winter supply and high prices.[25] The growth of
turnpike roads, which proceeded apace in the first half of the
century, led to the large substitution of carts for pack horses, but
even these roads were found "execrable" by Arthur Young, and off the
posting routes and the neighbourhood of London the communication was
extremely difficult. "The great roads of England remained almost in
this ancient condition even as late as 1752 and 1754, when the
traveller seldom saw a turnpike for two hundred miles after leaving
the vicinity of London."[26]

Rivers rather than roads were the highways of commerce, and many Acts
were passed in the earlier eighteenth century for improving the
navigability of rivers, as the Trent, Ouse, and Mersey, partly in
order to facilitate internal trade and partly to enable towns like
Leeds and Derby to engage directly in trade by sea,[27] and to connect
adjoining towns such as Liverpool and Manchester. In 1755 the first
canal was constructed, and in the latter part of the century the part
played by canals in the development of the new factory system was
considerable. But in spite of these efforts to improve methods of
transport in the earlier eighteenth century, it is evident that the
bulk of industry was engaged in providing articles for local
consumption, and that the area of the market for most products was
extremely narrow.

The facile transport of both capital and labour, which is essential to
highly specialised local industry, was retarded not merely by lack of
knowledge of the opportunities of remunerative investment, but also by
legal restrictions which had the influence of checking the free
application and migration of labour. The Statute of Apprentices by
requiring a seven years' apprenticeship[28] in many trades, and the
Law of Settlement by impairing mobility of labour, are to be regarded
as essentially protective measures calculated to prevent that
concentrated application of capital and labour required for
specialisatio