§ I now turn to the more interesting topic of the prospects of the present year. The estimated expenditure, 1895–6, is £95,981,000, as compared with the sum provided in the Budget of 1894–5, £93,884,000. It thus shows an increase of £2,097,000; and the year 1893–4 was itself an increase of £4,000,000 on its predecessor. This additional £2,000,000 is due, in round numbers: To the Navy, £1,400,000—this, as I have previously stated, would have been £200,000 more but for the anticipation of the expenditure by the Supplementary Estimate in the past year—and to the Civil Service, the excess on which is £600,000, the latter mainly owing to education, which accounts for £385,000. Amongst other objects for which additional provision has to be made in 1895–6 are:—Rates on Government property, £48,000; Revenue buildings, £25,000; Irish railways, £17,000; prisons in Great Britain, £17,000; law charges, £20,000; Cyprus, £35,000; relief of Irish distress, £45,000; superannuation charges, £17,000—making £224,000. The expenditure on the Navy is the largest ever submitted to Parliament since the great war of 1815. To this has to be added the contribution 311 to local expenditure out of Imperial Revenue, £7,262,000, making a total raised from all sources of £103,243,000; and to this must be added the extra £1,000,000 raised in the Naval Works Loan Bill, which does not appear in this account.