ITS POUND OF FLESH.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 912, 20 June 1896, Page 2

ITS POUND OF FLESH.

The I<oaii and Mercantile's Policy of

Realization.

The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Ageacy was intent upon getting its full pound of flesh when it entered the dwellinghouse of Mr Alexander McCorquodale, manager of the Roller Mills, seized his household furniture, and sold it by auction in Cochrane's mart. All this happened

within the last few days, and there are already indications that the treatment of other shareholders will be similar to that accorded to Mr McCorquodale. And what was Mr McCorquodale 's offence against the company ? Simply this, that he invested his capital in its shares, thereby displaying confidence in the integrity, shrewdness and business capacity of its directors. We know the rest. Mr McCorquodale lost his money. He waß only one of many who were similarly rained. And now, having lost every penny he possessed through the mismanagement or misfortunes — call it which yon will— of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency, the officials of the Loan and Mercantile Agency enter his house and take away from himself and his family the very beds on which they sleep, in order to make good the calls that have been levied on his wretched shares.

It is a poor policy this altogether. These shareholders have been wronged quite enough already without depriving them also of the beds on which they sleep and almost the very clothes which they wear. The sale of this furniture produced very little money, the sale of the fnrniture of other creditors cannot produce much, and the funds of the Loan and Meicantile cannot possibly be benefited to any great extent by this barbarous policy of confiscating domestic goods and chattels. Why, then, pursue it ? Have these people not suffered enough already for their indiscretion in having invested their money in the Loan and Mercantile stock ? Why pursue them to an extremity which many a bare-faced and stony - hearted usurer would be ashamed of?

If one comes to analyse the situation in connection with this Loan and Mercantile matter, it will be found that the shareholders are in a very anomalous position. Their money has been lost throngh no f aalt of their own, and yet they are punished for this misfortune by the very corporation that is responsible for the loss. To our way of thinking, it is the directors and managers of the Loan and Mercantile Agency whose furniture should be taken away and sold. It should be incumbent upon them to make good some portion of the shareholders' money that has been so sadly wasted. For they are all comfortable, well-to-do men, these directors and managers. They don't seem to have lost very much — however the shareholders have been squeezed. But this is not law. The law is that the directors and managers of the Loan and Mercantile Agency may continue to squeeze the shareholders until they haven't a coat to their back or a crust in their mouth. As for the directors and managers, by whom this money was lost, they are protected by the law— they must not be touched. The pity of it all is that when the disclosures were made in the first instance about the position of the Loan and Mercantile, steps were not taken to place the concern in liquidation so that the actual position of the shareholders might be ascertained, and also in order that it might be discovered what degree of culpability attached to those who had brought the company into the deplorable condition in which it was.