ABSTRACT
I T is important to realize that the continuous buying andselling which are characteristic of modern commercialmethods are developments of fairly recent date. Until the beginning of the eighteenth century trade was mainly periodic; that is to say, exchange transactions were for the most part confined to fixed times and places. This was inevitable. When communication was difficult and the volume of trade was slight, the thin and sluggish stream of commerce required to be banked up and conducted through well-defined channels. Under such conditions, the natural centres of traffic were the periodical gatherings of buyers and sellers at fairs and markets, and it was through these institutions that the bulk of commercial business was carried on. The transition to continuous buying and selling began in the late eighteenth century, but the movement made little progress, until the development of the railway and the steamship broke down the physical barriers to communication. Thereupon the stream of trade swelled and overflowed the banks which had been erected to confine it. The limitations of time and space within which the trader had hitherto worked were removed. The area over which commercial transactions took place expanded; the time during which they took place extended; periodic trading disappeared; markets and fairs gradually lost their importance and fresh commercial institutions were created to meet the new conditions. The result was a revolution in the methods of trade, comparable in importance and to some extent in general character to the revolutions already described in agriculture and industry. Its main features will be briefly indicated in what follows.
