"AWFUL DEVICES."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 288, 5 December 1935, Page 11

"AWFUL DEVICES."

MONEYLENDERS ATTACKED. JUDGE'S SCATHING COMMENT. Jhe "awful devices" of moneylenders were criticised at Liverpool Assizes by Mr. Justice Hilbery. An action was brought by A. Barclay and Thomas Henry, Ltd., a Manchester and Liverpool firm of moneylenders, to recover damages for alleged conspiracy to commit barratry, maintenance, and champerty.

The case collapsed before evidence for the plaintiffs had been finished and judgment was given for the defendants with costs.

The defendants were Henry Solomon Lipson, John Bagshaw Mason, Thomas Magee, and the Northern Borrowers' Aid and Protection Society of Liverpool, which they represented; W. Gordon French and John N. M. Entwistle, solicitors, of Liverpool, and their managing clerk, George J. Musker; and Ernest Berry Kendall, a solicitor, of Liverpool.

Mr. Justice Hilbery' said charges of the gravest kind had been made against professional men without the slightest foundation. Evidence had shown that every precaution had been taken to ensure that this Borrowers' Protection Society should not act illegally or be used for illegal purposes.

"Those who have listened to this evidence," went on the judge, "cannot fail to have been shocked to think of the situation and the plight of these honest folk of poor position who get into the hands of these moneylenders, paying and paying and paying, without in the least understanding where they are.

"They do not know that the Moneylenders Act was passed in an endeavour by Parliament to come to the rescue of the victims of moneylenders. I deplore what has come out in this court as showing that even this Act is not enough to avr.il or save these poor people from these awful devices."