§ I now passon to the out-turn of the past year, and in order that it may be followed it is necessary for me to go back briefly to the proposals of my predecessor, who, it will be remembered, last year produced what I will call a first edition of the Budget in April, when the war was going on, and the second edition in June, after peace had been concluded. The financial proposals of the first edition of last year's Budget were as follows: the expenditure for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer found he had to provide, after the suspension of the Sinking Fund, was £170,719,000; but as the end of the war was not in sight, he put the probable supplementary requirements at £17,750,000, bringing the aggregate requirements up to £188,469,000. To meet this expenditure he estimated that the existing sources of revenue would yield £147,785,000, and the additional taxes £5.150,000, together £152,935,000, the deficit with which he was thus faced amountingto£35,534,000. This deficit he intended to meet out of the proceeds of a loan of £32,000,000 Consols, and by draft on existing balances. But some weeks afterwards peace was arranged, and he was enabled to dispense with almost all the supplementary requirements. He had, however, already raised his Consols loan, issuing the stock at 93½, which would produce £29,920,000 in cash. This being so, he was strongly urged to drop his additional taxation. There was, however, considerable uncertainty about the requirements on the cessation of 233 actual fighting; and he told the Committee that, if it turned out that he had more money than he required, he could usefully employ it in extinguishing some portion of the floating debt, and, more over, he attached great importance to the re-establishment of the Sinking Fund at the earliest possible moment. Therefore, he resisted the temptation to dispense with the extra taxation, and, after re-establishing the Sinking Fund, the expenditure he had to provide for was £176,359,000. He expected the revenue, including the additional taxation, barring the duty on cheques, which he had abandoned, and after certain concessions in regard to the Corn Duty had been made, to yield £152,185,000. The deficit, therefore, was £24,174,000, which would be more than met by the estimated proceeds of the Consols loan, which amounted to £29,920,000; and he would thus have £5,746,000 spare cash, which would be available for unforeseen expenditure, or the repayment of debt. The wisdom of this arrangement made by my right hon. friend has been proved by subsequent events. Making peace has proved almost as costly as making war. If it has not been quite as costly, the cost has still been very considerable. It was found necessary in the autumn to help the Transvaal and Orange River Colony burghers on their return to their homes, and in making good some of the losses incurred in the war by other persons, these outlays involving an estimated expenditure of £5,000,000 in all. It was also deemed necessary to provide the Colonial Governments temporarily with money to enable them to make advances to their people; and the Imperial Government for this purpose granted a loan to the Colonial Governments of £3,000,000, which was included in the Supplementary Vote.