HC Deb 01 July 1927 vol 208 cc796-814
Major GLYN

I beg to move, in page 7, line 20, after the word "circulation,'' to insert the words "or by means of any poster or placard."

I am the first Member on this side of the House to move an Amendment on this Bill, but I do attach great importance to this Amendment because, when introduced a Bill on this subject last year, I had the advantage of having it considered by a Joint Committee, and we unanimously came to the conclusion to remove the possibility of the individual appeal by the moneylender or those connected with a money-lending company to private persons. Moneylending is a legal profession undoubtedly, and you must allow moneylenders some means of advertising their vocation. It was agreed at that time that they ought to be allowed to insert advertisements in the newspapers, because that would not be a personal appeal to any young man or woman who might be taken in by a circular. But then it was said that by doing so we should make it possible for moneylenders to buy a large number of newspapers, to mark their advertisements, and to send them broadcast to individuals, just as they do with circulars. To mark a newspaper and send it broadcast would be acting against the law. I would draw attention to the Amendment in the name of the Financial Secretary to the War Office which is next on the Paper, to leave out certain words in the same Clause. I think the moneylender ought to be allowed to have a placard outside his establishment to proclaim his vocation, since the profession of moneylending is legal, but I have the strongest possible objection to having placards advertising moneylenders all over the streets and inviting people to borrow money. That may be the result of this Bill becoming law as it stands. There are, of course, a very large number of moneylenders who carry on their business in a highly proper manner and like other people they are suffering for the sins of those who do not carry on their business honestly. Those are the people who would advertise in this way and destroy the purpose of the Bill. I hope that this Amendment will receive the general assent of the House, because I think it is highly important that we should make it perfectly clear that the promoters of the Bill desire to remove that direct appeal to individuals by circulars or other means. At Charing Cross Railway Station the other day I met a sandwich man carrying a placard on the top of which were these words Why not come to my firm and have all your financial worries cured? From the evidence we have had before us I do not think anyone wants his financial worries cured in such a manner. If you allow the Bill to stand as it is now we are not going to do very much good. We do not want to boost up any other trade or profession by this Bill, but we are out to try to do our best, while giving perfectly fair treatment, to moneylenders, to remove temptation from those who are likely to be taken in by the appeals of dishonest moneylenders because a fool and his money are soon parted. We have to get rid of touting on behalf of these dishonest moneylenders who are causing a great deal of suffering and misery.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

I beg to second the Amendment.

1.0 p.m.

A previous speaker commented on the number of lawyers who spoke on behalf of the money-lending fraternity. I have no personal acquintance with them but I know about them professionally. My professional knowledge is confined to the receipt of a large number of their circulars since I became a Member of Parliament. They seem to think that as soon as a man is elected to this House he will be likely to be in need of money. I do not approve either of their touting or of their advertising, and I think we should restrict this aspect of their business as much as possible. I confess I am greatly disappointed with the Bill as it stands. It misses out one of the most essential provisions, if foolish borrowers are to be protected. There ought to have been a provision, such as I adumbrated when a Moneylenders Bill was introduced by another hon. Member last year—I mean a provision against moneylenders taking written statements or declarations from intending borrowers.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN

Will the hon. and learned Member explain what part of the Amendment he is dealing with now?

Mr. DEPUTY- SPEAKER (Captain FitzRoy)

The hon. and learned Member's arguments are considerably wide of the Amendment but on this Amendment the House can discuss the whole of Clause 4.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

It is the practice of certain of the evil type of moneylenders to send their clients to another moneylender, who, very often, is the representative of the first moneylender. They tell him that they have no more money to lend, but believe that their friend has. But they enjoin him not in any circumstances to tell the new lender that he either knows the first lender, or that he owes him any money. When he goes to the second moneylender, the second moneylender will say that he does not suppose that the wretched borrower, whom we will call Mr. Snooks, owes anything to any other moneylender. When he recalls what he has been told by the first one, he confirms this statement, and he is then asked to sign a statement to that effect, as it will be needed to raise the money for him. The wretched borrower signs, and then he is in the toils, and, when the crash comes, he is threatened with criminal proceedings for obtaining money by false pretences. He then goes to his widowed mother or his clergyman father, and weeps that he is in danger of being sent to gaol, whereupon they, terrified by the prospect of such an exposure, pawn all that they have in order to pay the debt. They are too ashamed to consult even the family solicitor, or tell anyone about it. The borrower knows, and his next-of-kin know, that he has signed a lie. The moneylenders knew that it was a lie, and deliberately set the booby-trap for him, intending to use it as I have described.

Mr. BUCHANAN

If that is so, is it not a form of blackmail, and therefore the moneylender who does it can be prosecuted if he dares to use such a declaration?

Mr. MACQUISTEN

I am inclined to agree with the hon. Member, but the point is that it never gets to the length of a criminal prosecution. The wretched borrower knows that he has told a lie and he is in terror. I have had a moneylender come to me and say, "Your client signed this." I replied, "On whom are you trying that?" And I told him that I would have him in the Fiscal's hands if he was not careful. I put the blackmail on the other foot. Some of the lower grade moneylenders have a clearing house for dealing with these matters. One of them will say to a would-be borrower, "I am tired of lending you money. Go to Mr. So-and-so. He has a lot of money to lend; but do not tell him you owe money to me."

Mr. DENNISON

Is the hon. and learned Gentleman dealing with the whole of the Bill or with this particular Amendment?

Mr. MACQUISTEN

I am dealing with this Clause. The hon. Gentleman should not be quite so sensitive about it. I wish to ask my hon. Friends who are promoting this Bill whether they could not get such an Amendment as I have indicated, to deal with declarations, used in another place? It is the root of the whole difficulty. It is a form of blackmail that is used for collecting money from a man's next-of-kin. There is a difference between the banker and the moneylender. The banker lends you money when you have some, but the moneylender lends it when you have none. It is to prevent the next-of-kin of the unfortunate borrower being punished by the use of this kind of declaration that I wish to see the matter dealt with, if possible, in another place. With the Amendment as far as it goes, I have every sympathy.

Mr. BURMAN

In the Bill as originally introduced by me circulars, posters and placards were all prohibited, but advertisements were allowed in newspapers under certain restrictions. The matter was thoroughly discussed in Committee, and under pressure I agreed to remove placards and posters from the prohibition. Of course, advertisements in newspapers and posters and placards do constitute a personal affront in the same way as the circular which reaches you by post in the morning. You are not bound to read advertisements in newspapers or posters on the walls or placards on the hoardings. Therefore I do not regard this as a vital element in the Bill. At the same time there are others who think that posters and placards should he prohibited, and if the House desires the Clause to be restored as it was when the Bill came before the House for Second Reading, I have no objection.

Mr. HARNEY

I understand that we can deal generally with the whole Clause on this Amendment. There are two Amendments on the Paper in my name. One is to insert, after the word "placard," the words "or by means of a circular or business card." I do not agree entirely with the strong views expressed by another hon. Member about these circulars generally. I confess that I have not been able to see much distinction between the scented envelopes of the moneylenders and the very elaborate things sent out by tea dealers and sugar dealers and cigar merchants and wine merchants. I throw them all into the wastepaper basket, and I am annoyed by the one no more than by the other. If I were on the lookout for wine, I should take the wine circular, but I am well supplied already. I do not think there is any just ground of complaint against these circulars being sent out by tradesmen. If they do not interest you, you throw them on one side. But we have had to bow to the storm of prejudice against such circulars. It is provided in the Bill that the only way money-lenders can make themselves known to the public is by some document or other that will give their name, their address, their telegraphic address and their telephone number, and stating the fact that they lend money. That is all that they are allowed to do.

The purpose of all these Amendments is to ascertain in what way they ought to do that very limited thing. No one wants them to do more. There have been three suggested methods. One is that they ought to be allowed to do it by a business card. The other is that they ought to be allowed to do it by placard or poster. The third is that they ought to be allowed to do it through the medium of the public press. Before the Select Committee, Lord Darling, the President, referring to Lord Phillimore, said: I think the Noble and learned Lord will find there is no difficulty for a moneylender to start his business. He may send out business cards. There is a provision as to that and as to putting advertisements in the newspapers. The Bill as drafted excludes the business card, and allows the advertisement, and, as to the poster and placard, I think there was some misunderstanding. I have here what the hon. Member for Duddeston (Mr. Burman) said in Committee: The Bill as it stands permits a poster or placard outside the registered premises but prohibits them generally on hoardings. The chief reason why circulars have been prohibited is because they are a great annoyance and vexation to the public, but I do not think that reason applies to the same extent with regard to the poster or placard which is a legitimate method of advertising the business, and the promoters will raise no objection to the acceptance of the Amendment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A., 5th April, 1927; col. 77.] That was an Amendment dealing with the use of placards generally. The Bill does not carry out that proposition, because a poster or placard can only be exhibited at the authorised address, so that as the Bill stands, the only way in which a man who is carrying on this legitimate business—who must be of good character, and who is restricted in a score of other ways—can make himself known to the public, is by a placard outside his premises or by putting an advertisement in the newspaper. These are two very inadequate methods. Once you recognise that his business is legitimate and is properly safeguarded, every channel in ordinary commercial and business usage should be open to him for making himself known. You shut him out from anything in the nature of an invitation, anything like a tout, anything like a puff. Everybody else—the wine merchant, and the tobacco merchant—may tout and puff and humbug us, sending out rosy descriptions of their wares, but the moneylender can do nothing but state "This is my address, this is my telephone number, and the business I do is that of lending money." When you limit him in that way, you ought to open every window to him for making those facts known.

I draw the attention of the House to two or three reasons why the particular method selected, namely that of advertising in a newspaper, is a bad one, and one likely to defeat the very purpose which the promoters have in view. At present, a great deal of money is spent by moneylenders in sending out circulars. They are now told they cannot expend that money on circulars, but they can expend it in the Press. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent a person inserting the few particulars which are allowed as a full-page advertisement on the front of the "Daily Mail." Fancy the front page of the "Daily Mail" with such an announcement as this: "John Jones—or Snooks, or whatever it may be. My telephone number is,—, my telegraphic address is—. I lend money to all comers." Do you think that in such a case a newspaper proprietor could not in the first place put up the prices and in the second place say to the moneylender, "My friend, if you send a good fat half-page or full-page advertisement, I will give you a puff in my leaderettes"? The result will be that instead of the circular which falls quietly into the postal receptacle, which is opened quietly at the breakfast table, and thrown quietly into the waste-paper basket, you will have flashing advertisements in the public Press, and insidious puffs which cannot be given in the circulars but which can be given through a third party in the Press. The wise course is to adopt Lord Darling's advice, and allow these gentlemen to send out their business cards. Prevent them if you like from doing what other business men can do, namely, using puffs, but since you limit them to a mere announcement of their existence, let them make that existence known in the ordinary business way by card, instead of forcing them into the public Press. To force them into the Press will defeat the object which the promoters have in view and will be unfair to the small printers in the country who will be cut out of the profit which is to be made by printing these circulars, while the rich monopoly newspapers will benefit.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES

We have reached what is probably one of the most important Clauses of the Bill. I think I am right in saying that had it not been for moneylenders' circulars, which were sent out so openly to everybody, this Bill might never have been brought forward. I do not know why the hon. and learned Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney) should complain about the proposals of the Amendment to impose these restrictions. Having listened to the Debates on this subject for some weeks, I confess that if I had my way, I would place the moneylender, for purposes of advertisement, in the same category as the lawyer. I would not allow any advertisement of any kind which invited anybody to borrow money.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN

On a point of Order. Is this something new which is being sprung upon us? There is surely nothing in law to prevent a doctor or a legal man advertising in his own way. This is trying to put the camel through the eye of the needle—bringing forward these spurious arguments.

Mr. DAVIES

It would have to be a big needle. I do not know whether there are any restrictions in law on the legal profession in this respect, or whether it is by custom, or by regulation, but they do not advertise.

Mr. HARNEY

It is due to our modesty.

Mr. DAVIES

At any rate, in the legal and the medical professions there is no advertisement. If you want a good lawyer, or a bad lawyer, you have to search for him. The same rule, I am informed, applies to the Stock Exchange. I do not see, therefore, why the hon. and learned Member should complain about the advertisements of moneylenders being restricted. There is an Amendment to be moved later, on behalf of the Home Office, which will prohibit any placards at the place of business of the moneylender. That is a further restriction, and I welcome it. Cases appear in the Press every day, showing the terribly tragic consequences which arise from this business of moneylending. Later on, I shall have something to say on the general principle of moneylending. The hon. and learned Member for South Shields during the Committee stage, and also to-day, has several times expressed the view that moneylending is like any other business. I decline to accept that view. Moneylending is a business apart. If I have £100 to lend and a man who is penniless comes and borrows that £100, that man is in bondage to me until he has repaid that sum. Consequently, I say that lending money is an entirely different business from an ordinary transaction and—

Mr. WOMERSLEY

What about if he gets credit for goods; is he not in bondage then?

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN

That is Home Office honesty.

Mr. DAVIES

I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Rhondda (Lieut.-Colonel Watts-Morgan) does not want me to enter into combat with him. I should prefer an argument with hon. Members opposite, but these two Amendments on Clause 4, in my view, are very necssary, and any Amendments whatsoever that would restrict this business within very definite limits are welcome, so far as I am concerned.

Mr. GROVES

I also am in favour of both these Amendments. I have been opposed to the moneylending business all my life, because I believe its ramifications are inimical to the general population. I would like to submit to the hon. and learned Member for South Shields (Mr. Harney) that in his speech just now he said that the quiet dropping of these circulars into a postal receptacle was no greater danger than the sending of wine circulars and so on, but according to the Bill the moneylenders will not be allowed to send out these circulars.

Mr. HARNEY

I pointed that out.

Mr. GROVES

I welcome that part of the Bill too, that in future they will not be allowed to send us, as they do now almost weekly, in what the hon. and learned Member rightly described as scented envelopes, circulars very ingeniously worded. I am not speaking for myself, because I have never been in the clutches of the moneylenders, having always learned to say, "No, thank you" to that kind of inducement.

Mr. HARNEY

You can only send the name and address now, and I was dealing with the point as to whether it was better that that, and that only, should be done through the post or through a newspaper.

Mr. GROVES

I think the ingenious circulars sent out to all and sundry—

Mr. HARNEY

They cannot be ingenious, because only the name and address are allowed.

Mr. GROVES

I welcome provisions tightening up the possibilities of these people, because of my experience of the horror, the harshness, and the insidiousness of the circulars sent out by them. It is easy to see that these circulars are intended not only for the unwary but for people who are really in the moment of need, and I submit that anything that we can do to prevent their distribution we should do. While it is not a legal restriction that prevents lawyers or doctors from advertising, but is a part of the custom of those professions, they have discovered it to be profitable to maintain a select security, and anything that we can do to put moneylenders in a similar position will be a step in the right direction. I submit that there is no need for people who have money to lend or to give to have either puffs from newspapers or these nicely worded circulars sent out. I am very astounded that there should be people in this country running about with the desire to lend money, and it suggests itself to me that, of course, the motive is that of extorting a very high rate of interest for the money lent. I am sorry that in this Bill we could not have dealt with the widespread credit system in this country under which people are invited to get goods, not coin.

If moneylenders want to be treated, as the hon. and learned Member for South Shields suggested, as on an equal footing with other industries, they might themselves open places in London and exhibit their goods, just as the people who sell wines in Holborn illustrate their brands in shop windows. I am sure they would not want any circulars if they exhibited ordinary sovereigns for loan. Let them openly take offices in London and not send circulars to poor people in the country or send poor people along the Strand, carrying placards. The hon. and learned Member for South Shields would, I suppose, say that people who are strong enough would pass them by and not be affected, but he knows as well as I do that in this land to-day there are many clever and insidious ways in which people of cupidity are capable of impressing, not their wares, but their ideas on the common people, and I believe that the use of these artifices has for many years affected, not only the poor artisan people, but many of the middle-class people also, until they have got into the hands of moneylenders and found themselves, in the end, bankrupt. I am sure that any Amendment restricting the possibilities of these people advertising their trade is a step in the right direction, and I hope that both the Amendments to this Clause will be accepted.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN

I hope I did not hear aright the hon. Member for Duddeston (Mr. Burman) say that he was prepared to accept the Amendment, having regard to what transpired in Committee upstairs. There is so little interest exhibited in this Bill on the benches on both sides of the House that we are now left simply, with one or two exceptions, to those who have devoted a good deal of time, both in the Select Committee and in the Committee upstairs, to this Measure. I want to enter my protest, after the discussion which we had upstairs, at the readiness which is displayed to accept this Amendment. I am confining myself at the moment to the phrase which we succeeded in having included in the Bill In Committee allowing the moneylenders at least this amount of grace and fair play, that they may exhibit on their own premises the same kind of placard that they would be allowed to put into a newspaper under this Clause. I now understand that the hon. Member for Duddeston is going to give way, remove that concession which he made in Committee, and accept the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Abingdon (Major Glyn) and also that of the hon. and gallant Member representing the Government.

Mr. BURMAN

The original Bill prohibited placards on hoardings, but permitted them on the business premises of moneylenders. Under pressure in Committee, I gave way and permitted posters and placards on hoardings, but now that an Amendment has been moved to restore that prohibition to the Bill, I naturally desire that it should be restored, though I agree that moneylenders should be allowed, on their own premises, to show that they are doing business there.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN

I understand that the hon. Member is going to accept the Amendment which will prohibit that taking place. Do not let us have any monkeying about the business at all.

Commodore KING

I was going to explain, after the remarks of the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies)—

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN

I am not giving way to the hon. and gallant Member.

Commodore KING

If the hon. and gallant Member will allow me, I was going to explain that if this Amendment is carried, mine, in line 26, to leave out from the word "aforesaid" to the word "if" in line 28, will not be moved.

Lieut.- Colonel WATTS-MORGAN

That means exactly the same thing.

Commodore KING

I think I can make it plain. On an Amendment moved by the hon. and gallant Member for East Rhondda (Lieut.-Colonel Watts-Morgan) in Committee, these words, which it is now proposed to insert, were omitted. From the point of view of the Government, they did not mind whether they were in or out, and, under pressure, the promoters of the Bill accepted the deletion of these words. A question was put in Committee to my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General whether, if those words were omitted, it would not be necessary to delete the words lower down as is proposed in an Amendment standing in my name on the Amendment Paper now before the House. Through some mistake, as hon. Members will see if they look at the OFFICIAL REPORT of the second day's proceedings in Standing Committee, it was reported that these words which I now seek to delete were, in fact, deleted in Committee, but in the official record that does not appear, and my Amendment is merely to carry out the intention expressed by the Committee upstairs. But if this Amendment of my hon. and gallant Friend be carried, there will be no need for my Amendment to be moved, because it is only complementary to the Amendment which was made in Committee.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN

I am very much obliged for the explanation, and it does carry out what we agreed upon upstairs with regard to that matter.

Mr. WOMERSLEY

May I ask whether, if this Amendment he carried, a moneylender cannot have a brass plate with his name on, his door, or a painted sign to indicate that he is doing business on certain premises?

Commodore KING

The proviso to Sub-section (2) says: Provided that an advertisement … may be published … by means of a poster or placard exhibited at any authorised address of the moneylender. Those words will still remain. I do not seek to remove them.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES

Will not the position be this? If we accept the first Amendment, the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member opposite is not to be moved, and the moneylender will be precluded from using placards and posters in general, but will be allowed posters and placards on his place of business?

Commodore KING

Yes.

Mr. HARNEY

I would like to ask whether the promoters and the Government have definitely made up their minds to resist my Amendment relating to business cards? Will they not reconsider the sending out of a business card?

Commodore KING

No; we could not do that.

Mr. DENNISON

I agree with my hon. Friend that this is, perhaps, the most important Clause in the Bill. I am glad, also that there is a general consensus of opinion in the House to accept the Amendment to prohibit general placarding by posters and so on, because I think that is a most objectionable form of advertisement. It is a serious proposition for a Scotsman to see a man with a board on his back with the words, "Do you want money? "I am very glad that that form of advertisement is to be cut out. Nothing has been said about Subsection (3) of this Clause dealing with the question of touting. If there was one thing against which the Committee upstairs, and particularly the Select Committee, of which I had the honour of being a member, set their face, it was touting on behalf of the moneylending business, and I think on examination it will be found that Sub-section (3) of this Clause is very tight indeed. But I would ask whether or not, between now and the time when the Bill reaches another place, some provision could not be added to deal with dud firms, that is, firms who start with no money at all, who may be registered at Somerset House with about £3 capital, and advertise themselves as prepared to lend anything from £5 to £5,000 on note of hand? That is worth inquiring into.

I do not think there is anything in the Bill to deal with that form of abuse in a profession which, after all, is a necessary commercial business to-day, whether it is regrettable or not, and it is carried on in many cases at a high standard. We know it is abused. There are unscrupulous moneylenders, just as there are unscrupulous borrowers. Only this week we have seen a report of proceedings regarding the bankruptcy of a noble lord, a member of the other House, who has been bankrupt three times. He attributes his downfall to having got into the hands of moneylenders. He did not go to moneylenders of his own volition, but because he was being pressed by other people to get money, which he merely handed over to tradespeople or other people who were pressing him hard. I know of a tenant of a public house belonging to a brewery company, of which an hon. Member of this House happens to be a director, and the tenant was being pressed so severely for his accounts that he had to go to a moneylender to get the money to hand over to the brewery company. Let us be quite frank. Let us examine this thing in all its bearings without prejudice. It is extremely difficult to deal with this matter without being liable to be understood as taking the side of the moneylender against the borrower, and I make this confession, that when I was appointed a member of the Select Committee of 1925, frankly I went on to that Committee unconsciously with a tremendous amount of prejudice against the moneylender, but, in the course of the proceedings, having heard the evidence and the whole position examined, I certainly modified my view. I came across sufficient evidence to satisfy me that, alongside the unscrupulous moneylender, there was equally the unscrupulous borrower. This Bill does not deal with the whole contract involved in a moneylending transaction. Nothing is said about the unscrupulous borrower. Instead of being called a Moneylenders Bill, it ought to be called a borrowers' Bill, a borrowers' charter.

But I want to get back to the point that in Committee upstairs we had a very keen debate on the whole of this Clause, occupying four days. We had a very patient Chairman, the same Chairman who is the subject of censure by certain hon. Members. He had a good deal of patience with the promoters of the Bill. I would not like to say he was 100 per cent. Patient with us, though I would be the last to pay him anything but a compliment. There was the keenest discussion and the keenest division on this Clause. On this question of placards, posters and circulars the majority was only 8. I do not know how many Members there were on the Committee who might be regarded as promoters of the Bill, but there were a good many supporters of the Government. Really this is not a private Members' Bill. It is a Tory Bill. The Government have tried to make out that this is a private Members' Bill, but they have not deluded me into that belief, because I have spent far too much time over this Bill, to the neglect, I am afraid, of some other matters.

I want the House to examine this question of circulars free from prejudice. In 1925, when the Select Committee investigated the question and examined numerous witnesses on the question of circulars, there was no objection to the issue of circulars as such but—and this is the kernel of the question—the objection was concerned with the nature of the circulars and the language in which they were couched, the deceptive language, in many cases. The feeling was that the circular to be sent through the post should be in a limited and prescribed form, that the circular should not tell lies and deceive those who received them. This view is borne out by a statement by Lord Darling in another place. Lord Darling was asked by Lord Phillimore whether the recommendation made by the Select Committee as to circulars sent through the post would preclude the sending of an ordinary business circular or business card. Lord Darling, who was Chairman of the Select Committee, was quite definite on the point. He said it did not preclude a moneylender sending out an ordinary business card in the prescribed form, that is, in the form of the advertisements which moneylenders can send to the newspapers.

This is a difficult question to deal with, because one is liable to be misunderstood and to be accused of being in the hands of moneylenders if one argues in favour of this concession. As other Members have made statements about themselves, perhaps it is necessary for me to say that I am not in the hands of the moneylenders and that I hold no brief for them. I have never borrowed, not because I did not need money, but because I thought it was a very bad habit, and because I could not afford to borrow, being too poor to pay back. Also, I certainly could not lend money. If I had had money to lend, perhaps I should have found some difficulty in parting with it, being a Scotsman.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope)

I do not see what this has to do with the question of circulars.

Mr. DENNISON

I thought we were permitted to discuss the whole of this Clause.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

Yes, the Clause, but not the Bill or the personal affairs of a Member.

Mr. DENNISON

I am much obliged. I come here to be corrected. What I want to do is to make clear to those Members who were not on the Select Committee or on the Standing Committee that the form of intimation which a moneylender is to be allowed to make to the public was dealt with very specifically. He is to be allowed to advertise only his name, his business address, his telephone number and his telegraphic address. If it is right to allow a man to let the public know through the newspapers that he is carrying on this profession, surely it cannot be wrong to allow him to send the same information privately to an individual through the post. I have not been able to understand what objection there could be to it, unless it were a sentimental objection. I do not see what logical argument could be advanced against it. If the promoters of the Bill will not agree to that, they ought to be frank with us and say they want to make this business illegal and to stop it. It is not fair to accept this business, as we all do, as a necessary commercial proposition and then to preclude those who carry it on from letting the public know about it; and as we have taken steps to check the abuses of which moneylenders may have been guilty in the past through issuing misleading circulars, I think we shall be going too far if we stop circulars altogether.

With the Clause as a whole I am in general agreement. I think it is a sound proposition. I think we are all unanimous about preventing touting. While I cannot always associate myself with the hon. Member who is moving this Amendment, after my experience on the Select Committee and on the Standing Committee, and after close reflection on the matter, I can say twat I wholeheartedly support his proposal, though I am only speaking for myself and not for other members of the Labour party or for the Tory party. I know there are some members of the Tory party who agree with me, and it is the first time I have ever found myself in combination with hon. Members opposite, but some of them are right on this occasion.

Mr. STEPHEN

The remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Dennison) with regard to circulars have left me quite cold. He says that the form of the circular is the only cause of complaint. I go further, and say that the fact that the circular is sent at all is a cause of complaint. I will tell my hon. Friend one reason, other than a sentimental reason, why I say that. When a circular of this kind is sent by a moneylender to an individual, it may help to destroy the credit of the individual to whom it is sent. He has not asked the moneylender to send it, but it comes to him as if he were in financial difficulties, and, consequently tends to destroy his credit. With regard to the form, I have here one of the circulars that are sent out by a moneylender in Glasgow. It was sent to one of my constituents, who has sent it on to me, and I think it is well that the House should know the kind of thing that is sent out. It reads as follows: I was pleased to see through the Press of the safe arrival of your little son, and trust most sincerely that, you are both making satisfactory progress. How pleased and relieved you must be to feel that the little might is a boy— the House will note the spelling "might" for "mite"— and that he is strong and well. Please accept my heartiest congratulations and good wishes. At the time when you are rejoicing aver the arrival, you may also be pleased to know that, if you are in financial difficulties, I am prepared to grant any sum from £3 upwards to you and your little son. This is the sort of thing with regard to which a plea is made that permission should be given to these people to send out circulars.

Mr. DENNISON

On a point of Order. I made it quite clear that I was opposed, as was the Select Committee, to the sending out of misleading circulars of this type.

Mr. STEPHEN

This circular has been sent to me by a constituent of mine, and it is on the notepaper of the moneylender himself. Some of my colleagues have seen it. My hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton says that he made it perfectly clear that he objected to the form of many of these circulars, but I say again that, while it is true that he did say that the form was the objectionable thing, I say that it is more than the form. These circulars may do the people to whom they are sent a great deal of damage, and I am surprised that anyone can defend such a practice at all. It is suggested that they might be allowed simply to send a business card. This might be taken as a business card. A definite form might be laid down for such circulars, but, even if a circular were in the form laid down in the Act, there would still be the possibility of damage to the credit of the individual. I do not want to do anything that will hinder the passing of this Bill, but I did think that this precious circular was worth bringing to the attention of the House during the discussion on this matter. No people suffer more from moneylenders than the poor people in the cities who get into their hands, and, under the form of procedure in connection with a promissory note, they are practically helpless in the hands of the moneylender unless they get legal assistance. They are not in a position to get legal assistance, and, consequently, they are in the toils. I hope that this Bill will pass to-day.

Amendment agreed to.