text: [2] While all attempts even to pay off the national debt have been abandoned by Government and the principle openly proclaimed by the Prime Minister that any surplus of revenue above expenditure must to relieve the necessities of the country be applied to the reduction of taxation without a thought to the reduction of the debt; the Home Secretary has announced the not less alarming fact that since the peace above two hundred millions sterling or a fourth of the national debt has been raised for the relief of the poor in England alone