The generalisation so offered, touching the material conditions of life for the common man under the modern rule of big business, may seem unwarrantably broad. It may be worth while to take note of more than one point in qualification of it, chiefly to avoid the appearance of having overlooked any of the material circumstances of the case. The "system" of large business, working its material consequences through the system of large-scale industry, but more particularly by way of the large-scale and wide-reaching business of trade in the proper sense, draws into the net of its control all parts of the community and all its inhabitants, in some degree of dependence. But there is always, hitherto, an appreciable fraction of the inhabitants--as, e.g., outlying agricultural sections that are in a "backward" state--who are by no means closely bound in the orderly system of business, or closely dependent on the markets. They may be said to enjoy a degree of independence, by virtue of their foregoing as much as may be of the advantages offered by modern industrial specialisation. So also there are the minor and interstitial trades that are still carried on by handicraft methods; these, too, are still somewhat loosely held in the fabric of the business system. There is one thing and another in this way to be taken account of in any exhaustive survey, but the accounting for them will after all amount to nothing better than a gleaning of remnants and partial exceptions, such as will in no material degree derange the general proposition in hand.