ABSTRACT
The development of capitalist financing of industry in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and the replacement of independent handicrafts by the "putting-out" system finds its essential explanation in the changing conditions of markets. As regards heavy goods, a very interesting example of early concentrative organization is the Newcastle coal gild, the forerunner of the much later Limitation of the Vend. English coal of the north-eastern districts enjoyed at an early date the afore-mentioned advantages in regard to distant shipment. The system of commercial travellers had made its appearance. The Manchester manufacturers "riders out", who carried patterns of their wares, and had their orders, sent by carrier, formed a numerous class by the middle of the century. The possible transformation of local markets into a national market manifested itself in the creation of a concentrative producers' organization. New facts provide the importance of a widening of markets with respect to early capitalist concentration of production.
