HIRE PURCHASE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 184, 7 May 1928, Page 9

HIRE PURCHASE

CSYSTEM DISCUSSED IN HOUSE OF COMMONS

LIABILITY OF GOODS TO SEIZURE

(Australian Press Assn.—United Service.)

London, May 4.

In the House of Commons, Sir J. G. Agg-Gardner, the oldest membor of the House, who has not made a speech in the Commons for a quarter of a century, moving the second reading of a Bill dealing with hire purchase, estimated that 50 to 80 per cent, of motor-cars, 70 per cent, of sewing machines, SO per cent, of gramophones, 10 per cent, of pewellery, and half of the furniture in Britain was sold on the hire-purchase, system. The, Bill relieved the goods ’of the hire trader from liability for seizure in event of distraint or the bankruptcy of the hire purchaser. Mr. F. B. Merriman (C.) strongly opposed the Bill. The genuine hirepurchase system had come to stay, and served a useful purpose, but the trader covered his risks in the price of his goods. The Bill would paralyse the law of distress and provide an instrument for fraudulent persons to put their goods out of the reach of creditors.

The sitting was adjourned in the absence of a quorum.