§ Before I begin to deal in detail with the income and expenditure of the year, there is one thing vitally affecting the Budget to which I want to call attention. The Government have decided that borrowing for the Unemployment Fund and the Road Fund must cease, and this decision must apply to the current financial year. Accordingly, the whole amount of what the Road Fund would have required to borrow, and the amount which the Unemployment Insurance Fund would have required to borrow when its present powers are exhausted, will have to be borne as a charge on the Votes this year, and the Estimates to implement that decision will be presented in due course. In taking this step, the Govern- 299 ment have been actuated by the desire to place the stability of the Budget beyond question. The adoption of borrowing as an expedient to bridge a temporary deficiency in a fund when there is a prospect that it can be repaid is perfectly justifiable, but there is clearly a limit to which that borrowing can be carried on, otherwise it would become an unbearable mortgage upon the fund—in this particular case the Unemployment Insurance Fund—and it would be a source of danger to the stability of the Budget. We cannot afford any longer to increase the debt. Despite the very heavy burden that this will be in the Budget, there is no choice in the matter.