Revenue and Expenditure
In making estimates in war-time a Chancellor of the Exchequer is necessarily making provision for the unknown on both sides of the balance-sheet. Sir John Simon may congratulate himself that the revenue for the financial year just ended exceeds his War-Budget expectations by £54,000,000, and he is entitled to take comfort from the fact that the expenditure is less by £116,000,000. On examin- ing the particulars it will be found that he was not far out in most of his revenue estimates, and that most of the excess is attributable to Customs and Excise and, strangely enough. to the Motor Vehicles duties. The revenue from the latter was nearly mid-way between his War-Budget guess of £22,000,000 and his earlier estimate of £43,000,,000. The rise in customs must be attributed to the immense importa- tions of goods ordered on the Government's behalf. In ordinary times the country would feel nothing but satisfac- tion at the fall of expenditure by L116,000,000. But unhappily this is partly attributable to the fact that the Government is not as far advanced in its programme of war undertakings as it had expected to be, and that war equip- ment is behindhand. But whatever view is taken of par- ticular features of the balance-sheet it is a striking demonstration of our financial resources and elasticity.
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