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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3244, 23 November 1881, Page 2

In addressing the electors of Wellington South, the other day, Mr W. B. Edwards said that he thought the " Imprisonment for Debt Abolition Act, 1874," would be more correctly named " An Act for the more Speedy Imprisonment of Small Debtors at the Expense of the State." Before the introduction of tho Act of 1874 any person who wished to imprison hia debtor had the pleasure of paying for the luxury. Since then almost any person can be sent to gaol by his creditor simply going through the process of getting a judgment summons. By most magistrates— though not, said Mr Edwards, by the gentleman who presides over the Court in Wellington, and who takes an intelligent view of tbe matter — an order to pay ia made—sometimes a very heavy one—and if a man does not comply with that order he has either to go to gaol or file a declaration of insolvency. It is to this that Mr Edwards attributes very many of the email bankruptcies which occur so frequently.

Every day we read and hear of cases where men file for £40 or thereabouts, and if the law referred to did not exist we should see nothing of this sort. There are many small debtors who are compelled to take advantage of the Bankruptcy Act for the purpose of keeping out of gaol, and that is a tbiug which ought to be stopped. But at the same time the bankruptcy laws ought to be made more stringent, for it is possible now for frauds to be perpetrated under cover of them.