The Southland Times. MONDAY, JULY 20, 1874.

Southland Times, Issue 1950, 20 July 1874, Page 2

The Southland Times. MONDAY, JULY 20, 1874.

A Bill introduced by the Premier for the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt having been read twice in the House of j Representatives, it is^ likely that the session will not pass without placing the matter upon a more satisfactory footing than at present. It is now two years since the law of imprisonment for debt was under consideration, and at that time a Bill for the abolition was passed in the House of Representatives, but rejected h r fcko ofckon tnjairnh of the Legislature on the ground of a contemplated amendment of the insolvency laws of the Colony. No doubt this appeared to the rejecters of the Bill a sufficient reason, but we fail to see that there is any connection between the two subjects. The ! question of the propiiety of imprisonment for debt is one which, to be fairly considered, must be looked at apart from any other, there being no necessary connection between debt and fraud. In the Bill before the House this principle is fairly assumed, and the relief intended to be afforded by the Bill is made to comprehend every conceivable class of simple debt. The exceptions to the operation of the measure are thus stated : — 1. Default in payment of a penalty or sum in the nature of a penalty other than a penalty in respect of any contract; 2. Default in payment of any sum recoverable summarily before a Resident Magistrate, or Justice or Justices of the Peace, or Court of Petty Sessions, under the Justices of the Peace Act, 1866, or any Act amending the same or passed for like purposes, or otherwise than under the Resident Magistrate's Act, 1867, and Acts amending the same. 3. Default by a trustee or person acting in a fiduciary capacity, and order to pay, by a Court having jurisdiction in the matter, any sum in his possession or control. 4. Default by a solicitor in payment of costs when ordered to pay costs for misconduct as such, or in payment of a sum of money when ordered to pay the same in his character of au officer of the Court making the order. 5. Default in payment for the benefit of creditors of any portion of a salary or other income in respect of the payment of which any Court haring jurisdiction in bankruptcy or insolvency is authorised to make an order. These exceptions are mostly such as no objection can be taken to, the assumed cases being— except in that referred to as No. 2 — scarcely in the nature of debt at al], and may ia all the other exceptions have very largely the character of crime in their composition. We suppose, however, it has been necessary to make these exceptions because the law recognises the cases above quoted as those of debt, although it may be of fraudulent debt. There is a possibility of an injustice being still perpetrated by the proposed continuance of imprisonment for " default in payment of any sum recoverable summarily before a Resident Magistrate or Justice or Justices of the Peace;" and the construction of this ' clause will need to be defined or materially altered in Committee, or the evident intention of the Bill (to abolish imprisonment for debt) will be in great ' danger of being frustrated. In the i gratification we feel at the step taken by the Q-overnment, in the abolition of that which has for a long series of years been the engine of oppression and the cause of misery and crime to an utterly incalculable extent, we are not called upon to endorse the view of Mr Sheehan in speaking to the Bill, and can scarcely believe him to have been in sober earnest in proposing that a provision should be made in it for indemnifying the creditors who, before its passing, had succeeded in ' incarcerating their unfortunate debtors , by virtue of the existing law. Taken in connection with what followed from the same gentleman, the proposal may have been intended to set in a strong light his view of the present system, which he characterised as " a barbarous and utterly useless custom," and the necessity for getting rid of it even at the cost of satisfying the claims for which debtors had been incarcerated. The suggestion does — -i, 1 , - rr nnn 4-n V, r, Ira, ttfaAfl *•«— garded with much favor by] other members, and perhaps it may on this occasion be the misfortune of Mr Sheehan to be somewhat in advance of the time. The balance of opinion in the country is decidedly against imprisonment f for debt, and we believe that it is now very generally admitted by all classes of mercantile men that its abolition would be a step in the direction of placing the credit system of the Colony on a more satisfactory footing.