The first of the two votes which appear upon the paper, the one which has just been read out, provides only for the financial year now expiring, and is a supplementary vote of credit.  The vote that follows is a vote of credit for the financial year 1915-1916.  I think it will probably be convenient if in submitting the first vote to the committee I make a general statement covering the whole matter.  I may remind the committee that on Aug. 6 last year the House voted L100,000,000 in the first vote of credit, and that on Nov. 15 the House passed a supplementary vote of credit for L225,000,000, thus sanctioning total votes of credit for the now expiring financial year of L325,000,000.  It has been found that this amount will not suffice for the expenditure which will have been incurred up to March 31, and we are therefore asking for a further vote of L37,000,000 to carry on the public service to that date.  If the committee assents to our proposals it will raise the total amount granted by votes of credit for the year 1914-1915 to L362,000,000.  I need not say anything as to the purposes for which this vote is required.  They are the same as upon the last occasion.  But I ought to draw attention to one feature in which the supplementary vote, which comes first, differs from the vote to be subsequently proposed for the services of the year 1915-1916.  At the outbreak of the war the ordinary supply on a peace basis had been voted by the House, and consequently the votes of credit for the now current financial year, like those on all previous occasions, were to be taken in order to provide the amounts necessary for naval and military operations in addition to the ordinary grants of Parliament.  It consequently follows that the expenditure charged, or chargeable, to votes of credit for this financial year represent, broadly speaking, the difference between the expenditure of the country on a peace footing and that expenditure upon a war footing.  The total on that basis, if this supplementary vote is assented to, will be L362,000,000.

For reasons the validity of which the committee has recognized on previous occasions, I do not think it desirable to give the precise details of the items which make up the total, but without entering into that I may roughly apportion the expenditure.  For the army and the navy, according to best estimates which can at present be framed, out of the total given there will be required approximately L275,000,000.  That is in addition, as I have already pointed out, to the sum voted before the war for the army and the navy, which amounted in the aggregate to a little over L80,000,000.  That leaves unaccounted for a balance of L87,000,000, of which approximately L38,000,000 represents advances for war expenditure made, or being made, to the self-governing dominions, Crown colonies, and protectorates, as explained in the Treasury minute last November, under which his Majesty’s Government have undertaken to raise the loans required by the