§ I think it will be convenient to the Committee to point out to what extent this reduction has affected the additional debt caused by the war. The debt contracted during the war was as follows:—Treasury bills, £13,000,000; Exchequer bonds, amounting in all to £24,000,000; the War Loan stock, which falls due in 1910, £30,000,000; and the new issue of Consols, £92,000,000. So that the total addition made to the debt of the country in consequence of the war was £159,000,000. Now, Sir, it will be interesting to the Committee to see how far that additional debt has been reduced. It now stands at £138,827,000. In other words the war debt has been reduced, almost entirely in the last two years, by £20,173,000, and of that amount the reduction effected in the last financial year 1906–7 was £9,643,000. That is to say, what I have said shows that during the past year the war debt has been reduced by £9,643,000, and the total deadweight debt by £13,714,000. That does not complete the matter, because we have also the other capital liabilities of the State to take into account. In regard to those other liabilities, I anticipated that we might have to raise during the year £6,500,000, which, after allowing for the Sinking Fund charged upon the Votes, would mean a total net addition of £4,600,000. The total amount issued has been £5,975,000, of which £420,000 is provided out of balances, and the amount borrowed therefore was reduced to £5,555,000, and as the various Sinking Funds that came into operation during the year amounted to £l,666,000, the net addition to the debt was £3,889,000. Some of these items, I am glad to say, will never reappear, one in particular—the Cunard agreement, under which we had to issue last year £1,684,000. If the addition under that head is subtracted from the reduction made on the National Debt, it will appear that the gross liabilities of the nation were reduced during the year by £9,825,000.