CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SURPLUS. . There are certain points connected
with the realized surplus of £18,000,000 for the past year which need to be very clearly recognized. One of these is, fact that the Sinking Fund for the year had to' e raided to the extent of nearly £8,000,000. Another point is the fact that the receipts last year were swollen by the exceptional amount of £13,200,000, which was received from the' assets in the Currency Notes DepartMent at the time when the transfer was made last November of the Currency Note Issue to' the Bank of England.But for those two important items, the year would have closed not with a Surplus but with a Deficit. Not - only so, but even in the matter of the_ Tax Revenue - itself it is generally admitted that the exceptionally large figure under the head of Estate Duties represented ' windfalls in the shape of an unusually-large number of the estates, many of which were also of exceptional size. On the other hand it is, of course, also true, as I pointed out last week, that there are some directions from which increased revenues may be expected for the current year.
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