IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXX, Issue 168, 20 July 1894, Page 3

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

Speaking to the motion for the second reading of "The Imprisonment for Debt Abolition Bill, Mr Buick is re- ' ported m Hansard as follows : — " With regard to the Bill itself, they had been told that night, on more than one occasion, that it was a relic of barbarism that there should be anything m the shape of imprisonment for debt. In his opinion, it was a much more barbarous idea that the only modicum of security the tradesman at present had should be taken away from him entirely. If it was the opinion of the honorable member for Wellington City (Mr Duthie) that a man ought not to be sent to gaol who could pay and would not pay, all he could say was that the honorable gentleman's idea of morality and" justice was very differ-* ent from what his was. The fear of imprisonment vras really the only way m which they could keep some dishonest people m check. The present law was not required for the ' honest people at all ; but it was necessary for dishonest rogues. His opinion was that the real result of ' the Bill would be to make honest customers pay for the bad ones far more than they did at the present time. He did not see anything m the Bill but to encourage fraud, and he thought the actual result would be to put greater burdens on those honest people as against fraudulent people. He was afraid he could not support the second reading of the Bill.