36  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

wideness  of  area  of  the  market  to  the  supply  of  which  it
contributes.  When  a  manufacturer  or  a  trader  supplied
a  small  local  market  of  known  customers  whose  habits
of  consumption  were  pretty  fixed,  and  who  were
practically  unable  to  go  for  their  supply  outside  this
small  market,  a  regularity  of  local  demand  prevailed
which  also  implied  a  regularity  of  production.  The
resources  and  methods  of  production  of  one’s  trade
competitors  were  known  and  were  not  subject  to  such
rapid  changes  as  would  enable  them  to  draw  away  quickly
a  “  custom  "  once  established.  The  expansion  of  market
area,  directly  attributable  to  improved  methods  of  communication ­
  and  transport,  renders  every  business  man
liable  to  the  keen  competition  of  rivals  in  distant  parts
of  the  country  or  in  foreign  lands  with  whose  existence,
economic  resources,  and  methods  of  production  he  is  not
familiar.  Although  he  does  his  best  to  keep  himself  au
courant  with  the  movements  of  the  wider  market,  that
market  is  constantly  growing  larger  and  more  complex,
and  he  finds  it  quite  impossible  to  obtain  a  knowledge
of  the  corn  or  wool  or  iron  market  of  the  world  so
reliable  as  that  which  he  once  possessed  of  the  narrower
area.  To  take  a  familiar  example,  the  education  of  the
English  farmer  is  utterly  inadequate  to  enable  him  to
follow  the  world-market  for  wheat  or  pigs,  which  is  constantly ­
  expanding  or  contracting  by  the  influence  of
economic  and  political  factors  which  are  utterly  outside
his  ken.  This  applies  more  or  less  to  an  ever-increasing
number  of  trades.
§  j.  The  Speculative  Nature  of  Modern  Industry.
Not  only  are  the  individual  businesses  compelled  to