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(D) FINANCE

(1) Public Finance

Budget.—For the public finance of Turkey, which includes that of Syria, see Anatolia, No. 59 of this series, p. 115. Individually considered, Syria's financial situation contrasts very favourably with that of the Empire as a whole, local revenues being con- siderably in excess of the expenditure, as is seen in the following figures, taken from La Syrie de demain, by M. Moutran (1916), and based upon the previous Budget:—

——	Revenue.	Expenditure.
	Frs.	Frs.
Aleppo	20,275,673	7,954,573
Beirut	31,919,329	8,804,400
Damascus	15,568,401	16,902,682
Jerusalem	4,630,015	2,373,991
Lebanon	1,100,458	1,062,761
Total	73,493,876	37,098,407

Here expenses exceed receipts in one province only, Damascus, and this small deficit is handsomely repaired by the favourable balances elsewhere, especially in the vilayets of Aleppo and Beirut.

Of the total revenue, the bulk is accounted for by the following principal items:^[1]—

	Frs.
Taxes on land, animals, trades, and in lieu of military and other services	18,657,600
Tithe	21,019,401

1. These figures do not include the Lebanon, which had a different system, but, on the other hand, include Deir ez-Zor, the total revenue of which was only 450,000 frs. more than that of the Lebanon.