A commercial course 2. [antikvár]

PREFACEThe first volume of this course covered the various functions of commerce, the work of the wholesaler and the forms and controls of business organisations from the sole trader to the limited liability company. It discussed the work of the various departments of a business concern, gave guidance on and numerous examples of Commercial Correspondence, examined methods of payment and traced, with documents, the full course of a home and of an export transaction.The present volume charts an even wider area. It takes the reader to 'the City' and explains what goes on there ; it describes the Banking System and the London Money Market, the Capital Market and Foreign Exchanges ; it visits the Stock Exchange and follows a t5^ical buying transaction ; it sees how Lloyd's developed from a small seventeenth-century coffee-house into an organisation whose name is known in every country in the world ; it watches the work of the 'Baltic' and of the Commodity Markets and notes how the 'Spot' and 'Futures' markets function ; it discusses aspects of Foreign Tradeso vital to Britain's welfareand explains the working of Customs and Excise duties. Bonded Warehouses, Free Ports and Import and Export controls. Turning homewards again to the question of Distribution and Marketing it studies in detail such subjects as the new techniques of the Self-Service Store and the Supermarket, Market Research, Consumer Guidance, Standardisation and the 1956 legislation on Resale Price Maintenance. Two chapters describe the growth of large-scale organisations in Trade and Industry Combines, Cartels and Trusts on the one side and the Trade Unions on the otherand review the relations between them. Special emphasis is given to such new, or comparatively new, developments as Nationalisation and 'Automation', and their effect on the individual is studied. The much discussed problem of Restrictive Practices by management and labour and the attempts to curb their excesses are critically examined.