§ In view of certain criticisms which have been made on the subject of expenditure, I am going to ask the Committee to contrast that figure with the position which existed two years ago. At that time when the Estimates were presented in April, 1931, our ordinary expenditure, leaving out interest on the American Debt for purposes of comparison, was set down at £724,000,000. We were then borrowing for unemployment at the rate of £1,000,000 a week, and we were making provision to borrow £9,000,000 for the roads. So that our total ordinary expenditure then was at the rate of £785,000,000. This year the estimate is £697,000,000, a reduction of £88,000,000. That is not all. I have to provide now for the default of the Irish Free State. I have also to provide for the automatic increase of Old Age and Widows' Pensions, housing and unemployment grants. I have to provide for the continued, or rather the increased, burden of unemployment. I estimate that this group of items, after taking account of the fall in War pensions, will cost me £25,000,000 more in 1933 than we had to find in 1931.
§ So that the position is that not only have we actually saved in expenditure £88,000,000, but we have also absorbed another £25,000,000 which otherwise would have meant an increase in our expenditure. In other words, the real saving to-day as compared with the estimated position of two years ago amounts to £113,000,000. Of that £113,000,000, £52,000,000 is due, as I have already pointed out, to the saving on interest, and £61,000,000 to economies in other directions. Every Chancellor knows what difficulties there are in securing economies, and that the more economies you have made the more difficult it is to obtain further ones. At the same time, I shall always welcome helpful and 42 suggestive criticism on this subject, but I must say that if critics are to be listened to with respect, they must not disregard the enormous savings already made by the Government, and must not leave out of account the fact that every Chancellor of the Exchequer has to make provision for those automatic increases which arise out of various existing Acts of Parliament.