HIRE-PURCHASE GOODS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19939, 7 May 1928, Page 10

HIRE-PURCHASE GOODS.

NEW BILL IN COMMONS. PREVENTION OF SEIZURE. Australian Prcs3 Association—United Service LONDON, May i. In the House of Commons to-d ay Sir J- Agg-Gardner, UlO oldest member of the House, who is a Conservative representing Cheltenham and who has not made a speech in Parliament for a quarter of a century, moved the second reading of a bill dealing with the hirepurchase system. He estimated that from 50 to 80 per cent, of the motor-cars bought in Britain, 70 per cent, of the sewing machines, 80 per cent, of the gramophones, 10 per cent, of the jewellery and half the furniture, were sold on tho hire-purchase system. The bill proposes to relieve the goods of a hire trader from liability to seizure in tho event of distraint or of tho bankruptcy of the hire-purchaser. Sir F. B. Merriman, Solicitor-General, strongly opposed the bill. Ho said the genuine hire-purchase system, which had como to stay, served a useful purpose, but the trader covered his risks in the price ho charged for his goods. Tho measure would paralyse the law of distress and would provide an instrument which would enable fraudulent dealers to put goods out of tho reach of their creditors. Tho sitting was adjourned owing to the lack of a quorum.