MR GILLIES ON IMPRISON MENT FOR DEBT.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 785, 7 March 1871, Page 2

MR GILLIES ON IMPRISON MENT FOR DEBT.

At a meeting of the electors of City West, recently held at Auckland, Mr Gillies thus alluded to the above subject :—" He thought also imprisonment for debt should be abolished. It was a relic of a barbarous age. If a man lived extravagantly; if he obtained goods improperly; if he neglected to show that he had acted properly and honestly, then let him be punished for fraud or some other offence, and not merely because he was in debt. As to the bankruptcy laws, he feared they operated as an encouragement to some persons to get rid of scruples of conscience as well as of debt. A man honestly-disposed would have a determination that no man should be a loser by him, but by the aid of the bankruptcy laws he threw over those feelings. It might do well to abolish the recovery for debts under £2O. If that were done, people would give small credits only to those whose characters they knew.'' Debts would then be regarded as debts of honor, and debts of honor were the best paid debts. They could then do away with a great number of Resident Magistrates' and Resideut Magistrates' clerks. That part of the cost of government would be saved.