106 ASSECTS OF OLD AGE PENSIONS. 



ments, or other forms of claim, lie wholly within the arti- 

 ficial domain of what may be termed "Banking Economics, ' 

 and although the latter domain is absolutely essential to- 

 the existing form of State Socialism in building up, measur- 

 ing, distributing, or determining the various forms of in- 

 dividual claims upon or titles to the economist's nominal 

 "wealth of exchange" — the distribution of it by any pro- 

 cess, neither in itself forms part, nor can it augment or 

 diminish the needful store of real "consumable wealth" 

 (mostlv perishable or wasted if not used within the year of 

 production) produced by labour, instruments of pro- 

 duction, and Nature's free gifts, of any one year, upon 

 which alone all persons depend for the real essentials of 

 life, health, comfort, and well-being. 



Nominal capital, or other claim or title to economists' 

 "wealth of exchange" (i.e., money, promissory notes, mort- 

 gages, stocks, title deeds of property, capital invested in 

 instruments of production, and such like), however skilfully 

 and mathematically summed up by accretions of interest: 

 forborne, and however great, can never be put in force in 

 excess of the actual volume of "consumable wealth" (real 

 wealth") which has been produced or is available for con- 

 sumption in any one year, nor can such claims immediately^ 

 by any process of finance, create, augment, or diminish any 

 portion of the year's products. All such artificial claims 

 are of necessity limited in application, to the measurement 

 and allocation of title or claim to whatever consumable 

 wealth may be absolutely necessary to the claimant, and 

 available at the moment of presentation of claim. 



The well-being of any community in any one year is, 

 therefore, determined, not by the nominal capital or 

 annual values of its instruments of production, but by the 

 volume and character of the created products of the year 

 available to all claimants for consumption. 



To realise this most important distinction more closely 

 in a practical way, let us examine the well-being of a 

 country by its "Standard of Living," i.e., its average wealtii 

 yearly consumed and enjoyed. 



Let us, for illustration, take the experience at the pre- 

 sent dav of the estimated average "Standard of Livinor" 

 of the people of the Commonwealth of Australia, and its 

 character as shown in the following summary : — 



