§ I now come to the Inland Revenue. I estimate that the Death Duties, the old and new duties together, will proclace £25,150,000. That is an increase on the true revenue of last year, after deducting arrears, of £1,078,000. Stamps are much more difficult to estimate. Last year there was very great activity on the Stock Exchange. At the beginning of the year there was an oil boom and a rubber boom, bet there was a much more interesting boom at the end of the year, and that was the 1864 boom in British railway shares. There were many reasons which contributed to their depreciation, and, amongst others, was a sort of general tendency to run down British securities. In the Press, on the platform, and, as I happen to know, even within the sacred precincts of the City there was a sort of tendency to advise people to keep off. Suddenly somebody discovered this country was not ruined, in spite of new financial burdens, and an old fiscal system, and they said, "After all, the old country is not a bad investment." So they started to buy, and, as always happens, when one man made a discovery in the City, everybody else rushed in, and there was a great boom in railway shares. I have no doubt, as in all booms, there was an inflation at the moment, but even at the present time railway shares have gone up 10, 20, and 33 per cent. That was very satisfactory to the shareholders. It was still more satisfactory to the Stock Exchange, and even the Revenue had its share of that satisfaction, and we had a very considerable interest in it.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEWere they less capable last year than they are this year 'I I am surprised, after they have been there so long, that people should only just discover they have any capacity. You cannot, depend on these booms in the coming year, and therefore it is very difficult to estimate. I cannot prophesy the next boom. No one can. The man who could would be a multi-millionaire. Therefore, the safest course is to anticipate a falling off from Stock Exchange stamps. The Estimate for 1911–12 will therefore be £9,600,000 for stamps. That represents a decrease of £184,000 on the Exchequer receipts for 1910–11. May I point out that that decrease would be still greater but for the improvement in the Real Estate market. I now come to the Inhabited House Duty. There will be a slight increase of about £10,000, making £2,700,000. The ordinary Income. Tax will be £41,300,000, including the arrears of last year, and the Super-tax will be 23,000,000, making the Income Tax for this year £44,300,000. With regard to the Super-tax, I ought to say there has been no time yet to thoroughly investigate the returns. It is proposed this should be done this year, but it will involve some delay in collection, and, as there has been so much said about delay, I think it better to warn the Committee of this in advance, so that it will not be thought at the end 1865 of the year that the delay was due to some nefarious purpose on my part.