asked the President of the Board of Education the amount of capital expenditure on schools, elementary and other, by local authorities during each of the last four years and during the year 1913–14?

The capital expenditure of local education authorities is, as a rule, defrayed from loans. The sums expended out of loans for the years 1912–1913 and 1918–1921 are as follow:

—	Elementary Education.	Higher Education.	Total.
	£	£	£
1912–13	2,289,594	844,053	3,133,647
1918–19	85,233	24,192	109,425
1919–20	298,700	498,533	797,233
1920–21	843,749	1,226,713	2,070,462

I regret that, owing to the suspension during the War of the collection of statistics of expenditure, I cannot give figures for the year 1913–1914, and have accordingly substituted those for 1912–1913. The corresponding information for the year 1921–1922 is not yet complete. It must not be overlooked that the actual expenditure out of loans in a given year frequently represents commitments incurred in the previous year.