y the fear of the worries of buying and selling as between
them.

The explanation of differences in respect of the degree of commercial
specialism in different places and industries can be formulated only
very generally. Time is required for the differentiation and
localization to take place. The English cotton trade had not advanced
very far in the "'thirties," if we are to judge from the evidence given
to commissions and parliamentary committees. The general conditions
under which commercial specialism evolves may be taken to be a
moderately limited range of products which do not present many
varieties, and the qualities of which can be judged generally on
inspection. In such circumstances private markets need not be built up,
as they must be, for instance, for a new brand of soap which claims some
subtle superiority to all others. Soaps under present conditions must be
marketed by their producers. Broadly stated, if there be little
competition as to substitutes, though there may be much as to price in
relation to quality, commercial functions may specialize. On the whole
this is the case in the cotton industry; in so far as it is not and
firms produce specialities, they undertake much of the marketing work
themselves.

The advantages of commercial specialism are numerous. Firstly it allows
of differentiation of industrial processes, and this, of necessity, is
accompanied by increasing returns. When weaving dissociates from
spinning, both the number of looms in each business and the number of
spindles in each business tend to increase; more division of labour is
therefore secured, and lower costs of production are reached, and there
is a further gain because producers concentrate their attention upon a
smaller range of work. Again when producers are freed entirely, or to
some extent, from commercial worries, they can attain a higher level of
efficiency at the industrial task of mill organization, and a more
perfect accommodation of capacity to function will be brought about. If
the business unit is (aA[alpha]), a particular person may retain his
place in the market by reason of his excellence at the work a or
[alpha], though as works organizer (i.e. at the performances of function
A) he may be incompetent. The heads of businesses will succeed according
to their average capacities at the three tasks a, A and [alpha], and
there is no guarantee, therefore, that any one of these tasks will be
performed with the highest