THE MORATORIUM

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 26, 31 January 1924, Page 6

THE MORATORIUM

REJOINDER FROM ASHBURTON

LAYMEN'S DIFFICULTIES.

,' (HI TKCEQRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATIOX.) " ASHBURTON, This Day. ..Replying-tb the comments of Sir Francis Bell and other-legal authorities concerning the ..moratorium, the Ashburton commercial lawyer, previously interviewed, explains where, a debt is "a mortgage by deed and a creditor is perfectly safeguarded, obviously there is no need for warning; but the moratorium stopped the collection of other debts, including: agreements fdr sale and purchase, and also deposits to banks, building societies, and co-operative and other mercantile firms. in all those cases the Statute of Limitations operates in six years, and is not suspended by ,th'e moratorium. It has to be specially remembered that- the moratorium .was invented in time >■ of emergency, solely to benefit'the debtor. His interests were never threatened- he was never in danger of having to pay more than'he owed; but the uninitiated creditor was, surrounded by new pitfalls, which, if not guarded aginst, could deprive him of his entire principal and interest. Laws are made for laymen, hot only for lawyers; and laymen ought not to be placed in a position of losing their finances as penalty for not learning' in a few imergency. years what ordinarily they learn by the accumulated experience of generations. 'Creditors who had not arranged for interest, but loyally accepted the spirit of the moratorium and waited patiently for its expiration will now, through' failure to sue for payment, find themselves completely disinherited by the Statute of Limitations. The suspension of the-statuto could not possibly injure the lowest debtors. ' Its operation will bitterly injure trusting creditors. Parliament could, by a short Act, retrospectively suspending the statute of Limitations in all cases affect-ed-by the moratorium, prevent such injustice." ■ ' .