The Law and the Poor

in wigs, as the case may be, with little writing desks before them, constructed after the fashion of those used by the judges of the land, barring the French polish. There is

the Insolvent Court, and the place in whi

ns: "Pickwick

they marched to their insolvent neighbour's office and broke up his bank, or bench, or money table to show the world that he was no longer commercially sound. Until recently in English law bankruptcy was merely a trader's remedy designed to protect an unfortunate

in this country of ours who never knew what it was for twelve months of their life to have a living wage and be out of debt. As long as we have imprisonment for debt credit of some kind and on some terms ruinous or otherwise is always obtainable. At the present, bankruptcy is almost regarded as a sign of g

infant and the idiot from the results of their own foolishness, and we shall find it advisable in the future to extend similar protection to the grown-up idiots and infants who are all too prevalent in the world. Antonio was a normal bu

tion, education, physical and moral improvement, eugenics, all the social discussions of the time, land you back on the question of the living wage. Sometimes, I think, we are on the eve of a new era when every capable honest citizen will have the same right

t useth his neighbour's service without wages and giveth him not for his work," I think that he is absolutely right on the spot. I cannot believe that it was his view that woe would providentially descend upon the man who paid sweating wages and that it would come in the shape of lions and bears or lightning and earthquakes; on the contrary, I read it, that, in Jeremiah's view, it was the duty of citizens to see that their fellows

strong for him." That, in a phrase, is the modern problem of the living wage. The trust, the combine, the limited company, the corporation or Government office are bound in the nature of

nto allowing for anything over-Thomas Gradgrind shakes his square finger at you and says: "How are you going to do it?" And I agree that Gradgrind is deserving an answer. I do not say we must wait until we convince him, for Gradgrinds are obstinate, stubborn fellows, but we must satisfy the major

ount to a living wage. I can see nothing revolutionary in this proposal. It really only follows out the trend of modern legislation. If a man has a smoking chimney, or pollutes a river, or goes about in public with an infectious disease, we fine or imprison him for his anti-social misconduct. Surely a man who pursues an industry that does not make a liv

r lock-out is a crime against helpless women and children, that it wastes the substance and savings of employers and employed and embitters their relations for a generation-all that we knew before; the new and comforting m

political jockeys would have us believe. When the railway conciliation boards were set up the employers and workmen, where it was possible, agreed upon an independent chairman to sit with them in case there was a deadlock. Several boards of different companies invited me to un

say that the companies and the men

dignity, being a little hurt a

ver have anything to do," he ad

y not?"

iberation, "if they could agree about

re capable of adjustment and settlement owing to the excellent good feeling on each side and the real endeavour made by everyone to try and understand the other's point of view. This is where the independent chairman is of real service. In explaining to his virgin mind the diff

onciliatory court for trade disputes is a live business proposition, calculated to save employers much unnecessary woe,

divorce, is rightly regarded as a luxury for the well-to-do. I know that to some minds the word "bankruptcy" connotes poverty, but if you look into the

lvent you will not find many poor folk among them. There are lords and gentlemen, solicitors and stockb

the working man, being a good sportsman, likes to have a gamble in them with his savings. In this way he joins the aristocracy, and becomes an eligible

the history of their financial fall; he puts his head into the Registrar's Court and hears an amiable official receiver sympathetically tracing the career of the well-groomed bankrupt in front of him; he sees the judg

n accountant would add it up and a judge tell him that he need not worry any more about it; but when he begins to in

itten on this subject by clever fellows who spend their lives soothing the bankrupt's last hours and winding him up according to law and order, with costs out of the estate, but you need

are they particular about the shine of their silk hat. Bankers and intelligent business men have, in all ages, given credit to top hats, white waistcoa

ard of Trade reports of a failure due to gambling and extravagance, in which the debtor purchased jewellery for ￡40,000 and sold it the same day for ￡10,000. If he had been a poor man I think ma

pain to the sorrowing, never tells you the names and addresses of the people whose history he writes. He speaks of him as "No. 1512 of 1911." The poor fellow had no occu

five. With that charming simplicity and cunning, characteristic of the whelps of the vulgar rich, he proceeded to moneylenders, and at the date of the receiving order had created charges exceeding ￡430,000 on his reversion of such complexity that every mortgagee disputed the right of every prior encum

expenses of the four thousand Oxford undergraduates during three years of residence, and on the other side the earnings of the same four thousand undergraduates for a similar period in, say, fifteen or twenty years afterwards. I fear it would not be much of

tters they are akin to the insane, and are really to be pitied and cared for. But to the poor it must be strange to see debt and the disaster of debt causing such different r

-nine shillings a week, when he shows me some of these spicy stor

l got to do wit

d a family Bible, and a plush drawing-room suite on the instalment system, and I can borrow a pound or two on a promissory note. Of course betting and beer cannot be d

game are made by the rich for the rich, and not for you, Joseph, at all

think I could bring it as

thinks there is some stuffing in you or wool on your back a creditor is

meaning of a chap filing his own petition? I've oft

e expected to pay a fee-you have learned enough about English Courts to know that you do not get 'owt for nowt' in any of them. But in the Bankruptcy Court, my young friend, they foresaw you coming along and they have put the figure too high for you. Ten pounds, money down! That's the pr

ey are on the hire system, and that would put you in the dock, where I hope you may never be. No. 1512 bought his ￡40,000 worth of jewels out and out, or said he did, and it was a Paris jeweller, anyhow, and I believe he was one of the 'nu

ented a system of small bankruptcies called administration orders, whereby poor folk whose debts do not amount to fifty pounds may make a composition wi

to the number of the occupants of our gaols. It had always been felt to be a great hardship that while a large debtor could with ease relieve himself of all his liabilities he or his trustees might be prosecuting a poor man for thirty or forty

··

ndebted to other persons, might give in a schedule of his debts and propose an arrangement for discharging them, and, if the Court thought it reasonable, it might at once confirm it, so that a small debtor would thus be in exactly the same position as a large debtor who had succeeded in making a composition with his creditors or in arranging for a scheme of liquidation. Al

rs ago Mr. Chamberlain's ideal was to destroy the County Court imprisonment for debt and t

id it

ther reason of its non-success is that it is a voluntary system of some complication in competition with the simple, brutal method of the judgment summons and impriso

s and has proved a success in mitigating imprisonment for debt and holding out a helping hand to those who were drifting into insolvency. But the system as it stands depends too much on the initiative of the County Court judge or the registrar. Thus we find on

der made against him is that he shall pay his debts to the extent of so many shillings in the pound at so many shillings a month. If he does not carry out the order there

ration order to pay ten shillings in the pound at five shillings a month. The Treasury are at once down on him. Their fees are always calculated, not on the dividend paid, but on the total amount of the debts, and they insist in ever

solvent poor out of their weekly pittances instead of helping them to pay their debts. I call it a wicked policy for the State to

ur will, and the responsibility is yours and mine. For we know that every penny of that ￡13,000 comes out

e rich man pays his entrance fee of ten pounds and is a life member of the Bankruptcy Club. The Treasury never thinks of touching him for a subscription of two shillings in the pound on the amount of

es of things. I wonder if I were Chancellor whether I should get rid of that shameful tax on the poorest of the poor. Perhaps not. After all, the Good Samaritan was speculati

yond my humble ken that makes it necessary for