If every merchant had only as much capital as he himself were able to turn
 over by his own labour, there would be infinite fragmentation of merchant's
 capital. This fragmentation would increase in the same proportion as productive
 capital raised production and operated with greater masses in the forward march
 of the capitalist mode of production. Hence, an increasing disproportion of the
 two. Capital in the sphere of circulation would become decentralised in the
 same proportion as it became centralised in the sphere of production. The
 purely commercial business of the industrial capitalist, and thus his purely
 commercial expenses, would expand infinitely thereby, for he would have to deal
 with, say, 1,000 merchants, instead of 100. Thus, the advantages of
 independently operating merchant's capital would largely be lost. And not the
 purely commercial expenses alone, but also the other costs of circulation, such
 as sorting, expressage, etc., would grow. This, as far as the industrial
 capital is concerned. Now let us consider merchant's capital. Firstly, the
 purely commercial operations. It does not take more time to deal with large
 figures than with small ones. It takes ten times as much time to make 10
 purchases at £100 each as it does to make one purchase at £1,000. It
 takes ten times as much correspondence, paper, and postage, to correspond with
 10 small merchants as it does with one large merchant. The clearly
 defined division of labour in a commercial office, in which one keeps the
 books, another looks after money matters, a third has charge of correspondence,
 one buys, another sells, a third travels, etc., saves immense quantities of
 labour-time, so that the number of workers employed in wholesale commerce are
 in no way related to the comparative size of the establishment. This is so,
 because in commerce much more than in industry the same function requires the
 same labour-time, whether performed on a large or a small scale. This is the
 reason why concentration appears earlier historically in the merchant's
 business than in the industrial workshop. Further, regarding outlays in
 constant capital. One hundred small offices cost incomparably more than one
 large office, 100 small warehouses more than a large one, etc. The costs of
 transport, which enter the accounts of a commercial establishment at least as
 costs to be advanced, grow with the fragmentation.