DEBTORS AND CREDITORS BILL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4536, 4 October 1875, Page 2

DEBTORS AND CREDITORS BILL.

TO THE EDITOR OF HIE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir,—Those members of the House of Representstives who opposed tho Debtor and Creditors Bill, as introduced, deserve the thanks of the colony. Sir. Sheehan very properly said “ Debtors would be made very Shylockaand denounced the BUI as a “ Draconian measure.” and if passed would be a disgrace to the Statute book, with the clauses in it to which he referred. Is it possible that our city members should support such a measure ? and as to tho statement that the Wellington Chamber of Commerce had revised and approved of the Bill, such is not the case. It is true a few member's perused the BiU, and drew up a report, which was adopted without the Chamber knowing anything of its merits. The Chamber did not discuss the merits of the Bill; had they done so, ft report condemnatory of the Bill would have been the result. The Hon. Mr. Bowen defended the clauses relative to “after liability.” Does ho want to go back to the barbarous customs of tho ancients? With respect to debtors, and tho checks placed on the severity of creditors, the following particulars are to be noted;—“An ancient custom which, according to Dionysius, iv. 0, had been modified by Servius Tullius* was revived by one of the laws of tho xii. tables, preserved in Gellius xx., 1, whereby it was enacted that a debtor, whose debt had been legally declared a just debt, unless he either discharged it within a set time, or found security for its payment, was made over faddictusj to his creditor, who, if ho pleased, thereupon conveying him to his house, kept him bound fnoxusj in thongs or fetters, employing him in any servile work; the condemned debtor being maintained meanwhile at his own cost if ho pleased, or else at that of his creditor. The latter was, however, obliged to bring him into the comifmiu on three successive markot-days, that there might be the chance of his release by some compassionate person. If, after tho lapse of sixty days, the debt remained unpaid, such persons being brought forward for the third time, according to Gellius on tho third market day, lost citizenship, or were sent for sale beyond the Tiber ; if there were several creditors, they were allowed to divide him, semre partes . "Whether the addicti were slaves, was, I perceive, a matter of dispute among the ancients themselves. Heineccius shows that their condition differed widely from that of slaves ; there certainly are more reasons than one for questioning that it was the same. Such as were conveyed across the Tiber, and sold, evidently became slaves.” “Fuss’sßoman Antiquities: Oxford, 1840.” And again, Proverbs, chapter xxii. v. 27, “If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?” It is very necessary that the electors should take a glance of tho doings of their members, and at a proper tim« ami place remind them of their advocacy of such measures as the Debtors and Creditors Bill, now under tho consideration of Parliament. It would take up too much space to prove—though it could easily bo done—that the Bill, if passed, would punish debtors even more severely than they were at the period of Roman history referred to in the above quotation, and that Mr. Pyke’s amendment, to bring tho Bill into operation in the year 1975. should have been carried. Our city members by that time would have had sufficient time allowed for reflec- , tion. —I am, &c., Junius.