ABSTRACT
THE rapid development of retail trade associations with the definite aim of restricting competition is not due to any sudden awakening of a spirit of combination among traders. It coincides with certain fundamental changes in the structure of production, with the tendency towards greater concentration and standardisation of retail trade. A growing tendency towards mass production, resulting from the growing opportunities and facilities for concentrated mass distribution, had been the main stimulus to industrial combination, assisted in many instances by such restrictive measures and conditions as tariffs, patents and the existence of monopolisable raw materials. In industry the movement generally began at the bottom of the productive process, where standardisation and concentration had their first opportunities, as in mining and the manufacture of heavy products 1; it slowly proceeded to the more advanced stages of more elaborate manufacture. There seemed to be little possibility of its extension to the distribution of most products, for these, after having reached their last stages of production, were dispersed into innumerable and diffused selling channels, with sometimes hundreds of thousands of vendors. Where retail distribution began, a barrier seemed to erect itself against further combination on account of
the multiplicity of selling units with their diversified competitive interests and conditions.
