The Law and the Poor

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ace the result of their studies to the credit of mankind, the law seems more incapable than theology of assimilating new ideas and getting into step with the march of time. I have no hesitation in saying that the County Court, as a debt-collecting machine, is a one-horse wooden antiquity on

er babies. The word, therefore, of the plaintiff, or, more probably, the debt collector-and many of these men, making it their business and dealing daily with the Court, are far more accurate and careful than the plaintiffs themselves-this is all you have to go by. The law, as I told you, left it entirely to the taste and fancy of the ju

ourse, no appeal, and when the prisoner comes out of gaol he still owes the debt, though he cannot be imprisoned again for the same debt or instalment. The multiplicity of these proceedings is appalling. There are over a million small debt summonses issued every year and nearly four hundred thousand judgment summonses, of which about a quarter of a million are heard. What a waste of time and energy it all means. Judges, registrars, solicitors, bailiffs, debt collec

lings worth of righteousness in forgiving your debtor his indebtedness? Certain it is that the system is useless to, and very little used by, the respectable individual creditor. Indeed, if he tries to use it, he stumbles into so many pitfalls and finds the procedure of it so troublesome and uncanny that he very often fails to stay the course, and, after a few was

to go forth with a lot of flash watches, persuade a workman in a public-house or elsewhere to sign a paper that he has bought one-he always says, silly fellow, that he thought he had it on approval-and when he fails to pay his instalments put him in the County Court. I have known a pigeon-flying worki

ethod of business was delightfully simple. The proprietor travelled round in Herefordshire and Devonshire and persuaded the farmers to try some of the horse medicine. A form was signed which was a contract of sale and a promise to pay in Manchester. This gave the Manchester Court jurisdiction to issue the summonses, which were for sums of under two pounds. Letters came complaining that no contract had been intended, that the stuff was worthless, etc., but no one turned up and judgment went by default. The suc

machine as an accessory to shady trading. But it can be demonstrated that imprisonment for debt is the mainstay of such trades as moneyl

summonses taken consecutively. The figures were from the Manch

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business who will sell furniture, drapery, clothes, cutlery, or anything you li

d companies having numerous agents paid by high commissions and spending large sums in advertising. Their prices are apparently low, but the quality of their goods leaves much to be desired. Now what worries me is, why should the State keep Courts going for men of this class? The only creditor in that list for whom one can have the lea

-collecting machine without which this class of trader were impossible. I have known cases where a working man's wife was dealing with nineteen different Scotch drapers. What wages can satisfy such an orgy of drapery as that? How often, too, do men and women buy watches to pawn

o allow that imprisonment for debt is a distinctive privilege that the law reserves for the poor. A man among the wel

n default of payment of four shillings and costs, five and ninepence in all. How can a State for very shame prate about the extortion of moneylenders when it adds for

lly-man's debt for clothes supplied to his late wife. The governor sent it as a typical case for the Commission

ies like Elisha and the good governor and myself, and we do not count. So his report ended in nothing, and remains on record as a t

erwards discovered that the good governor, when he investigated the man's case at 9.30 a.m. on the morning after his arrest, had paid his debt for him and set him fr

use, as I shall show, the law is not strictly administered, and also because the public conscience, what Lord Haldane so graphically described under the German title Sittlichkeit, is against it. The habit of mind, custom, and the right action of good citizens do not sanction enforcing debt by imprisonment. It is only the gre

relations. You ask a debtor when he comes before you on a second instalment of a debt: "But you managed to pay the first instalment?"

ses, looking for an Elisha, and if he cannot find anyone to work miracles nowadays he does very often find someone with five and ninepence and a kind heart. The poor are very good to

shorter period, for he found that the longer the period for which he committed people to prison the shorter the term served, "b

is "putting the screw on." I think "blackmailing" is t

inded creditor using his power to seduce the virtue of a wife in her husband's absence. There is certainly truth in such stories. Human nature is the same in narrower lanes than Park lane. The tally-man plays on the wife's love of finery, she gets into debt, her husband knows nothing of it. As long as the wife is complacent nothing is heard of the debt. I do not say such scandals are common, but I have heard enough of such stories

riff Reform. Yet this is one of the minor evils of the working of the Debtors Act of 1869. In a hard-fought Lancashire election which ended in a tie there was a great flutter and to-do caused by the arrest on the eve of the poll of some earnest debtor of

: trade will suffer and individuals, for want of credit, will starve. On every occasion the facts have obstinately refused to honour the prophecy after the event. I am inclined to back history against prophecy in this matter. Credit will be given to a working man of good character to a reasonable amount, but he will not be tempted, as he is to-

bt and the grocer and draper will demand cash in advance or, at the worst, weekly bills. The workman will then be face to face with the immediate question of whether he prefers to spend his wages in drink and pleasure for himself or food and clothes for his wife and children. I have no doubt what his answer will be. The working man is of the same nature as ourselves. In the old days of general imprisonment for debt everyone lived in debt. The middle classes were tempted to live beyond their means

. He that trusts one whom he designs to sue is criminal by the act of trust: the cessation of such invidious traffic is to be desired and no reason can be given why a change of the law should impair any other. We see natio

t as convincing to-day about our own or any other form of imprisonment for debt. It goes to the principle

t the expense of tradesmen by the simple expedient of putting goods in their wife's name. But this procedure is not available against working men, and the result is that they have to pay their way as they go along. Dr. Schuster, an English barrister and a Doctor of Laws of the University of Munich, explained the German system of debt collecting to the Commission of 1908. Not only did he make it c

to write them off as bad. And, indeed, I have more than a suspicion that if one could get an accurate financial history of the collection of a forty shillings' debt in the County Court by means of imprisonment for debt, one would find that, when Treasury fees, solicitor's costs, an

fortunately paid by fees on the number of plaints issued. A moneylender or tally-man who cleans up his books once a year and brings into Court a few hundred plaints automatically raises the salary of the registrar. If this debt-collecting b

nised that the country will demand a sweeping alteration in the system. The abolition of imprisonment for debt will give the Courts time to entertain jurisdiction for divorce and other matters where the poor a

runs into debt and will not pay when he can. For my part I care not how strict the law is made against dishonesty and debt resultant from dishonesty, but let the imprisonment be imprisonment for dishonesty and not for deb

m to-day, yet no one, I hope, recognises more clearly than I do the sacred duty of a debtor to pay an honest debt. Every penny that he can save after his first duties of maintenance of wife and family should be devoted towards the repayment of debts. But this is a personal obligation on a man, like speaking the truth, or treating mankind with courtesy, and, in a word, is only a branch of the golden rule of doing to others as you would be done by. The breach of this obligation ought not, as it seems to

rect petition to be made thus: "And next enable me to pay my duty to all my friends, and my debts to all my creditors, that none be made miserable or lessened in his estate by his kindness to me, or traffic with

there would be no need of imprisonment for debt or for County Court judges either. Indeed, the millennium would be at hand. But short of that great day, we are surely entitled to act as though the majority of mankind preferred right action to wrong action and not t