LOSSES ON CREDIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20690, 9 October 1930, Page 16

LOSSES ON CREDIT.

HUGE AMOUNT INVOLVED. STEPS TOWARD CONTROL. OBJECTS OF NEW FEDERATION. "Estimating from the amounts of debts disclosed in tho Official Year Book, in bankruptcies and Magistrate's Court process alone, the public, of New Zealand sirs paying the equivalent of interest, at 5 per cent, annually on £13,000,000 by wnv of losses on credit, given, ' said Mr. 11. W. Dent in an address on "Some Steps Toward the Control of Credit." at a luncheon meeting of the Auckland Creditmen's Club yesterday. Mr. W. J. Holdsworth presided. Tho formation of the, New Zealand Federation for the Protection of Credit was described bv Mr. Dent, who said that tho conference at Hastings in August which took (his step was -epresentative of 2000 of the lending business houses in tho Dominion. Tho smaller associations previously operating, nearly all of which had been in existenco for not inoro than two years, had been requested by their members to recover sums totalling no less than £250,000. Moreover, these figures took no account of amounts collected by commercial collectors and by solicitors. "This federation will serve as a focal point for tho correction of legislation at present inequitably operating against the creditor," Mr. Dent said. "So far, no specific body has existed to see that the rights of tho trading community and of tho honest payer receive duo consideration Tho time has arrived when recognition should bo made of the fact that the Legislature and the Courts, by their interpretation of tho laws, have created a class of person who maliciously, purposely and regularly takes advantage of the trust, of the commercial community and thereafter scorns and defies any attempt at obtaining the honouring of the obligation created. As tho depredations of this class are invariably passed on to the purchaser in tho form of higher prices to provido against bad debts it. can readily bo seen that the objects of tho federation are of interest and merit the support of the honest credit receiving section of the community in no less a degree than that of the credit givers."

Tho commercial community would be assisted by educational methods iri the wise control of credit-giving, and the whole efforts of the federation would be toward tho more efficient working of the credit system, which was in the best interests of a voting and progressive community. It would tend to eliminate the vast economic waste burdening tho community, and to eradicate the rapidly growing parasitical growth of professional delinquents.