THE MORATORIUM.
The' elaborate procedure through the Public Trust Office and the land boards proposed in the Government's moratorium legislation has been swept away by the Statutes Revision Committee, and the Supreme Court has been reinstated as the tribunal to which mortgagees may resort. To this extent the committee's amendments will no doubt satisfy the numerous objections that were made whan the Bill was first introduced. But the committee has not actually advanced the matter to its final solution. Although his machinery may have been cumbersome, Sir Francis Bell's idea was apparently to replace all the protected mortgages by new mortgages that would be automatically withdrawn from the shadow of the moratorium. The committee has fallen back upon a simple extension for three years, and as interest is to be at a rate rather below the current rate for new loans, it would appear that finality will not be reached by its method until the price of money falls low enough to encourage protected mortgagors to make indepen dent arrangements. So far as de
posits are concerned, the committee has accepted the Attorney-General's proposals for extensions of 12 month,* in the case of small amounts and 13 months in the case of larger sums, and added clauses prohibiting depositories borrowing • moneys either at call or on debentures unless the new loans are applied to the repayment of debts to which the moratorium applies. But there is no indication in the telegraphed sum-
Mary that it haß restored the right given to depositors under the March Act to appeal on the ground of greater hardship. That omission should certainly be rectified before the Bill passes into law. And since the committee has dealt so ruthlessly with the first draft of the Bill, perhaps the Committee of the whole House will have the courage to jettison its amendments and embody a scheme for the veleasc of mortgages on a chronological scale, and by ,that means, apparently the only one that is effective, bring this business to a definite conclusion,
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19211216.2.28
Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17966, 16 December 1921, Page 6
Word Count
337THE MORATORIUM. New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17966, 16 December 1921, Page 6
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the New Zealand Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence . This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Auckland Libraries and NZME.