THE POOR MAN'S BANK.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 100, 29 April 1908, Page 4

THE POOR MAN'S BANK.

A correspondent of a Christchurch paper has drawn attention to a matter that appears to be in danger of escaping the notice of our legislators. The high rate of interest charged by pawnbrokers is the subject of his communication, 16s in the pound per annum being, he states, the legal rate. He gives one instance where a widow who pledged £6 worth of jewellery, had to pay £4 8s per year interest. The matter is certainly one needing legislative attention. This is a question that is apt to pass unheeded in a country where fortunately the services of tho pawnbroker nre not often required. But when they are sought it

is by those in the most straitened cir-

cumstanees, the very people who can least afford to submit to extortionate rates of interest. The pawnbroker is the banker of the very poor, and the law should not permit any privileged class to take advantage of the neces-

sities of the indigent. To legally authorise the imposition of. such an enormous rate of interest, for loans granted upon security of which the pawnbroker is the sole judge of value, is a preposterous thing, which would never be permitted were the subjects of it possessed of any political or social influence. It is the poorest of the poor, | the down-trodden who are unable to i assert themselves against such oppression, that are the victims of this legalised iniquity, and public journalists all over the land should cry out against it and demand speedy reform. The poor man's bank, should, like that of the rich man, grant loans at reasonable rates of interest, and anything in tlie shape of usury should be sternly repressed, rather than encouraged by the law.