§ 4.0 P.M.
§ I come now to the Revenue side. First of all, I had better deal with the arrears: from last year. I made a statement to the: House a short time ago indicating that I; expected to collect another £30,000,000 in respect of the arrears of revenue which would have come into the Exchequer if the Budget had passed in due course. I have already collected in respect of those arrears £26,796,000, and great credit is due, both to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and to the Commissioners of Customs and Excise for the admirable way: in which they have surmounted the difficulty. We have practically wiped out the whole deficit of last year already. We have money in hand to take up all the Treasury Bills for the temporary borrowing rendered necessary by the peculiar circumstances of the year. We have almost restored the Exchequer balances, and the money which has not been collected will be in the nature of a surplus upon last year's account. I will give one or two particulars as to the arrears. We have collected everything on Spirits, Tobacco, and Tea. We have collected the Estate Duties that were in arrear. Land Tax and Inhabited House Duty are almost entirely cleared up. Of Income Tax we have collected every penny. For the Super-tax the machinery has not been set up. Therefore, we have not collected the arrears in respect of the Super-tax; and the same remark applies to the Land Value Duties. But the biggest arrears of all are in respect to the Licence Duties. The Licence Duties are due for payment to-day. We 1126 have already received payment in different parts of the country, and, as usual, Scotland is to the fore. [An HON. MEMBEB: "Oh!"] Well, a Scotsman and his debts are soon parted. The Scotsman is a good business man, and he realises that the sooner he gets rid of his debts the quicker he gets at the profits! Seventy per cent, of the licences in Scotland have either already been taken up, or arrangements have been made in respect of them. I hope in a very short time to be able to give a further clear account of what has been done in Scotland. England is generally in arrear, and the same observation applies to both Ireland and Wales—both in respect of the Income Tax and the licences. I do not expect to see anything like the whole of that amount for some time to come. That is the position with regard to the arrears. The deficit has already been wiped out before the end of the year, and I have not the slightest doubt that we shall see the full £2,900,000 which we regarded as surplus upon last year's Revenue and Expenditure Account.