With three supplementary volumes: ‘Register of Warrants Consolidated’ for 1913–17 and 1917–18; and, ‘Interest on Sundry Loans’ for the financial years 1921–2 until 1930–3.
A collection of finance accounts, comprising working copies and proofs of almost every annual Government treasury report from 1904 to 1946 (see below), containing sections entitled ‘Exchequer Accounts’, ‘Receipts (detailed statements under the various Heads of Revenue)’, ‘Issues out of the Exchequer’ and ‘National Debt’. Each volume contains the previous financial year’s finance accounts, which are amended by means of simple ink corrections or overlaid paper to show the current year’s figures; signatures at the head of certain pages appear to be those of civil servants approving the updated versions of their respective departments’ reports. These working copies are in turn followed by the proofs of the current year’s finance accounts (i.e. a printed version of the updated figures), which are themselves subject to occasional corrections and additions.
As well as providing an exceptionally detailed record of domestic expenditure and revenues for almost half a century, the volumes lend intriguing insights into the workings of the British Civil Service. The accounts are interspersed with letters from a variety of officials, which either introduce additional information (generally in the form of accounting tables), or indicate discrepancies in the existing text. A letter dated 16th September 1921 from the Inland Revenue’s Accountant and Comptroller General’s Office might well be seen as being gloriously emblematic of the workings of any large bureaucratic institution: ‘I enclose herewith the revised proof of our portion of the finance accounts for 1920/21. I regret that the original copy should have gone astray. However, the mishap is in one respect a fortunate one, for, as you will see from our amendments, we have discovered that a stupid error was made in our allocation’.
Of additional interest is the volume entitled ‘Interest on Sundry Loans’, which covers a period of unprecedented strain on the British and world economies. The volume details the complex system of war loans which coloured international relations for several decades, underpinning the continued dependence of British Dominions upon the United Kingdom, and transforming the countries of the New World (including Argentina and Uruguay) into creditors of the Old.
All financial years between 1904 and 1946 are included in the present selection, with the exception of 1906–7, 1911–12, 1915–16, 1919–20, 1925–26, and 1938–39.
GBP 9500.00
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