§ My first duty is to pass in review the national accounts for the financial year which Expired on March 31st, 1906. According to the balance-sheet presented in the Budget by my predecessor there 278 was for that year an estimated revenue of £142,454,000 and an estimated expenditure of £142,032,000, leaving a margin for contingencies of £422,000. Both sides of the account have falsified the estimate to an unusual, I think to an unprecedented, degree, but happily in each case the error has turned out to be on the right side. The actual revenue has proved to be £143,978,000, an excess over the estimate of £1,524,000. On the other hand, the Exchequer issues for expenditure have only amounted to £140,512,000, a decrease as compared with the estimate of almost exactly the same sum as the excess of revenue—;namely, £1,520,000. The margin of revenue over expenditure was thus increased by £3,044,000, which, added to the estimated margin of £422,000, brings out a realised surplus for the last year of £3,466,000.