There is no getting away from the fact that political influences are against the abolition of imprisonment for debt. I remember many years ago—more than twenty, I fear—a learned County Court judge laughing at the eagerness with which I threw myself into a newspaper campaign against imprisonment for debt. “I, too,” he said, “used to think I should live to see it abolished, and you think that merely stating unanswerable arguments against it is likely to lead to results. Well, I used to think that way about it at one time, but it is not a matter of argument at all; it is all a case of vested interests and nervous politicians. Some day another Lord Brougham will come along and sweep the thing away as he swept away the old Chancery Courts and many another legal abuse, but I shall never see it done, and unless you are another Methuselah you will never see it done.” And then with a laugh of mock despair he added:
Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.
I am beginning to think that my old friend spoke with the tongue of prophecy, and he was certainly right about the vested interests.
The three parties in English politics have a curious attachment to imprisonment for debt. They do not allude to it much on the platform or in the House, but it is there at the back of their minds all the same. The Conservative opposition to the proposal is the more straightforward and natural. Here is a system which enables the well-to-do to collect money from the poor, it encourages credit giving, and is thought to promote trading, it causes no inconvenience to the wealthier classes, it exists and always has existed, and it works well. Why should it be altered, especially as there is no great demand for change, and change is in itself an evil thing? Let us leave well alone. The Liberal, off the platform, is much in agreement with the proposition of abolition, his difficulties are purely practical difficulties. He finds among his best supporters, drapers, grocers, tally-men and shop-keepers, most of them Nonconformists and keen Radicals, and all of them credit givers, carrying on their businesses under the sanction, more or less direct, of imprisonment for debt. These traders are not only voters and supporters, but they are centres of political influence. I remember in the South of England, thirty years ago, being told of a grocer in a small village who was a man whose support it was necessary for the candidate to obtain. I went along to see him and he agreed to support my friend. He was worth over two hundred votes, all of them in his debt and liable to be summoned at any moment for more than they could pay.
In politics it is absurd to expect individuals to kick against the pricks, and I do not know of any politician who, deeply as he may believe in the justice and expediency of abolishing imprisonment for debt, has ever cared to take up the matter and place it prominently before his constituents in the hope of being able to convince them that it would make for the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The general belief seems to be that the influence of the shopkeeping and travelling trading classes would be used against such a Quixote, and he would receive a severe warning to stick to the ordinary hack lines of political talk and not risk his seat tilting at windmills.
The attitude of the Labour party is even more peculiar. Outwardly and individually they, of course, being more thoughtful and experienced about the wants of the poor, agree very heartily that imprisonment for debt is a class institution which should be abolished. But they certainly show no great enthusiasm in taking a hand at working for its abolition. This is partly due, no doubt, to the fact that they are business men and not theorists and have other and nearer work to do. They would, I make no doubt, support any measure of abolition, but it is essentially a legal reform and they would wait for some legal authority to initiate it.
There is too, undoubtedly, at the back of the Labour mind the idea that imprisonment for debt may be a very present help in time of trouble. In the Select Committee of 1893 Mr. William Johnson, a miner’s agent, gave evidence in favour of imprisonment for debt; he asserted that nine-tenths of his men did not desire its abolition and were in favour of its continuance. Later on he pointed out that in case of sickness or in the case of non-employment, “and probably in the case of strikes,” credit given under the sanction of imprisonment for debt would be useful. Unemployment and sickness are now largely dealt with by insurance, and from a public point of view the idea that strikes should be financed by the small tradesmen and, in case of their bankruptcy, ultimately by the wholesale trade, is not an attractive one.
The reformer must always expect to find selfish class interests up against him, but it seems to me that the desires of those who want to finance strikes on credit and the rights of those who at present are selling shoddy on credit at extravagant prices ought not to weigh against the general public welfare. If, as I venture to think, the arguments against the last step in the abolition of imprisonment for debt are as valid as they were on former occasions, and if, as must be admitted, no evils have followed on the partial abolitions of imprisonment already made in 1837 and 1869, then the mere fact that the public is apathetic on the subject and that members of Parliament are apprehensive of interested opposition is not of itself sufficient excuse for those who are in authority in legal matters refusing to complete the reform by abolishing imprisonment for debt for the poor as it has already been abolished for the rich.
Of course, the mere abolition of imprisonment for debt would not to my mind be a sufficient protection of the poor unless side by side of it were enacted a homestead law greatly enlarging the existing exemptions from execution of the tools and chattels of a working man. The idea is that the home furniture necessary to the lives of the human beings forming the home should be incapable of being seized for debt. Make the limit twenty pounds or whatever sum you please but clearly enact that sufficient chattels to furnish a reasonable house are exempt from execution. In America and Canada these homestead laws exist and work well. It occurs to our cousins across the pond that it is a better thing to keep a home together than to sell it up for an old song to pay official fees and costs and something on account to the foolish creditor. The returns from a poor auction of a workman’s household furniture are miserable reading. The landlord by distress or the tally-man by execution may get a few shillings for himself and pay away a few more shillings to bailiffs and others, but the cost of it to the poor is cruel. Tables and chairs and perhaps a sideboard that represent months of savings and long hours of labour are in a moment of misfortune snatched away from their proud possessor and his home is a ruin.
The homestead laws in Canada, though not the same in every State, go much further than any laws we possess to prevent the breaking up of a home. In Manitoba, for instance, executions against lands are abolished, though land can be bound by a judgment by registering a certificate, and the household furniture and effects, not exceeding 500 dollars in value, and all the necessary and ordinary clothing of the debtor and his family are exempt from execution. The actual residence or house of a citizen to the extent of 1,500 dollars is also exempt. Imagine what an incentive it would be to the purchase of house property and furniture if a man were to know that his cottage to the value of three hundred pounds, and its contents to the extent of one hundred pounds, would always be protected from bailiff and sheriff. What a check, too, such legislation would be on the reckless way in which credit is given.