842 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



tons of iron of a specified brand, to any person who shall lodge 

 this document with me after such and such a date." The war- 

 rants pass from hand without indorsation. They "are treated in 

 practice as if they w 7 ere negotiable instruments. Now, the posi- 

 tion of these warrants in law, according to the older authorities, 

 is that they are not negotiable instruments : the law does not, or 

 did not accept or adopt them as such. ... It is attempted to 

 make these iron warrants negotiable by agreeing that anybody 

 who holds them for value shall be entitled absolutely to delivery, 

 and that he shall have no concern with the state of accounts 

 between the iron master and the original purchaser of the war- 

 rant. The law says, or said, that it is not to be allowed, and 

 therefore these warrants stand, or stood, in no better position in 

 law than proper delivery orders. Indeed, it is doubtful if they are 

 not in a worse position, because a proper delivery order is ex- 

 pressed in favor of a certain named person, while the warrants 

 are blank or to bearer." 



It is needless to cite the cases upon which these statements 

 are based. The law thus distinguishes between delivery orders, 

 the Scotch warrants, and the dock warrants of the law of England 

 as typified in the East and West India dock warrants of London. 

 Evidently, too, the economic significance of these instruments 

 has not been limited to the field within which they can safely be 

 used under a strict interpretation of the law. Agreement among 

 business men and regard for such commercial usages have tended 

 to give these instruments in substance the flexibility possessed in 

 fact by the bill of lading. The peculiar circumstances of the rise 

 of the warehousing system at London was doubtless of material 

 importance in the establishment of these practices. 



III. TRANSACTIONS OF THE MODERN MARKETS 



The transactions of modern commerce which contain no ele- 

 ment of speculation fall into two general classes that are distinct 

 both in form and in purpose. There are various forms of arbi- 

 trage dealings which are designed to secure a certain gain by 

 reason of excessive differences in the prices current on different 



