a large amount of business is to be done: it implies, therefore, either a populous and flourishing community, or a great opening for exportation.
In the countries in which there are the largest markets, the widest diffusion of commercial confidence and enterprise, the greatest annual increase of capital, and the greatest number of large capitals owned by individuals, there is a tendency to substitute more and more, in one branch of industry after another, large establishments for small ones. These are almost always able to undersell the smaller tradesmen, partly, it is understood, by means of division of labor, and the economy occasioned by limiting the employment of skilled agency to cases where skill is required; and partly, no doubt, by the saving of labor arising from the great scale of the transactions; as it costs no more time, and not much more exertion of mind, to make a large purchase, for