§ Now that brings me straight to the consideration of the National Debt. I propose to leave the fixed debt charge at £24,500,000. Now I think the House will be anxious to know exactly what that means in the way Of reducing debt. Out of that fixed debt charge £6,855,000 will be applied to the reduction of capital liability. We are having in addition to that, repayment of other capital liabilities, £2,325,000, but there will be fresh borrowing for the telegraphs and other 1856 purposes of £1,575,000, so the net payment will be £750,000. To the Old Sinking Fund we pay £2,357,000; for China indemnity, Suez Canal shares, and other small miscellaneous items another £500,000 is paid to the reduction of debt.
§ We propose to put £1,500,000 to pay off capital liability of the Development Fund out of the Old Sinking Fund and another £500,000 out of the revenue for the year, which will be £2,000,000. So that we this year make provision for the reduction of our capital liability to the extent of £12,452,000. Now we have been criticised very severely, and especially in the last few years, on the assumption that the Government have done nothing for the reduction of debt. You might imagine that we had ceased to deal with the National Debt altogether in the last two or three years and that we have raided the Sinking Fund for the purposes I think of bribery and corruption. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad to have that assent, which shows I shall not be wasting time at any rate in giving a few more figures.
§ As a matter of fact, in five years, and including this provision for the sixth year, making six years, this Administration has reduced our capital liabilities, or is making provision for reducing our capital liabilities, to a larger extent than during any other period in history in the same number of years. The Prime Minister reduced or made provision for reducing our capital liabilities during the three years he held the office I have the honour to hold of £42,360,000. Mr. Gladstone in his palmiest days never accomplished that. Take the most brilliant episode in his career as Chancellor of the Exchequer, between 1859 and 1866. During that seven years he reduced the National Debt by £25,000,000. Between 1868 and 1874 the National Debt was reduced by £26,500,000. My right hon. Friend in the three years he held the office reduced the National Debt by £42,360,000. That was a very remarkable achievement and quite unprecedented in the history of this country.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI am not quite sure about the United States of America after the war. I cannot hope to emulate that very 'brilliant achievement, and I plead in mitigation of criticism that I had greater difficulties to contend With.
Naval expenditure has gone up 37½ per cent. in the period I have presided over the Exchequer; Pensions, 1857 quite a new charge, have added £13,000,000 to the difficulties of the Treasury. But despite these difficulties during the three years I have had charge of the national expenditure I have succeeded in reducing, or, including this year, I am making provision for reducing the national indebtedness by £26,000,000. In addition to that, I have provided £2,500,000 for wiping out the capital liability which this House created in the Development Fund, so that for reducing our capital liability altogether, I have succeeded in providing £28,700,000 in three years. Taking the two sums together, that means a provision in six years in the lifetime of the present Administration for the reduction of the capital indebtedness of this country of the enormous sum of £70,000,000. That represents a reduction in the annual interest we have to find of something like £2,000,000 a year. Well now, I thought it was due to the Government in face of some of the criticisms that had been directed against it, not merely in this House but outside, just to point out the fact that we have in these five or six years wiped out more debt than any Administration that ever existed in this country, and I think we are entitled at all events to put that on record.