Dannevirke Advocate [PUBLISHED DAILY.] OLDEST ESTABLISHED PAPER AND GUARANTEED LARGEST CIRCULATION IN THE DISTRICT. SATURDAY, MARCH 31. THE RECOVERY OF DEBTS.

Bush Advocate, Volume XIV, Issue 300, 21 March 1903, Page 2

Dannevirke Advocate [PUBLISHED DAILY.] OLDEST ESTABLISHED PAPER AND GUARANTEED LARGEST CIRCULATION IN TH E DISTRICT. SATURDAY, MARCH 31. THE RECOVERY OF DEBTS.

-: (- ■ * ■ j Ukder the existing law it is a difficult matter for tradesmen to recover debts, in the event of debtors declining to pay. It is an easy matter for a creditor to get a judgment against a debtor, but a most difficult matter to have the order of the court given effect to. According . to Mr Beetham, S.M., of Christchurch, there is practically no such thing as a judgment summons except in cases of fraud. It is only in this land of advanced legislation that such a state of things could be possible. Apparently the way of the debtor fa strewn with roses, and the exercise of a little ingenuity will absolve him from the necessity of paying his debts, and enable him to waltz light-heartedly through life "looking the whole world in the face "because the said world has • not a chance, of making him pay a cent. The inspired draughtsman who framed the Act that has resulted in the conversion of New Zealand into a Paradise for debtors seems to have excelled himself. Mr Beetham explains the inability of the creditor to secure his money thus: — " The reason is that no one can prove that a man has got money in bis pocket, because he never has any money in his pocket. It is not sufficient to prove that he once had it; it must be shown that he still has it." With this absurd Act staring him in the face, the tradesman, unless he is running his business from pure philanthropy, will simply have to stop giving credit. And some businesses cannot, in the present^ economic conditions, be carried on without credit. In consequence of the provisions of the Act a number of tradee'men in various parts of the colony have already curtailed the credit of customers, especially in the case of labourers, and an instance of this occurred a short time ago at Taihape where the business men give little credit unless they receive orders on the Government from the co-operative men.