determine the specialisation of
Staffordshire in this industry.[33]

2. _Facility of Market._--The country round London, Bristol, and other
larger towns became more specialised than the less accessible and more
evenly populated parts, because the needs of a large town population
compelled the specialisation in agriculture of much of the surrounding
country; cottagers could more easily dispose of their manufactures;
improved roads and other facilities for conveyance induced a
specialisation impossible in the purely rural parts.

3. _The Nature of the Commodity._--When all modes of conveyance were
slow the degree of specialisation depended largely upon the keeping
quality of the goods. From this point of view hardware and textiles
are obviously more amenable to local specialisation than the more
perishable forms of food. Where conveyance is difficult and expensive
a commodity bulky for its value is less suitable for local
specialisation in production than one containing a high value in small
weight and bulk. So cloth is more suitable for trade than corn;[34]
and coal, save where navigation is possible, could not be profitably
taken any distance.[35]

The common commodities consumed, as food, fuel, and shelter, were thus
excluded from any considerable amount of specialisation in their
production.

Sec. 8. Turning from consideration of the attributes of goods and of the
means of transport which served to limit the character of internal
trade and determine the size of the market, let us now regard the
structure of the market, the central object in the mechanism of
internal commerce.

The market, not the industry, is the true term which expresses the
group of organically related businesses. How far did England present a
national market? How far was the typical market a district or purely
local one?

The one great national market town was London. It alone may be said to
have drawn supplies from the whole of England, and there alone was it
possible to purchase at any season of the year every kind of produce,
agricultural or manufactured, made anywhere in England or imported
from abroad. This flow to and from the great centre of population was
incessant, and extended to the furthermost parts of the land. Other
large towns, such as Bristol, Leeds, Norwich, maintained close and
constant relations with the neighbouring counties, but exchanged their
produce for the most part only indirectly with that of more distant
parts o