§ In my Budget Estimate I anticipated that, excluding the tax on coal 51.8 per cent, of our tax revenue would be derived from indirect taxes. Owing to the circumstances I have mentioned, they have contributed only 50.9 per cent.
§ Customs and Excise having disappointed my expectations, it is to direct taxation that I owe the near approximation of the actual receipts to my Budget Estimate. Death duties, it is true, produced only £12,350,000, or £650,000 less than I had anticipated. The result must be ascribed in the main to the fact that we were less than usually fortunate—I hope the Committee will pardon me that expression—in the earlier portion of the year, in the matter of large estates. Stamps began badly, but they more than made good the deficit of the earlier months in the latter portion of the year. They produced £150,000 more than our Estimate, or £7,700,000. Land tax and house duty show an excess of £100,000.