§ The last item I shall refer to in the accounts of last year is the National Debt. As a net result of the operations of last year, the sum of £458,148,000 has been added to the total indebtedness of the country. This now stands at the prodigious figure of £1,165,802,000. The total reduction in our pre-War liability for which the present Government is responsible up to and including last year was £107,000,000. This is wiped away by two months of war.