Liabilities and Credit (ooo's omitted).
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Year ended March 31.
Gross Liabilities of State.
Assets Estimate.
Loans to Allies.
Loans to Dominions.
Loans for Relief to European Countries.
Suez Canal Shares Market Value.
Other Assets.
1910
762,463
35-295
i 4,118
1911
733,072
37,608
4,003
1912
724,806
44,046
3,704
1913
716,288
39-015
3-707
"
^
"
1914
707,654
34-929
3-350
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1,165,802
2,197-439 4-063,645
5,921,096 7,481,050 7,875,642 7,619,000
29,993 24,858
27.404 29,628 32,818 23,192
3243 3-419 3-216 70,673 54,216 82,831
14.170 288,481 827,835 1,335-425 1,570,254 1,724,562 1,786,900
39,532 91,161
146,778 194-439 170,890
"9.597 144,000
8,074 16,700
- Figures not available.
earned income of 2,000 was entitled to deduct 200, but if the earned income exceeded 2,000 not more than 200 was deducti- ble. On the first 225 of taxable income arrived at after deducting the various allowances provided for such as one-tenth in respect of earned income, wife and child allowances, insurance premium, dependent relief, etc. tax was imposed at half the standard rate; namely 33. in the pound and at 6s. on each pound in excess of 225. Thus the various rates of tax previously in use were abandoned and two rates of tax put in their place. Super-tax was stiffened and regraduated.
The table above shows the aggregate gross liabilities of the State on March 31 in each of the years 1910-21, together with figures of assets, loans to countries allied to Great Britain during the war, and also to the Dominions, and advances for European relief granted after the termination of the hostilities:
To sum up, the World War cost Great Britain over 10,000,- 000,000, while if allowance be made for the expenditure of the Do- minions the total would be very much greater. An analysis of the expenditure of the United Kingdom from 1688 to 1920 disclosed the fact that in the six financial years from March 31 1914 to March 31 1920, Government expenditure exceeded the total expenditure for the 2j centuries preceding 1914. The figures are: for the 226 years 1688 to 1914, 10,944,000,000; for the six years 1914-20, 11,268,000,000. Thirty-six per cent, of this latter sum was paid in revenue, and the remaining 64% was borrowed. The British people provided about 9,900,000,000 out of their own resources towards the six years' expenditure, or 215 per head. Though this vast expenditure was really the outcome of inflationary methods of finance, the system of inflation was not the same as that practised on the continent of Europe but was based on Treasury Bills or Ways and Means advances. These credit instruments were based not upon gold but upon currency notes. Inflation had the effect of reducing the pre-war unit of value: before the war the unit of value was the sovereign contain- ing 123-274 grains troy of gold; in 1920 the unit of value was a paper pound representing no definite weight in gold, but varying in gold value from day to day. (C. J. M.)
ENGLISH HISTORY, 1910-1921 (see 9.466-582). I. BEFORE THE WAR, 1910-12. At the death of Edward VII. on May 6 1910, he was succeeded on the throne by his only surviving son as George V. (see GEORGE V.). The coronation at Westminster Abbey took place on June 22 1911, and was followed by State visits to Ireland, Wales, and Scotland; but an even more important act in the public assumption of Imperial authority was undertaken during the winter of 1911-2 in the visit paid by the
King and Queen to India. At the Delhi Durbar (Dec. 12 1912), at which the King was crowned as Emperor of India, His Majesty announced that in future Delhi would replace Calcutta as the capital, and that Lord Curzon's unpopular partition of Bengal would be annulled. No hint of such an impending coup d'etat as was represented by the latter announcement had previously leaked out, and no single act of Government in the history of the British constitutional monarchy had
ever exhibited so strikingly the latent resources of the Throne
as an extra-parliamentary factor in Imperial administration.
Without sending any communication to Parliament, the home Government had deliberately utilized the King-Emperor's authority to carry out an autocratic act of State policy in India, which otherwise could not have been accomplished without considerable friction.
(For a full account of the action here involved, see INDIA.) It is only right to emphasize the interest attaching, at the opening of the new reign, to the position of the British Throne, as such. In the varied and exacting functions which it is expected to perform, much inevitably depends on the extent to which popular respect and affection surround the royal family. King George was able to benefit, in this respect, from a long growth of public confidence, and from the general acceptance of the theory that, so far as possible, the Crown should be kept out of politics in the party sense. It was all the more important, at King George's accession, that the personal popularity of the royal family should have been unquestionable, because of the political crisis amid which King Edward's death had occurred. Since the Lords' rejection of the budget in 1909 the whole course of domestic politics had been quasi-revolutionary; as between the contending political parties the impasse had become com- plete when the conference of 1910 broke down, and when immediately afterwards the second general election of that year gave the Liberal Government once more a majority. But the Crown remained by universal consent an imperial and social factor of all the more potential value as a moderating influence because of the warring of political factions.
" English " history to-day cannot indeed be written without reference to the British Empire, as a unit greater than is represented by " home " (i.e. English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish) politics (see BRITISH EMPIRE). The Imperial " idea," to which Mr. Chamberlain's administration of the Colonial Office and the emergency of the Boer War had given such a pronounced impetus, was already progressing with rapid strides at the opening of the new reign both in Great Britain and the Dominions. After 1909, moreover, the question of Imperial Defence had become acute, in consequence of the rapid increase of the German navy and its manifest challenge to British sea-power. The most remarkable incident during the Imperial Conference of 1911 was the confidential discussion of British international policy, at which the Colonial representatives were addressed by Sir Edward Grey with a detailed account of the situation in foreign affairs. For the first time, it was felt, the Empire as a whole had been taken into the counsels of the statesmen of the mother country. A naval defence scheme was adopted, providing for the maintenance of the various naval services and forces under the control of their respective Governments, but for making the training and discipline uniform with those of the fleet of the United Kingdom and for arranging an interchange of officers and men, while in war-time the Colonial ships placed at the disposal of the Crown would be under the British Admiralty. The movement for increasing the Colonial naval forces, as part of an Imperial navy acting as a single unit, was also notably forwarded by the visit to England of the Canadian Premier, Mr. Borden, with other Canadian ministers, in 1912,
