When transportation was measured by the strength and endurance of animals, only a limited area could be reached from a given centre. Its slowness and expense confined all inland distribution within narrow bounds. Only eighty years ago it cost $125 to move a ton of freight from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, and the average price for carrying the necessaries of life was not less than twenty cents a ton for every mile of haul. On such a basis most commodities were shut off from distant markets, and farm products would seldom permit of conveyance more than 100 or 150 miles. Only such articles as were of small bulk and weight compared with their value were moved to any considerable distance from the place of production. For this reason the requirements of an ordinary family were almost wholly supplied from nearby sources. And this means—without amplifying the statement—that productive energy, for the most part, was restricted by the consuming capacity of the surrounding neighborhood. The forces outside each separate circle were but feebly felt and had little influence upon its daily affairs. Broadly speaking, the activities of each locality were adjusted to its own conditions and were practically undisturbed by like operations in other places. What we call competition was held in check by slow and costly means of conveyance; its effects were moderate and limited, its friction seldom severe. But the use of steam for motive power and electricity for communication increased enormously the range of accessible markets, and at once intensified competition by the celerity and cheapness of distribution. Industrial strife has already become world-wide in extent, and distance an ineffectual barrier against its destructive assaults. For the commercial factor of distance is not at all a matter of miles, it is merely a question of time and money. The fact that the cost of moving a hundred pounds of goods a single mile by wagon transports a ton of the same goods by rail more than three times further is some indication of the effect of cheap and rapid conveyance in bringing remote places closer together. Our grandparents got their supplies mainly in the localities where they resided and only a few persons were concerned in their production. To-day it may safely be said that five millions of people and five hundred millions of capital are directly or indirectly employed in furnishing an ordinary dinner. When merchandise of every description is carried at great speed from one end of the land to the other, and at an average cost of less than three-quarters of a cent a ton a mile, as is now the case, the expense of transport is but a trifling impediment to the widest distribution.