LOAN SHARKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 291, 8 December 1937, Page 15

LOAN SHARKS.

SHYLOCKS OF ENGLAND.

PARSONS FAIR GAME,

LONDON,

Loan sharks in England have reached the point where they are becoming a national cancer," Angus Watson, a magistrate, announced recently. Here as elsewhere, they prey on the poor and ignorant, but another and perhaps more lucrative field is the poor, educated and underpaid professional class. Professional men who become involved with a moneylender will make a great effort to cover up the matter for fear it will ruin them professionally. Above all, said the magistrate, the loan sharks prey on persons. Under the law they can safely extort Interest of as much as 140 per cent a year. By borrowing more money to nay the interest the victims often find themselves going steadily deeper into debt. One tyoical case was that of a clergyman with aa income of £180 a year. He had to borrow £8 to finance an operation on one of his children. He agreed to repay a total of £12 in six monthly instalments, making the interest about 140 per cent a year. Mounting Interest. The parson was unable to meet the payments. A second moneylender, who was introduced to him by the first, gave him another £8 advance on the eaine terms. Again unable to meet the payments, the clergyman borrowed £40 from a third loan shark and gave his furniture as security. When he found himself in danger of losing the furniture he turned to his friend, the magistrate, for help. Housing schemes to make it easier for poor persons to possess new homes were blamed by Magistrate Watson for other cases of trouble with moneylenders. Once the poor persons get a new home they are tempted to buy new furnture for it on the instalment plan, the magistrate said. But the law says the buyer is responsible for half or three-quartern of the total purchase price even if liis income should fail and he should have to give up the articles after only a month of use.

The tommon practice in such a case, so id tlie magistrate, is for the seller to introduce his debtor to a moneylender who will lend him money—at a rate that would make a Shylock blush for shame.