§ The account of the National Debt, I am afraid, is not quite so satisfactory. On March 31st last it stood at £768,408,000, but that included £20,532,000 expended in reproductive works, and repaid, as the Committee are aware, by Votes on the annual Estimates both as to interest and capital. Deducting that, therefore, as I have done in previous years, the total dead weight of debt was £747,876,000, being £59,884,000 more than last year. That, of course, is due to the Consols loan of £60,000,000 last Spring. The Funded Debt showed a net increase owing to that loan of £58,405,000, because £1,595,000 was paid off owing to the operation of life annuities and the redemption of the Land Tax. There was also an increase of £1,479,000 included in the total, on account of the increased value of terminable annuities, due to the further fall in Consols and the larger amount of stock which would have to be created to replace the annuities. I may state that the Unfunded Debt has not been increased in the year, and that, so far as Treasury Bills are concerned, the average rate of discount at which I have been able to place those Bills in the last six months has been £2 18s. 9d., more than ¾ per cent. less than in the same period of the two previous years.