I understand that arrangements have been made to take item No. 7— Moneylenders Bill—before item No. 5—Oireachtas (Payment of Members) (No. 2) Bill.
Private Deputies' Business. - Moneylenders' Bill, 1929.—Second Stage.
Has item No. 6— Moneylenders' Advertisements Bill been withdrawn?
It is not being moved at present.
With your permission, sir, I will formally move the Second Reading of a "Bill entitled an Act to amend the law with respect to persons carrying on business as moneylenders." As the House knows this Bill has been introduced by Deputies Little and Briscoe.
Is the Minister absent?
I do not intend at this stage to say anything but I will reserve anything I may wish to say for later on in the debate. Possibly in the absence of Deputy Little, Deputy Briscoe, who is familiar with the proposals, will submit them to the House.
In introducing this Bill Deputy Little and myself hoped that we would find some form on which there could be agreement in the House. We are not stating that every section in the Bill, as we have it, is in absolutely the best terms, or that it would bring about the position we desire to see in connection with people carrying on this business.
Most Deputies are aware that there are people carrying on business as moneylenders who charge an extortionate rate of interest. The methods they adopt to get great profit are not desirable, and are not in the best interests of the individuals concerned, or the community. Moneylending is one of the most ancient forms of business, but in all forms of society, and in all instructions laid down as regards the moral code, money lending has been regarded as a business which has to have some form of rules for its conduct because of the dangers which arise if there is not proper control. I am prepared to admit that there are certain persons engaged in this business who can be classed as financiers, who lend money at moderate rates of interest for productive purposes, and who in order to ensure getting back that money do not charge extortionate rates. They want to be assured, however, of the success of the individual or concern to whom they lend money, so that they will get their profit and carry on their business in a decent and reasonable manner. But again there are in Dublin particularly, persons carrying on this business, whom I could describe as nothing else but money hawkers. They go from house to house offering and inducing the wives of working men to borrow money, for the purpose of getting them into their power, and keeping them paying perpetually certain sums weekly, without any regard to the original amount lent, or any morality with regard to reasonable rates of interest.
I have had occasion personally to arbitrate settlements between borrowers and lenders frequently in the last four or five years, and I must say that I have found instances of harshness, unreasonableness and blackmail which really were shocking and which fortify me in asking the House to give support to a measure which will protect borrowers from the impositions which are attempted by a lot of these usurers called moneylenders. I am not going at this stage to give the House a list of settlements or illustrations of particular forms of moneylending or of the particular circumstances of transactions, but I know that from the highest to the lowest in the State, people are in the hands of moneylenders. They are used and abused by these moneylenders in a manner which is not bringing about that sense of security which we should have. You have civil servants in the hands of these people. I know of a case of a collector of income tax who is in their hands. I arbitrated a settlement in the case of a civil servant who was in the hands of five moneylenders who formed some kind of pool and made it their business to get this man into their clutches. They made it impossible for him to live within his income in a decent manner. I know of bank officials and of people in the slum districts who are in the hands of moneylenders and whom I helped on occasions to arbitrate for a settlement which gave them some relief.
This Bill seeks in the first place to licence moneylenders. It also provides that a licence shall be granted only to people who hold certificates from a magistrate and so assures that persons of good character only will be permitted to carry on this business. There are certain regulations laid down in regard to advertising. At present you will find in the Press of this country misleading advertisements from moneylending concerns which are inserted for the purpose, not of lending money to people who require it in a legitimate manner at a legitimate rate of interest, but of misleading the public. I know of cases where people have answered these advertisements. They see an advertisement stating "Money to lend; £5 for 5s." They write to this concern and they receive an acknowledgement and a request for certain information about the individual applicant, as regards his form of employment, his salary, etc., and a further request afterwards for confirmation of the statements which he has made. Then they inform the intending borrower that the rate of 5s. for £5 does not necessarily mean per annum but in fact might mean for a month or a week. In some cases the borrower tries to withdraw but finds himself confronted with a request for fees in respect of the work which the moneylenders say his application has entailed. Sometimes a request is made for a fee to enable the firm to make further inquiries. In some cases I am told the moneylenders get a list of intending borrowers as the result of the insertion of a single advertisement. They then send over somebody to interview the intending borrowers. They charge a fee for the interview and after the interviewer goes back they probably lend portion of the money which they have collected in fees to one or two applicants. This Bill definitely sets out to stop this form of misleading advertisement.
The Bill also contains a clause providing for forfeiture of the licence for certain offences under the Act. One section has been inserted in this Bill which is not in the English Bill, on which, to a great extent, this Bill has been modelled. That is the section which deals with cases in which a married woman borrows money without the knowledge and consent of her husband. I know of many cases where moneylenders induce a workingman's wife or other married women who are dependent on their husbands to borrow money without the knowledge or consent of the husband, the reason for that being that they always have the woman in fear of the husband finding out and, as a result, they can command a much higher rate of interest or a much greater number of payments from the person concerned. This Bill seeks to make null and void any transaction between moneylenders and married women unless the transaction is carried out with the knowledge and consent of the husbands of these women. It seeks to curtail the activities of the money hawker who goes out canvassing from house to house or who sends out agents canvassing from house to house, and provides that all such business shall be transacted in the registered offices of the moneylenders concerned. It also provides for a proper means of book-keeping and a proper system of understanding between the lender and the borrower. It provides that the borrower at all times shall have an opportunity of knowing exactly how he stands and that he can demand, and get for a fee of 1/-, a statement of accounts from the moneylender. I do not know whether there is going to be any opposition to the Bill in principle. The promoter of the Bill is anxious that an agreement should be found so as to bring about some restriction in the activities of moneylenders, who are becoming a source of danger to the community. It, at the same time, seeks to give some protection to the borrower who is a legitimate borrower from exorbitant rates of interest, and particularly from the blackmail which is associated with this particular trade.
A case which is typical of the transactions which this Bill seeks to kill is this one: a small borrower for the purpose of visiting the betting office or, to get something which is outside the capacity of his ordinary income, borrows £5. He gets immediately £3 15s. in cash, 5/- in the £1 being charged as interest. That is immediately deducted from the total amount. That £3 15s. which he receives is payable, plus the £1 5s. charged as interest, at the rate of 5/- per week. The moneylender does not want that transaction completed. If a person borrowed a certain amount of money, repaid it, and finished there that would not satisfy a certain class of moneylender. What he wishes and what he wants is that after about ten weeks, when £2 10s. has been repaid, the borrower should come along and renew his loan. He again gets the borrower to sign a bill for £5 but he does not give him this time £3 15s. He gives him £3 15s. less the balance of what is coming from the original £5. That is £1 5s., but he still owes £5. He has received altogether £3 15s. plus £1 5s., which means that he has just received £5 and he has paid back £2 10s. and now he owes another £5. Another ten weeks go by and a similar transaction is again gone through. If you follow it up, you will find that at the end of 40 weeks the unfortunate borrower still has £5 to pay at the rate of 5/- per week and for the last ten weeks he has been paying 5/- per week for the loan of £3 10s. of his own money. Compound interest is compound interest but, when it comes somewhere between 1,000 and 1,800 per cent, it is time that the State should step in and prohibit compound interest on money loaned in this way. This Bill prevents renewals of such loans and is designed so that at all times each transaction can be traced and the amount of interest charged can be followed up.
I do not want to delay the House very long by giving illustrations. I believe the House will admit that there are a great many more moneylenders carrying on business in the State than one would imagine if one were to look up the register of moneylenders. I had moneylenders coming to me when I was settling cases, or shortly after the Bill was introduced, and they told me that they had never brought a person to court. I found the reason that they did not bring people to court was that they had not been registered under the Act. A person who is not registered as a moneylender at present cannot claim money due arising out of a moneylending transaction. That may seem a hardship, but it is time to curb the individual who employs blackmailing tactics to ensure the return of his money. As I stated before, some of these men work together in groups. Five of them usually pool a certain amount of money. They then, perhaps, induce a certain old lady to borrow £25, if they know she has a son who has a decent position. Perhaps he has a position in the bank or the Civil Service, or possibly in the Army. They do not give her £25; they deduct their rate of interest. They keep renewing the bill although they get no money, and then, when a large sum is due, they proceed to press her for payment. It is only at the last moment, when she is threatened with the loss of her home through being sold out that she approaches her son, who, perhaps, has not got £50 or £60 handy. He is faced with the disgrace of his mother being sold out because of the transaction with the moneylenders and he, unfortunately, signs a bill with the mother. The pool gets a grip then and starts to press.
I know of one case where a man in a bank became involved in that manner and was terrorised because of the visits paid during office hours by the moneylenders concerned asking him for further instalments. If his manager were to see him he would imagine that he was in the hands of moneylenders, and would have no faith and confidence in him, would stop his promotion or discharge him. He is not supposed to be in debt if he occupies a position of that kind. Usually such a man is driven to desperation, and in many cases to dishonesty, to satisfy these people, who will accept nothing but their full pound of flesh. I know of the methods employed by many of the people engaged in this business, but I do not believe it is necessary at this stage to recite them here, because I believe every member of the House knows from his own knowledge of people who have made complaints in regard to these moneylenders. I am talking now of usury, of a person who is out for the purpose of getting exorbitant rates of interest. Such a person should be brought under control, and if he cannot carry on his business in a legitimate manner under the provisions of this Bill we can do without him, and he should be told that he can employ his money in some other business in which it will be more useful.
I have no desire to penalise the person who is lending money at reasonable rates. Sometimes the small trader may find that he has to obtain a loan to pay the wages of employees and he may get a small loan from a legitimate moneylender to carry on. I am also told that decent financiers are of use to solicitors in the matter of giving advances against unsettled estates, but these solicitors are able to protect their clients' interests against blackmail or anything of that kind. This Bill will make it possible for people to carry on this business in a decent manner and will give some protection to those who have to resort to moneylenders. I hope there will be some form of agreement in regard to the Bill and that the Government will accept it, because we know that after this stage the Bill cannot be piloted any further by a private member. We hope that the Government will accept it and take charge of the further stages. We on this side of the House will give every help and assistance to get the measure passed into law. It has as its main principle the protection of borrowers against usurers and the confining of business within reasonable limits.
rose.
Will the Deputy reserve his speech until later or does he wish to speak now?
I would like to put a few matters to the Minister. I was taken rather unawares, but perhaps I would have the right to conclude.
Deputy MacEntee proposed the Second Reading and he would have the right to conclude.
Deputy MacEntee proposed it, but owing to the difficulty which arose I thought that I might be entitled to conclude the debate.
Yes, if Deputy MacEntee gives way.
Certainly.
I think everybody is in agreement that this Bill is of the greatest necessity. Only recently a comment has been made in a paper which has a pretty sound reputation from the financial point of view, namely, "Truth," expressing amazement that legislation in the Free State had not been brought up to the same level as it is in England. This quotation stated that both in the Free State and Northern Ireland we were behind in this matter and that the evil was very great, that all classes of the community, civil servants, and officials of various kinds, were the victims, as well as poorer people. It is quite true that we are very much behind. It is a rather humorous aspect of this evil that the first group of people who tried to tackle moneylenders in Ireland were the extreme Sinn Feiners, who made an effort some years ago by means of physical force to intimidate moneylenders in the City of Dublin. That was followed up by Lord Carson's efforts in London when he introduced, or took a prominent part in introducing, a Bill in England which is now on the Statute Book. We are in the peculiar position of following in the footsteps of two sets of extremists in order to do for the Free State what ought to have been done long ago.
I was speaking the other day to a man who sees a good deal of the poor, because his business carries him in and out of the houses of the poor. He says that this is an evil that is almost ineradicable; it is almost impossible to get rid of it. We should try to make a big effort to get rid of it, and we should act in a careful and cautious way. We are following to a large extent precedents that have been laid down for us. We are taking advantage of enquiries that have been made in other countries, and we want to legislate in such a way that we will not do more harm than good in the eradication of the evil. There would be two ways of approaching the matter, one of which would be to abolish moneylending altogether, to go in for a form of prohibition. That is not so advisable as to keep the thing in control and to watch it carefully. This Bill aims at carrying out those proposals. That the Bill is necessary is clear from the legislation in existence. At present we are working under two Acts, the Act of 1900 and the Act of 1911. The former Act gives facilities for persons to go into court. The question is then examined carefully by the District or the Circuit Court Judge. The judge has power to enquire into the rate of interest and, if it is unconscionable, the word used in the Act, he can reopen the whole agreement. But the Act is vague and does not set up any standard interest. There is, also, not the same supervision. According to the Act of 1900, moneylenders must register only once every three years and they do not come under the same control as under this Bill. Again, there is a section which prevents moneylenders or their agents from issuing deceptive statements or dishonestly concealing material facts.
The Act as it stands does not deal adequately with the evil. I think everybody realises that there is not sufficient supervision or sufficient control over moneylenders. The Bill lays down that moneylenders must take out a licence. Deputy Briscoe said that the Bill could not go ahead in its present form unless we got the approval of the Government, because a moneylender's licence means the raising of revenue, and only the Government can consent to the raising of revenue. If the Government were not willing to give its approval to this Bill we could drop that particular clause and still go ahead without the imposition of any licence fee. That licence fee would be £10 per year for each moneylender in respect of each office he would establish.
Where does that appear? The Deputy is not referring to sections, and might I ask where the £10 is referred to?
It is in Section 1. The amount is £15, reducible to £10 if paid before a certain period. Section 2, deals with the granting of a certificate to the moneylender. A certificate will be granted on application to the District Justice. He will issue that certificate from year to year and he has power under the Bill to suspend, endorse or cancel the licence. In that way he has a very considerable control. Certain details must be supplied with the application showing that the moneylender is a person of good character and is a fit and proper person to carry on business as a moneylender. In that way a man must be of good standing before he will be allowed to become a moneylender. Of course a great deal will depend upon the administration when it comes to making this measure effective.
Before the Minister for Finance came in I was mentioning that the imposition of a fee would depend largely upon whether he decided it is advisable or not. If he does not feel inclined to give his approval we would be obliged to drop that section. On the other hand, if he would like to regard this Bill as a windfall from the point of view of the revenue he could do so and he could look forward to a £10 licence from something like 260 registered money-lenders, and possibly more. Section 3 of the Bill deals with the powers of the District Justice to suspend or forfeit a moneylender's certificate. The rules are pretty severe. There are very careful regulations laid down in Section 4 as to the moneylender's true name being entered upon the certificate and also his authorised name. A firm might consist of two or three persons, and it may have a special name. The names of the partners must be on each certificate and also the authorised name of the firm. As regards the Act of 1916, dealing with the names of persons, there used to be great abuses formerly, people using fictitious names. They were dealt with by legislation and that legislation is incorporated by reference with this Bill.
There are severe restrictions upon the advertisements which money-lenders may use. They are not allowed to send around circulars or put anything in the Press except certain specific details. For instance, they are only allowed to state their name, address and number, and the amount up to which they are prepared to lend, together with the rate of interest. They are not allowed to hold out any inducement and in that way they are prevented from attracting people into borrowing money who otherwise would probably never think of going in for it. I have here some documents which are sent out at present. They are documents which could not possibly be sent out in England because of the legislation there. In fact, on account of the Act in England it becomes necessary for us in this country to legislate because this country has become a sort of happy hunting-ground for moneylenders. They can do things here which they could not do in England.
Here is the type of advertisement which would be forbidden in England. This is form a company which calls itself the English Discount Company and it is marked "strictly private and confidential; no inquiries made, no security required; no fees; no expenses or charges whatsoever." The letter reads: "Dear Sir, or Madam, I should be glad to accommodate you with cash by post at a reasonable interest without any security or publicity whatsoever. Should you require a cash accommodation there is no necessity to be under an obligation to your friends or to your local bank as we offer special easy terms to suit the convenience of either sex, married or single. For very little interest you can be accommodated with whatever money you require and you can arrange same to be paid by monthly instalments. We also wish to point out to you that we require no personal interview, as loans can be arranged by post. All communications will be sent in sealed envelopes and to any address you desire. Please let me know the amount you require and cash will be posted to you without delay and in the strictest privacy. No business will be entertained with those under age."—keeping within the four corners of the Act.
That is a charming person. Would you put me in touch with him?
Those are just the kind of advertisements which would be absolutely forbidden by the Bill if it becomes an Act. By the way, Section 5 of this Bill was the substance of Deputy Cooper's Bill. I must say that as he is not able to be here he said that he would be quite willing, if we were able to get our Bill through the Second Reading, to take a hand in any Committee business afterwards. He said that the reason he did not make his Bill larger and a Bill with more sections in it is because he was not in very good health. I mention that so that we can count on his support provided the Bill goes through the Second Reading Stage. In Section 6 we try to deal with a rather difficult matter. That is with firms which might work from outside. For instance, the Six Counties have not yet dealt with this evil. It would be possible for a firm to send these enticing letters from Belfast to people in Dublin, and to try to use Belfast as a jumping-off ground by means of advertisements in order to get business inside the Free State. We here want to make the terms of the Bill as stringent as possible so as to get after these people. For instance, a firm might say: "We have two branches one in Belfast and one in Dublin." If that firm was advertising from Belfast it might say: "We are not breaking the Act, that branch is outside the Act." We want to make sure that that particular kind of trick is not played on us.
A form of the moneylenders' contract is laid down in Section 7 of the Bill. The note or memorandum must be made and signed personally by the borrower, and, where the borrower is a married woman living with her husband, by the borrower and the husband. I think that under the present law it may not be quite necessary to put that in, because the law already gives protection. In any case, it is due to us to make sure that the public will know in general that a woman cannot be led into this trap without the actual consent of her husband. I know of one extremely tragic case of a person in a respectable position in Dublin where the woman got a loan of money for household purposes. She did not tell her husband. The matter preyed so much upon her that she went out of her mind and she is at present in a lunatic asylum. We want as explicitly as possible to warn women that they cannot be led into this kind of borrowing without the consent of their husbands. Section 8 prohibits compound interest. That matter has been fairly well dealt with by Deputy Briscoe.
Section 9 is an extremely important section. It deals with the obligations of moneylenders to supply information as to the state of the loan and copies of documents relating thereto. Under this section anybody who is in the clutches of moneylenders is protected in this way. Secrecy is the one thing which a person who has borrowed money wants to maintain. Under this section he is in a position to maintain that secrecy, because he can insist upon an absolute statement of the exact conditions of the loan; how much the original loan was; the date upon which the money was borrowed; the amount of interest which has accured; the dates upon which payments were made; the sums paid and the amount still due.
In that way, a memorandum, if honestly supplied by these usurers, would in most cases show that the money had been paid several times over, and it would place the borrower in a position of not having to pay any more. On the other hand, it is more likely that the moneylender will simply remain silent and not supply that document. If he does not supply it he is completely disarmed, because after a month of silence, the borrower need pay no more; no interest will accure, and if the moneylender still persists in not giving the details asked for if after proceedings "have ceased to lie" in respect of the loan, he will be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £5 for every day on which the default continues. Now, the meaning of the words in the section, "after proceedings have ceased to lie in respect of the loan," are shown under Section 13. Usually, of course, proceedings lie for six years after the debt is due, or after the last acknowledgment of the debt by the debtor. But in this case, under Section 13, after twelve months expire proceedings cease to lie. So that the moneylender who is drawing upon the ignorance of his victim gets very short shrift under this Bill. Section 10 deals with the provision in reference to bankruptcy. I do not think I need deal with those provisions in detail. Section 11 deals with the rate of interest. It is very important to notice that as regards the rate of interest fixed by this Bill 20 per cent. is to be the standard. In some cases the judge might find that 20 per cent. was too much. In other cases it might be found that 20 per cent. was not sufficient, having regard to all the conditions. This section only establishes a standard, a guide for the judge, an indication for him to follow. In England the rate of interest fixed was 48 per cent. That was argued very vigorously against by some of the most important speakers on the Bill, and apparently it was a compromise. Whatever we may think about the conditions in England, I do not think that the conditions of enterprise in Ireland would warrant or justify the fixing of a standard so high as that. It appears from experience in the Bankruptcy Court that traders and industrialists who get loans of money from money-lenders at a high rate of interest are simply postponing the evil day. In the long run it is found that it would have been much better for them had they gone into liquidation or taken the protection of the court before they had got these loans, because getting them simply sunk them deeper in debt. It would have been much better for them if they had not taken advantage of the high rate of interest charged, so that I do not think there will be any harm done, but, on the contrary, good, by discouraging people who are desperate in their minds and look for money at a high rate of interest. Then, of course, the moneylender trades a good deal on the vice of gambling. He should not be encouraged by allowing him to get a high rate of interest for that purpose.
As has already been pointed out by Deputy Briscoe, it is a common trick with them to make charges and fines if there is a delay of a few days in paying interest on a loan. These charges are all totted up and they increase the amount paid for the loan enormously. That is forbidden by Section 12. If they have been paid, they have to be counted and put in as a set-off against the money due. Otherwise they are not recoverable. If the charges are made the borrower need not pay them. These fines are also treated in another place and have to be counted in as part of the rate of interest. That is dealt with in Section 15, the definition section. It provides:
"Interest" does not include any sum lawfully charged in accordance with the provisions of this Act by a moneylender for or on account of costs, charges, or expenses, but save as aforesaid, includes any amount, by whatsoever name called, in excess of principal, paid or payable to a moneylender in consideration of or otherwise in respect of a loan.
Section 13 deals with the limitation of time. I have referred to that already. Instead of allowing the usual six years, it limits the time in which money can be recovered by the moneylender to twelve months only. Then there are under that certain saving clauses which I need not go into at this stage. If Deputies find on reading the Bill afterwards that there is any matter to be raised in the way of amendment that can be dealt with later. The principle in Section 13 is the fixing of a time limit for payment to twelve months after the last acknowledgment of the debt.
Section 14 deals with pawnbrokers. Pawnbrokers are made an exception because they are naturally entitled to make certain charges for the keeping of goods, and so on. The Act allows pawnbrokers in certain conditions to take out a licence as moneylenders. If that is done, then, of course, in so far as they are moneylenders only, without getting goods they would come under the other provisions of the Act. Section 15 deals with definitions. If the Minister is going to give his approval to this Bill so that we can work it as an agreed measure, he may think it well to bring Section 15 up and make it Section 1, because in our Acts passed here we generally put the definitions at the beginning.
Or at the end?
Whichever the Minister likes. Section 16 deals with information to be given on the assignment of a debt. It is simply a set of provisions which deal with a bona fide purchaser for value without notice. It lays down that if the moneylender sells his debt to somebody else who is not a moneylender, then he must tell him that the Act applies to this particulars debt and give him full information so that he will understand, and if he does not give that information he will be liable to certain severe penalties. As well as that the assignee will be in a position to recover the money from the moneylender in case the Act is brought into force against him. It really disposes of the Act of 1911, and in this Bill the whole thing is brought into proper position. I desire to draw the attention of the House particularly to Section 18. This section provides that all rules made by the Minister for Justice under this Act shall be laid on the Table of the Dáil—the word "Dáil" there should be "Oireachtas"— when first made and shall lie thereon for a period of fourteen days, and during that period may be in whole or in part amended or rejected by a Resolution of Dáil Eireann; and further that after the expiration of each subsequent twelve months the said rules shall be again laid upon the Table and be subject during a period of fourteen days to the said powers of amendment or rejection.
We are not wedded to the wording of that section, but if we come to agreement perhaps we could get some way by which the Orders laid on the Table would be something more than perfunctory so that the assistance of the House would be there to help the Minister from time to time. It is a very important problem upon which the House might very well be able to give assistance to the discussion of the rules from year to year. I think that disposes of the principal sections. I will not go into the question of the First Schedule. It provides a set of rules for accountancy, for dealing with loans which have been made in a vague manner, of calculating how much money paid off a loan is to be regarded as principal and how much is to be regarded as interest.
It is really only a question of accountancy, and one would have to take an elaborate example and explain the figures in connection with that example, as it would be a waste of time to deal with it by way of abstract explanation. I hope we will be able to deal with this Bill as we did with another Private Member's Bill. The procedure as regards a Private Member's Bill is that after Second Reading it should go to a committee appointed by the House. That would mean that the general time of the House would not be wasted. The Bill could be dealt with in one of the committee rooms, as another Bill dealing with compulsory Irish for lawyers was dealt with, and dealt with very successfully. I hope we shall get assistance from the Government so that we shall be able to deal with this matter expeditiously.
I have very little to say upon this Bill. As the proposer and seconder pointed out, it is practically a verbatim copy of the existing legislation in Great Britain. I cannot say that I have made any intensive study of the question of moneylenders in this country, and I am not in a position to say that legislation in Great Britain is legislation which is most suited to this country. It may or it may not be. It is not my intention to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill, and it is our intention to give the Bill the necessary imprimatur, if I may put it that way, by proposing the necessary Money Resolution. There are, of course, certain things in the Bill which will have to be drastically dealt with. For instance, I must frankly confess that though I spent a considerable time over Section 11, sub-section (1), I completely failed to understand it. It might be put in another form later on which would make it clear. The 48 per cent. is suddenly dropped from nowhere at the end of the section. There may be other questions of that nature which would appear to the committee to require to be made clear. The Bill may require a considerable amount of amendment. I heard Deputy Briscoe state that one of the great evils in this country was the fact that money-lenders walked from house to house making a personal canvass. I see nothing in the Bill which stops a personal canvass. There is a prohibition of the sending out of circulars, but I do not see anything which prevents a personal canvass.
A section states that every transaction must take place in the office of the moneylender.
A tout can do it. The spider can go around and bring the fly to the parlour. There may be various matters of that kind which would require careful consideration by a committee of the House. I do not propose to oppose the Second Reading.
It is with a feeling of dismay, almost akin to shame, but not in a unfriendly spirit, that I propose shortly to discuss this Bill. I must confess that day by day the mentality and principles of the chief Opposition Party are becoming to me more difficult to comprehend and more difficult to follow. It is from amongst one of the sections of that group that this Bill emanates. As I understand, the chief Opposition Party are agreed in their Opposition to the Treaty, but the Party itself are split up into different sections. There is one section whom it would not be relevant to this Bill to discuss, that is the section that say, while they are opposed to the Treaty still, if their party came into power they would not be such damned fools as to proclaim a republic. The adjective is theirs and not mine. I take it I would not be in order in discussing that section. I take it also that I would not be in order in discussing the section of the chief Opposition Party which say that in the event I have mentioned they would be such damned fools. There is a third and daily increasing section which I think I would be in order in discussing as relevant to this Bill. The leaders of that third section are Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Little. They have it as the Keynote of their principles that they are opposed to the Treaty, because they say this country is unfit and unable to legislate for itself.
Is it any wonder that with that mentality we find the two of them together cogging British statutes and turning them into Free State Bills? Deputy Little said this was a Bill which this House should approach in a careful and thoughtful way. How did he and Deputy Briscoe approach it? Where was the care? Where was the thought in applying a British statute to Irish ideals and ways? They copied it verbatim. Not as much as a word did they change, not a syllable, not a comma. They stand before the House two convicted plagiarists. One would expect them at least to approach the Minister for Finance and ask him to use his well known influence with the British Privy Council so that the Bill would appear before us printed with the words "by kind permission of the British Parliament." But no, they will not do that and at present you have on the Order Paper from this section of the chief Opposition Party two Bills cogged from British statutes and cogged verbatim by this section of the chief Opposition Party who say that we are unable to legislate for ourselves. While I am not opposed to the Second Reading of this Bill, I was never so surprised as I was by the doctrine that we are not able to draw up a Bill suitable for Irish conditions and present it to this House. We have the shame of having it thrown in our faces that when we are getting a statute for this country we have to cog it from a British statute.
We talk about keeping down expenses and making the work of the House lighter. Would it not be easier if the brace of Deputies and their followers were to come together and bring in one statute and declare that all British statutes and Acts shall, except where the Dáil otherwise enacts, be applied forthwith to this country? That is what they want to bring us to. What does the Bill contain? It contains, as I have already pointed out, nothing whatever that the English statute does not contain, not a word, syllable or comma. I was shocked, I was horrified, to find that Deputy Little and Deputy Briscoe would put their names to the back of a Bill that contained not one single provision for the encouragement, protection or cultivation of the national language. We heard Deputy Little at great length a few months ago when he suggested that there should be no entrance into his own profession except for those who passed an examination in Irish. Quite right. That is now the law of the land and we must bow to it. But why not give the same soup to the moneylenders?
Will the Deputy move an amendment to that effect?
Mr. Wolfe
Is it to be suggested that these moneylenders are to be registered without learning one word of the national language? Perhaps then we will have Deputy Flinn, who is smiling, saying that money-lenders are over twenty-one and that people over twenty-one cannot appreciate sound, and that as a result they could not learn Irish. We will have a word to say with the Minister for Finance about that. The Minister has in his locker several "jackboots" still to spare, and with the loan of one of the Minister's "jackboots" it will be easy enough to knock Irish into the moneylenders. I hope when Deputy Little comes to reply he will, at least, give an undertaking that when this Bill comes back on the Report Stage he will be prepared to insert an amendment making it compulsory upon every man seeking registration as a moneylender to show his proficiency in the national language. If he had not been guilty of going to the British statute book and turning a British statute into a Free State Bill, he would never have been guilty of that glaring omission which, I am sure, he will look back upon with very great regret. I think that Deputies Little and Briscoe did not follow the trend of public opinion. That expression "public opinion" is not exactly mine. I think the Minister for Local Government is the author of it. I am afraid I did not follow it. If the Deputies can follow it, they must know that no Bill of this sort will be received by this House unless it contains provisions for the preservation, cultivation and promulgation of the national language.
There are seventeen sections and a schedule in this Bill. What should it contain in order to get rid of the evil which exists in the Free State and which I am entirely at one with the proposer in thinking we ought to get rid of? To bring this down to bedrock, what the Deputy wants is to have Section 7 slightly strengthened. What is wanted is a section making it the law of this country that every promissory note or bill of exchange passed in respect of money or other securities shall contain, in English and in Irish if you wish, a plain statement showing the rate per centum per annum being charged for interest, with the proviso that if that is not done the contract shall be void and also the consideration on which it is founded. That was the idea in Section 7 of the Moneylenders Act, but, in order to suit conditions in this country, it might be suitably strengthened in order to carry out what Deputies Little and Briscoe have said and be in accordance with the ideas they put before the House. To give an illustration of what happens very often in practice: A man borrows £5 from a moneylender and passes a promissory note for £6 payable by six monthly instalments at the rate of £1 per month. What is the rate per centum which he pays? How many people who sign a contract like that know the answer? How many Deputies will work it out within a few minutes or within half an hour? How many can tell you straight off, except perhaps Deputy Briscoe, who I know is quicker than most people, that the man is paying something like 100 per centum per annum? They do not know it.
My suggestion is that in order to turn this English statute into a Bill suitable to Irish ideals and ways, we ought to strengthen Section 7 and put it down plainly and clearly that the rate per centum must be shown in every transaction and that every transaction in which it is not shown shall be void as regards the contract and also the consideration for the contract, so that the money is lost to the moneylender if he does not comply. If we do that, we will meet the evil. Let us not de discussing whether it should be 15, 20 or 25 per centum. Let the man who borrows the money know what the rate of interest is—let it not be underhand. The circumstances in England are very different from those in this country. In this country you have people in the very remote parts, I am sorry to say even in my own constituency, dealing with some of these people from Northern Ireland, from Dublin, or from across the sea. It is all nonsense to pretend that they know the circumstances of the transaction. They do not know. Some of them, of course, whether they know them or not, will enter into these improvident transactions, so that the legislature has to safeguard them and see that the contract is put before them in plain language and that they get notice of what they are doing. If, after that, in the teeth of their own interests, they will enter into such a contract, then all we can say is that we have done everything possible to protect them. I am not unfriendly to the Bill, and look forward with keen interest to seeing the amendments which Deputy Little is already preparing providing for the preservation of the national language and also, I hope, for the strengthening of Section 7 in the way I suggest.
I regret that I have not had the opportunity of hearing Deputy Little explaining the provisions of the Bill. I want to say briefly on behalf of the Labour Party that we welcome the Bill as an effort to control the operations of the particular people with whom it deals. In our opinion, it is a measure which is, in fact, overdue and so far from criticising Deputy Little and his colleagues in introducing it, as Deputy Wolfe did to some extent, I congratulate them on having introduced it. I think it is a Bill that the Government should have introduced long ago. I have no hesitation in saying that this is a much more useful form of legislation and work to do than some of the Bills and motions which we have discussed in the past in Private Members' time. That refers, I may say, to other Bills which have been introduced by Deputy Little.
The general principle of the Bill is one about which there will be no dispute, I think, in this House and no difference of opinion. There is no section in the community which suffers more under the operations of these particular people than the poorer classes in the country, and in the cities especially, and anything that the House can do to put limitations on their activities will be in the interests of the country generally.
I was specially interested in the suggestion made by Deputy Jasper Wolfe of having the rate of per cent. made part of the transaction in each promissory note. I think that suggestion might well be carried out even in the case of other money-lenders who are not exactly spoken of as moneylenders—the banks. People who borrow money from banks very often find it difficult to see what the rate of interest is upon the money they have borrowed. I do not wish, at this stage, to say more than we are supporting the general principle of the Bill and we will examine the various sections carefully with a view to seeing if any amendment may be necessary.
I think if the present law is not strong enough to control the class of people dealt with in this Bill it is a very good thing that this measure has been brought forward. I do not think anybody could spend forty or fifty years in this world without seeing the disastrous results that have come upon many young people, and old ones too, from dealing with those people and, through ignorance on their own part, in not understanding what they were doing. In England there was a tremendous lot of this some years ago and a great many unfortunate young men came to ruin through these moneylenders. A great deal of credit is due to the late editor of "Truth," Mr. Labouchere, and his paper for the public work they did in bringing to the notice of people who were likely to be gulled by these sharps—that is the name they should be called in some cases —and bringing the result of dealing with these people to the knowledge of those who were ignorant of them, and got into difficulties through them.
I am very glad to see, even if we have to copy a British statute, that we are going to have an Act put into force here that will control this traffic, so that anybody that is foolish enough to deal with this class of people will, at least, know what he is about. The suggestion that the rate of interest should be stated on the paper given to the victim is, I think, a very good suggestion. Certainly 20 per cent. is high enough. If the maximum is 48 per cent. in England I am rather astonished that such a thing should be permitted. But I suppose that moneylenders do lose occasionally. I suppose it is regarded as a risky business, and that people engaged in it must be allowed to charge a high rate of interest. But there is no doubt it should be controlled, in the interests of weak and foolish people who have dealings with that class of people. I am very glad that this Bill has been brought forward, and I am sorry that I have not read it as carefully as I should have done. But I can understand from the explanations given by Deputy Little and Deputy Briscoe that there is a great deal in it that is capable of being made workable. I am quite certain there is a necessity for it and I think it has been shown that there is. If this Bill is strengthened it will have a very useful effect and will help and assist people who find themselves at their wit's end and grasp at anything to save them from destruction. I think the discussion of this Bill will bring to the minds of many people the knowledge that it is dangerous to deal with this class of persons without knowing thoroughly what one is about, and the ins and outs of their methods. For all these reasons I am very glad to see that this Bill is brought forward. I hope it will be strengthened in Committee and passed into law.
I must say I feel very gratified that the Bill has got such a favourable reception from all sides of the House, and although we had to submit to the unscrupulous banter of Deputy Jasper Wolfe about imitating English legislation I think it is inevitable that we will have to imitate English legislation for some time to come. That has been done not only in this Bill but in many other cases, but no one took any notice of it in the other cases, whereas we have not merely to follow a British Act in this case but more or less to adopt it verbatim in order that we would not make any drafting errors. We have no expert draftsman at our disposal and therefore to avoid errors it was thought better, at the initial stage, to take the British Act as it is. It is not correct for Deputy Jasper Wolfe to say that not a comma nor an iota in the British Act has been changed. There have been some changes. The rate per cent. is changed and that is a very vital element. There is an additional section also in this Bill dealing with the conditions at present by which a moneylender who would be operating, say from Belfast where there is no Act, will be dealt with. I hope in Committee Stage we will have the assistance of Deputy Wolfe when it becomes a question of dealing with these matters because some of them are very difficult to deal with, and especially this particular problem. I am not satisfied with the drafting of this section as it is.
I am perfectly satisfied to accept any amendment from Deputy Wolfe that will force Irish in upon anybody whether lender or borrower. If Deputy Wolfe will draft such a section I do not care how radical it may be he will have our co-operation.
Provided he applies the test himself.
There are one or two other matters to which I would like to refer. I quite agree with the Minister that we will have to deal explicitly with the tout. Of course he can be dealt with in this way. Very stringent rules can be made by the District Justice dealing with money-lenders from year to year. For instance a man who would tout by sending agents from house to house, or from workshop to workshop, would, I imagine, at discreation of the Judge, be found not to be a fit and proper person to be a moneylender. In that way the matter could be dealt with. But it is not always well to leave things to be dealt with at the discretion of anyone, and it might be well to put something into the Act explicitly forbidding touting in that matter. There is another kind of moneylending which is very insidious and in Donegal and other places is subject to great abuses. That is what is known as credit auctions where money is lent under the cover either of the sale of land or cattle. I hope we will have somebody in the Committee who will propose an amendment to deal with this abuse. I have discussed the matter with people familiar with the abuse but, not being myself familiar with it I would prefer to have it dealt with by somebody who is. The Committee I suppose will deal with these amendments.
Question—"That the Bill be read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.
The Bill will be referred under the Standing Orders to a Special Committee but I think that could wait until the necessary Resolution indicated by the Minister for Justice stood on the Order Paper. When that has been passed we can take an order for the committal of the Bill.