AGAINST USURY

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 34, 9 August 1921, Page 8

AGAINST USURY

Our laws against usury, .' which Mr. Justice Darling wants to so© strengthened, are mild indeed, when compared with those enforced in most States of America (says the Manchester Guardian). Twelve years ago, when the Russell Sage Foundation started, a. campaign" for. the relief of money-lenders' ■victims, tbero were throo hundred money-lenderß in , Now York, with an annual turnover ,of about twenty million dollars. ' Their fates of interest ranged from 100 to nearly 1000 per cent, per annum. In 1913. the head of the Division of Remedial Loans, appointed by the Foundation was able to report:—"There are not thirty moneylenders in New. York ' to-day, and any one of these will gladly accept settlement of outstanding claims on a 6 per cent. basis. It is now impossible for a borrower who has contracted a usurious loan to go to a magistrate and swear out a warrant for tho arrest of a money-lender. If he has been forced to pay usury, he may 'sue for the recovery of twice the excess interest paid in any transaction within a period of two years." Since 1909, thirty other States have also passed laws against usury, with excellent results, i In Milwaukee, a millionaire moneylender wis sentenced to throo months' imprisonment for oharging exorbitant interest, and in Baltimore, a city magistrate found guilty of acting in collusion with a, usurer went to prison for six months. These and other exemplary sentences had such an effect that usury has been almost stamped out in, the States where it is penalised.