§ There are one or two disturbing elements when you come to estimate the probable yield of the Stamp Duties this year. First you have only eleven months of the new duties instead of twelve. The Budget was only passed in the last days of April, and, therefore, the first month of the financial year has to be eliminated. There is another disturbing element. Last year the stamp revenue from the Stock Exchange was exceptionally productive. There were great booms in rubber and in oil, and, speaking as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I prefer booms to scares, and they very rarely go together, because when people are occupied with booms they are too busy to get up scares. The rubber boom was more effective in driving off the German invader than fifty "Dreadnoughts."
§ The rubber and oil booms in the City were very productive from the point of view of stamps. I think they account for an increase of something like £500,000 in the Stamp Duties of last year. It may go on; you cannot tell. I do not think anyone would care to predict—and at any rate I am perfectly certain nobody cares to build an estimate upon—its continuance very much longer. I have heard it said that probably the rubber boom will soon be over, and that the oil boom will continue, but at any rate I think it would be risky to depend upon the probability of any prolonged extension of either of these great booms. There are one or two other disturbing elements, such as the American markets, which we have to take into account. Taking everything into account, including the fact that the improvement in trade is already making a great impression upon our Stamp Duties in respect of bills of exchange, receipt stamps, and in other directions, I think we are safe in budgeting for an increase of £1,521,000 in stamps. The increase which we expected from the new duties in the course of the year was £1,200,000. We must take a twelfth off for the month we have lost. That means in the ordinary course an increase of £1,100,000 in stamps owing to the new duty, but I think I am perfectly safe in estimating for an increase of £1,500,000, and therefore I am putting stamps down at £9,600,000.