The Press Monday, September 22, 1924. The Moratorium.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18184, 22 September 1924, Page 8

The Press Monday, September 22, 1924. The Moratorium.

The misnamed Mortgages "Pinal 1 ' Extension Bill passed through all its stages in tlic House of Representatives Jar.t week, and i 3 now before a Committee of the Legislative Council. It may be that nothing effective ean now be done towards having the Bill restored to its original shape, but if the Council will (lo this it will render the country a good service. The crucial amendment mado in the Bill by the Public Accounts Committee of the House was adopted by a majority of only one or two votes —there were several divisions on the date to which tho operation of the Bill should be extended —and the Council will thus have much stronger justification than it often has for making alterations in the measure as received from the House and for insisting upon thein. Nobody knows —for no statement on the point was made in the House—why the Public Accounts Committee 'proposed to extend until March 31st the date for tho lodging of applications by mortgagors and to extend until July 31st the dato upon which mortgagees) may resume their long-withheld rights. But everybody knows that the sooner I the moratorium ends the better. Mr Masscy himself, at; one stage of the \ debate, opposing the suggestion that the moratorium should be extended for j twelve months, said, "In the meantime '' this wretched thing is hanging over J " us and is doing incalculable harm." It is not nocessary now to, repeat the reasons which have been so often given ] why tho moratorium should end on December 31st, or to do more, on this point, than express the hope that the Legislative Council will allow these reasons to have tho weight which was not allowed to them in the House. But it is necessary to emphasise again the importance of resistance to that immoral view which was taken by the House, namely, that a mortgagee is not entitled to consideration. This doctrine has quite obviously underlain Parliament's treatment of the subject from beginning to end. It has never been openly ami plainly avowed, but j it has been there. The Leader of the j Labour Party came as near as a politician could, however, to affirming thai! Parliament should place itself on the j side of the mortgagor. There was a ] long discussion on a proposal that | applications for extensions of mortgages should be referable to Magistrates for decision. Mr Holland supported this proposal on the ground that it. "would make it easier for the " mortgagor to move the Court." Perhaps it would, and there is nothing in this argument to which one need object. But Mr Holland added that " he thought it would be better if the " onus of moving the Court rested " upon the mortgagee." In actual practice mortgagees might not object to this, provided the mortgagor paid the costs, as he certainly ought to do. The mortgagee, however, and everyone who has a sense of fair play, will resent and condemn a suggestion which implies that the mortgagor has an | established right which it is for the | mortgagee to attack, if he can. Tho fact is, of course, exactly the opposite of this: the mortgagee has been kept out of his rights for years. Mr Holland said, in effect, that the rights lie with the mortgagor. Although we know that the Labour-Socialist's theory of property implies that a mortgagee, having money to lend, is ipso facto a scoundrel, wo had not known that Labour-Socialist morality was as loose as Labour-Socialist economics. It is not encouraging to honest citizens that vhe House seems to have taken a view not. on the whole, different from that of the Reds, and one must hope that the Legislative Council will not show itself equally indifferent to the principles of fair dealing.