Net Increase.

A more interesting comparison perhaps is to take the actual receipts
during the past financial year and compare them, not with the former
year, but with the estimates of the expected yield of the various
items. In this case we get the following comparisons:--

[Transcriber's Note: Corrected a typo in the table: "Sundry Loans"
line should have a minus(-) instead of a plus(+) as printed.]

Actual. Estimated. Difference.
L L L
Customs 71,261,000 70,750,000 + 511,000
Excise 38,772,000 34,950,000 + 3,822,000
Estate Duties 31,674,000 29,000,000 + 2,674,000
Stamps 8,300,000 8,000,000 + 300,000
Land Tax and House Duty 2,625,000 2,600,000 + 25,000
Income Tax and Super Tax 239,509,000 224,000,000 + 15,509,000
Excess Profits Tax 220,214,000 200,000,000 + 20,214,000
Land Value Duties 685,000 400,000 + 285,000
Postal Services 35,300,000 33,700,000 + 1,600,000
Crown Lands 690,000 600,000 + 90,000
Sundry Loans, etc. 6,056,000 7,500,000 - 1,444,000
Miscellaneous 52,148,000 27,100,000 + 25,048,000

Certainly, the country is entitled to congratulate itself on this
tremendous evidence of elasticity of revenue, and to a certain extent
on the effort that it has made in providing this enormous sum of money
from the proceeds of taxation and State services. But when this much
has been admitted we have to hasten to add that the figures are not
nearly so big as they look, and that there is much less "to write
home about," as the schoolboy said, than there appears to be at first
sight. Those champions of the Government methods of war finance who
maintain that we have, during the past year, multiplied the pre-war
revenue, of roughly, L200 millions by more than 3-1/2, so arriving at
the present revenue of over L700 millions, are not comparing like
with like. The statement is perfectly true on paper, and expressed in
pounds sterling, but then the pound sterling of to-day is an entirely
different article from the pre-war pound sterling. Owing to the system
of finance pursued by our Government, and by every other Gove