SUPPORT FOR MINISTER’S VIEWS ON HIRE PURCHASE

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27988, 7 June 1956, Page 2

SUPPORT FOR MINISTER’S VIEWS ON HIRE PURCHASE

NEWS FOR WOMEN

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON. June 6. “Hire purchase has become a definite social evil, and we are in ftill agreement with Dame Hilda Ross when she says New Zealanders are over-doing it,” said the secretary of the Wellington branch of the National Council of Women (Mrs M. Hayman) today. She was commenting on a statement made by the Minister of Social Welfare (Dame Hilda Ross). “We’re very conscious of this social evil,” Mrs Hayman said. “Most of us hate to think of what might happen if there is an economic recession. “It’s a case of keeping up with the Joneses,” said Mrs Hayman. “Many young women want things that their neighbours have and they go along and get them on time payment—sorrietimes without even their husbands knowing anything about it. I have known of instances where the wife has bought things for the home on time-

payment without tellin” her husband, and has then gone off to work to keep up the payments—also without the husband knowing.”

Mrs Hayman said the introduction of a system whereby both -. the husband and the wife had to sign time-payffient agreements would help to prevent this sort of thing. The president of the Wellington Housewives’ Association (Mrs J. G. McLean) said that, after consultation with some members of her committee, she was not entirely in agreement with Dame Hilda Ross’s criticises of the time-payment system. “It is a which has become recognised all over the world, and it is not an easy thing to condemn it without considering it fully from all angles,” she said. Her association would give Dame Hilda Ross’s comments full consideration at a meeting on Monday, said Mrs McLean.