THE REAL NET INCREASE.

The excess of £91,500,000 spent on our own services was analysed by Mr. Bonar Law as follows:

(a) Munitions, £12,000,000. (b) Miscellaneous, £15,000,000. (c) Balance, £64,000,000.

The Chancellor was satisfied that the excess in (a) had nothing to do with rise in prices; the excess in (b) was mainly an increase in the amount spent on food ; and the excess in (c) was increased Army expenditure, most of which was of a recoverable

nature, such as the sums expended on payments to Dominion troops, wool, &c. So Mr. Bonar Law’s final analysis of the average daily excess of £1,384,000 showed that there had been a real net increase of £300,000 a day over the Budget estimate. There will, of course, be a very large increase on the Budget estimate for the whole financial year; indeed, Mr. Bonar Law will be satisfied if it is no larger than the actual increase of last year, which was 373 millions. It may be added that the now Vote of Credit for 650 millions brings up the total to date from the beginning of the war to 5,292 millions.

The Chancellor did not comment much on these figures. He was content to state them. But he looked troubled – and he has much to trouble him – and he spoke as one who carries a heavy personal load. Is the money being well and carefully spent? Mr. Bonar Law said that he had been “agreeably surprised” as to the efficiency of the checks upon expenditure which he had found in the Departments, and he thought that the Committee of Inquiry, which is about to be set up, would be equally surprised, when they examined what was being done. If they found anything amiss, then what was wrong should be put right, for he entirely agreed that the only justification for such enormous expenditure was that the money was not being spent unnecessarily. The Leader of the House closed with the remark that though such a rate of expenditure could not proceed indefinitely, yet he was confident that Great Britain’s efforts would not be brought to a standstill by want of money.