These figures are averages taken over the whole period from the outbreak of the war, but at the outbreak of the war, after the initial expenditure on mobilization had been incurred, the daily expenditure was considerably below the average, as many charges had not yet matured. The expenditure has risen steadily and is now well over the daily average that I have given. To that figure must be added, in order to give a complete account of the matter, something for war services other than naval or military. At the beginning of the year these charges are not likely to be very considerable, but it will probably be within the mark to say that from April I we shall be spending over £1,700,000 a day above the normal, in consequence of the war.
Perhaps now I may say something which is not strictly in order on this vote, but concerns the vote of credit for the ensuing year, which amounts, as appears on the paper, to £250,000,000. The committee will at once observe an obvious distinction between the votes of credit taken for the current financial year and that which we propose to take for the ensuing year. As I have already pointed out, at the outbreak of war the ordinary supply of the year had been granted by the House, and accordingly the votes of credit for 1914-1915 were for the amounts required beyond the ordinary grants of Parliament for the cost of military and naval operations. When we came to frame the estimates for the ensuing year, 1915-1916, the Treasury was confronted with the difficulty, which amounted to an impossibility, of presenting to Parliament estimates in the customary form for navy and army expenditure, apart from the cost of the war. All the material circumstances have been set out in the Treasury minute of Feb. 5, and in principle have been approved by the House. As the committee will remember, the total of the estimates which we have presented for the army and the navy amount to only £15,000 for the army and £17,000 for the navy, and the remainder of the cost of both these services will be provided for out of votes of credit, and the vote of credit now being proposed provides for general army and navy service in as far as specific provision is not made for them in the small estimates already presented. This vote of credit, therefore, has two features which I believe are quite unique, and without precedent. In the first place, it is the largest single vote on record in the annals of this House, and, secondly, as I have said, it provides for the ordinary as well as for the emergency expenditure of the army and the navy. The House may ask on what principle or basis has this sum of £250,000,000 been arrived at. Of course it is difficult, and indeed impossible, to give any exact estimate, but as regards the period, so far as we can forecast it, for which this vote is being taken, it has been thought advisable to take a sum sufficient, so far as we can judge, to provide for all the expenditure which will come in course of payment up to approximately the second week in July--that is to say, a little over three months, or something like 100 days of war expenditure.