§ There is another alteration in stamps which has been pressed upon me by some very important interests in the City. At the present moment all marketable securities passing by delivery pay the same Stamp Duty of 1 per cent., no matter what the term of the obligation may be. There has been of late a tendency, especially in the United States, to borrow on short-dated obligations, and the 1 per cent. duty practically kills our business in these short-dated securities. The revenue gets nothing out of it and the City gets nothing out of it. The contention is that it has driven the business out: that it does not pay. I therefore propose that there shall be the following rates per £100 secured—namely, 2s. 6d. if repayable in one year, and 5s. if repayable in two or three years. There must be some provisions, of course, to safeguard the revenue. I cannot tell what the effect will be in the matter of the duty. I am not going to estimate either for a loss or for an increase. In any event, it must be trivial; it cannot dislocate or disarrange the revenue for the year. For the moment I content myself with announcing the alteration to the House. That is the end of the alterations I propose. The revenue, therefore, will be £181,621,000 and the expenditure £181,284,000. That will leave a surplus, 1868 after making these deductions, of £337,000 to meet contingencies.