I move for leave to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to confer on courts of justice certain powers in relation to remedies in respect of the non-payment of money and the non-performance of obligations (including powers in relation to bankruptcy and winding-up proceedings) and to make provision for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. The object of this Bill is to provide protection for persons who entered into commitments prior to the war, and who to-day are not able, owing to circumstances arising out of the war, to meet those commitments. It must be within the knowledge of the Ministry, as it certainly is within the knowledge of members of the House, that since the outbreak of war there has been a very substantial rise in unemployment. The official statistics show that in the past few months the figures have risen by no less than 25,000. There is every reason to believe that during the next few months the figures will rise still higher. That additional unemployment can only have been brought about at the price of intense suffering on the part of those who have lost their employment. When persons lose their employment it has the inevitable result that the commitments which they have entered into are, so far as they are concerned, undischargeable at the moment.
The present situation, so far as unemployment is concerned, is somewhat different from what we have been accustomed to in the past, because one of its most remarkable features in recent months has been that a new type of person is losing employment: that persons who formerly found regular employment in industry or in avocations of one kind or another are now, in consequence of the impact of the war, losing that employment in very large numbers. The problem in the past has been of a type where unemployment was always fairly intermittent. In recent months, a new type of person has been thrown out of employment: persons such as clerical workers, persons engaged in the motor industry or in commercial travelling. Types of workers of that kind have lost their employment in substantial numbers as a result of war conditions, and of the emergency situation in this country. It is inevitable that people in such circumstances should not be able to meet their commitments.
The object of this Bill is to provide some protection for people of that kind, so as to ensure that the commitments they have entered into from the standpoint of buying a house or furniture will not be used as a means for recovering the furniture or dispossessing them of their houses due to circumstances outside their control. The object of the Bill is not to abolish at all the rights of a creditor. A creditor's rights under this Bill stand, but when it comes to the exercise of the creditor's rights through the machinery of the courts, the courts are empowered to decide whether or not a judgment given by them may be executed in full or partially. The procedure proposed in the Bill is extremely simple and involves no expense to anybody. Under it the court is to decide whether or not a judgment may be executed. If the court thinks that a judgment given against a debtor should, in all the circumstances, be enforced, it is authorised to say so, and in those circumstances the judgment is enforced as if this Bill had never been passed. The court may also give permission for a partial enforcement of a judgment. The Bill also provides that there are certain judgments excluded from its scope, judgments relating to a civil wrong or to a claim for compensation in accident cases, or as regards costs and fines imposed by a court of law in the ordinary course, as well as all debts or obligations entered into after the Bill becomes law.
It is not sought in this Bill to have the matter decided in any rule of thumb fashion, or by the exercise of the judgment of unqualified persons. The right to decide whether a judgment shall be made operative either wholly or partially rests with the courts. The courts alone can decide whether, in all the circumstances, a judgment should be executed fully or partially. This Bill embodies legislation which is not unknown in other countries. As a matter of fact, in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland a Bill of a somewhat similar kind has been passed. In Continental countries legislation has been passed giving the courts power of the kind envisaged in this Bill. In fact, within the past few weeks Switzerland, a country not at war, has passed a Bill somewhat similar in its provisions to the Bill now before the House.
It is inevitable that, in a war situation, persons will find themselves in a difficulty for reasons quite outside their control. Therefore, they ought to have the protection of the courts against judgments being levied on them and executed against them in a manner calculated to do serious and, probably, irretrievable harm to the domestic, financial or economic position of the debtor.
Even if it could be claimed that this is a desire to introduce the principle of a moratorium, the House is not unfamiliar with the moratorium legislation. Recently we had an example of the House being asked to pass legislation to enable the Dublin United Tramways Company to avoid repaying £300,000 of its debenture stock. If a company of that kind can manage to get a moratorium in respect of its liabilities to its creditors, surely there is nothing objectionable in the principle of allowing the courts to decide whether, in similar circumstances, a private person or firm should not be permitted to have judgment executed against them with some kind of reasonableness in an emergency situation.
Since the war started we have had Emergency Powers Orders issued here, many of which provided for a revision of contracts which were entered into prior to the war, and enabled contractors and suppliers of one kind or another to secure a revision of the contracts they had then entered into. Even in respect of building schemes which are being undertaken to-day by local authorities, war clauses are being inserted giving the person an assurance that, in the event of certain unforeseen happenings, the person will be entitled to revise the contract and have the payments under the contract improved, if it is necessary to improve them for the purpose of avoiding what might in altered circumstances be an inequitable contract. I submit this Bill, therefore, for the consideration of the House, and I do not understand at all the reluctance of the Minister to write into our legislation here a provision of this kind which has the merit that it enables the court to decide the matter. It means taking for our citizens power which many other countries in Europe —whether at war or in peace to-day— have found it necessary to take in the emergency situation through which all countries are now passing.
