WAGES, PROFITS AND INTEREST 185 
given industry there is a fixed number of 
employers. As they are equally efficient and 
enjoy alike the confidence of capitalists, they 
will have businesses of about the same size, 
employing the same number of work-people— 
any difference of ideas which the employers 
might have in the matter of the proportions 
in which the factors in production are best 
organized being disregarded for the moment. 
Then each employer would get for himself the 
difference between the total receipts for his 
output and his total outlay, the total outlay 
being made up of the payment for land or 
premises, cost of any necessary material and 
accessories, interest on capital and wages for 
labour. It has to be proved that this differ 
ence will normally be a positive quantity ; 
that after all expenses of production are paid 
there will be something left over. 
That something may be left over can 
be demonstrated from what we have learnt 
already in Chapter III. Let us picture to 
ourselves the doings of an employer who, 
after starting a business on a very small scale, 
gradually expands it, and consider, in the 
light of the generalisations already laid down 
with reference to production, how expenses 
will be affected by an increase of the output. 
Because in the larger business more division