§ Before I come to deal with the figures of the new year, I must make a few remarks on the National Debt. The broad features of the National Debt 239 last year were two. First, there was a large issue of Consols in connection with the war; and secondly, the Sinking Fund, after being suspended as far as it could be for two years, was re-established. I draw a distinction, as my predecessors have done before me, between what may be called the dead-weight debt, the debt for which there is nothing to show, and the other debt for which there is something to show in the shape of capital works. The Funded Debt on 31st Match last stood at £640,086,000, having on the one hand been increased by £32,000,000 Consols, and reduced, on the other hand, by the operation of Life Annuities and other miscellaneous means by £1,501,000; that is, having been augmented on balance to the extent of £30,499,000. The liability in respect of terminable annuities stood at £55,560,000, having been reduced in the year by the operation of the Sinking Fund to the extent of £4,735,000. The Unfunded Debt remained unchanged at £75,133,000, so that at the end of last year the total of the dead-weight debt was £770,779,000. To this total there should be added other liabilities which, having been increased by £7,370,000 in the year, stood on the 31st March last at £27,570,000, so that the State's aggregate liabilities amounted to £798,349,000, having been increased in the year by £33,134,000. The Committee will wish to know how much of the National Debt was necessitated by the war. I give the principal details. First: the Funded Debt was increased by the creation of Consols for £92,000,000; the Unfunded Debt, by the creation of the War Loan, amounting to £30,000,000, by Exchequer Bonds for £24,000,000, and by Treasury Bills for £13,000,000, altogether £67,000,000. The total War Debt thus comes to £159,000,000. This is an enormous sum to have raised in two years and a half, and I think it is very satisfactory that we have been so loyally and readily supported by the City. I doubt if my right hon. friend's difficulties have been appreciated. He had conflicting interests to reconcile as best he could; the interests of the nation which had to borrow on so gigantic a scale, and the interests of the Money Market which had to find such huge sums. I think it is wonderful how well he surmounted those difficulties, and I 240 believe the interests of the tax-payers were well protected.