§ I should like to make clear a distinction between the two classes of debt, not always apprehended outside the House, and sometimes not even inside. The increase in the dead-weight debt—;by far the most serious increase—;has gone for the most part, as is often said, in powder and shot; and apart from the Suez Canal shares and balances at the Bank there are no countervailing assets, with the exception of course—;not an altogether negligible exception—;of the British Empire which, as we realise on Budget nights, has been to a large degree built up, defended, and developed on borrowed money. Further, the provision which Parliament has made for the reduction of the principal of the dead-weight debt consists since the Act of 1875 of two sinking funds—;the old sinking fund or the realised surplus of the past year, a mere windfall and creature of accident, and the new sinking fund which represents the balance which remains of the fixed charge for the debt after you have paid interest and the cost of management for the year, including principal and interest of the terminable annuities. That is a fairly accurate description of the dead-weight debt.