The Year's Balance-Sheet • The revenue returns for the year
1936-7, which ended on March 31st, have been variously interpreted as showing a surplus of £7,530,000 and a deficit of £5,597,000. The former is the more accurate interpretation. The revenue, it is true, fell short of the expenditure provided for in the various regular and supplementary estimates, but owing to savings in administration several millions out of the sums voted were not spent, and altogether £13,127,000 was allocated to the redemption of debt. The real surplus for the year, therefore, was the difference between that amount and the apparent deficit—or a figure of £7,530,000 on the right side. This is a remarkable result for a year in which the weight of increased armament expenditure was beginning— though, of course, only beginning—to be felt. It is announced simultaneously with the unemployment figures for March, showing an increase of 55,000 employed and a reduction of the number of the unemployed by 26,644. This latter figure is in reality misleading, for owing to new concessions the unemployed register is swollen by some 20,000 men and women who would not have appeared on it a month ago. The improvement is therefore considerably greater than the figures suggest, and it is spread, as an analysis of the returns shows, over a large number of trades, among which the armament industry is, curiously enough, not conspicuous.
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