THE MORATORIUM.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1924, Page 5

THE MORATORIUM.

EXTENSION TO NEXT YEAR. FINAL DATE AGREED ON. BILL BEFORE THE HOUSE. By Telegraph—-Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. The House went into committee tonight o n the Mortgages Final Extension Bill as reported (from the public accounts committee. Mr. A. Harris (Waitemata) esked the Prime Minister, who was in charge of the Bill, whether he would accept an amendment striking out the amendments xnade by the public accounts committee, as he was in favour of terminating the moratorium at the earliest possible moment. Mr. Massey replied that Mr. Harris had better wait until these amendments were reached. Personally he agreed with the amendment extending the date from December 31 until March 31, because December 31 was an extremely rwk ward time of the year at which to arrange finance, but with the other amendments he disagreed and he would support Mr. Harris i n opposing them. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. T. M. Wilford) remarked that this was a complete change of front on the part of the Prime Minister, who had said that since the public accounts committee had come to certain decisions he would accept these amendments.

Mr. Massey replied that there waa evidently some misunderstanding as to what he had said. In clause two Mr. W’lford moved to strike out the word “court,” which meant Supreme Court, with a view to inserting Magistrate’s Court. He maintained that the judges of the Supreme Court already had too much work to do and were not possessed of the same local knowledge as magistrates, who were thus better qualified to know whether a settler was likely to pull through or whether he was not. Mr. Massey suggested that Supreme Court judges might appoint different centres where applications could be heard and so avoid the necessity of country settlers travelling long distances to the cities. That would alleviate some of the hardships. The Hon. C. J. Parr and the Hon. J G. Coates supported referring the matter to the Supreme Court, but several country members preferred to have applications made to magistrates. Mr. H. E. Holland (Leader of ths Labour Party) favoured entrusting the hearing of applications to magistrates as being cheaper to applicants.

Mr. Massey asked the House to agree to the clause as ‘it stood and he would discuss the matter with the Attorney-General and have the clause amended in the Legislative Council. Mmbers would then have an opportunity of considering it. Mr. Wilford safld the suggestion was reasonable and he would accept it, and the clause was then passed. Clause five was amended by putting forward the date to which extension orders might be extended from December 31, 1926, to March 31, 1927. A lengthy discussio n followed on the date to be fixed as the limitation to a mortgagee’s power of foreclosure, and finally the date inserted in the BUI after several divisions was July 31, 1925. The Bill was then reported without further amendment.