§ MR. MACLEANI beg to ask! Mr. Attorney-General whether he is aware of the fact that within the last ten years 82,590 persons have suffered imprisonment for non-compliance with orders of the Court for monetary payments; and whether, in view of the consensus of opinion amongst experienced county court judges that the present system of debt collecting through the medium of the county courts has, specially of late years, conduced to the development of a pernicious system of credit and to the growth of firms whose main business is to tempt people of small means to borrow money at ruinous rates of interest or to purchase articles they cannot afford, he will consider the advisability of introducing legislation to abolish imprisonment for non-compliance with orders of the court for monetary payments, or, in the alternative, that no judgment summons should be issued or committal made for a less sum than 40s.
§ SIR JOHN WALTONThe Lord Chancellor has given the subject the 555 most sympathetic consideration. He heartily approves of some Amendment of the law, and he is quite prepared, it occasion offers, to introduce legislation.
§ MR. BYLES (Salford, N.)asked whether the number of imprisonments for debt was not increasing, whether prisoners for debt were not treated as common malefactors, and whether the threat of imprisonment was not frequently used to extort money, not from the debtor, but from some relative or friend.
§ SIR JOHN WALTONI quite agree that the evil is growing, and that the need of some change is increasing.
§ MR. MACLEANinquired if the hon. and learned Gentleman's attention had been drawn to the remarks of Judge Rentoul on the subject of committals in his Court.
§ SIR JOHN WALTONIt is only one of many instances showing the great need for reform.