ABSTRACT
The economic welfare of the country is intimately associated with the size of the national dividend, and changes in economic welfare with changes in the size of the dividend. Everybody would agree that an increase in the size of the dividend should mean an increase, and a decrease a decrease, in the number of units of the commodity. If the dividend consisted of a number of different commodities, but the quantities of all of them always varied in equal proportions, there would be no difficulty. The dividend would at any time consist of a certain number of complex units, each of them made up of so much of each commodity, and increases and decreases in the dividend would mean increases and decreases in the number of these complex units. The dividend is an objective thing, consisting in any period of such and such a collection of goods and services that flow into being during the period.
