§ All these reductions will cost together £34,150,000 in the current year, and next year about £47,250,000. The final balance sheet for 1923–24 will thus be:
| £ | ||||
| Revenue | … | … | … | 818,500,000 |
| Expenditure | … | … | … | 816,616,000 |
| leaving a nominal margin of | £ |
§ I have now laid before the Committee as clearly as I am able the financial statement of the year. I can only thank them for the courteous attention they have given to me. I have gone to the utmost limit of my power to relieve the taxpayer without impairing the credit of the nation, for, after all, the credit of the nation and relief for the taxpayer are in the long run inextricably interwoven. I believe that although we are still in the series of transition years, we have already passed the peak load of taxation, and we may hope soon to have relief, after the calamitous years of trade depression. But our hopes may be frustrated by untoward events on the Continent and they may be shattered by untoward events at home. Industrial peace would do more for trade than reduced taxation. Reduced taxation itself is the offspring of peace. If the people of this country will only unite to take advantage of the better trade that undoubtedly is coming, I can face the financial future with confidence, and neither I nor my successor in this place will then be oppressed by those peculiar anxieties which have weighed so heavily in the framing of this Budget and the four preceding post-War Budgets.