Hire-Purchase Abuses • It is gratifying that the House of
Commons found time last Friday to carry the second reading of Miss Wilkinson's Hire-Purchase Bill. The Bill rightly aims, not at restricting the system itself, which frequently performs useful and necessary services, but at the abuses to which it lends itself. On these Miss Wilkinson spoke with emphasis, but she did not overstate the case. There were, in fact, no defenders of the abuses, and all three parties gave the Bill their blessing. Mr. J. S. Holmes, as chairman of a large hire-purchase business, welcomed the Bill, because it would rid his firm of the competition of unscrupulous traders and remove ". that scourge of the hire-purchase business, the door-to-door canvasser." Reputable hire-purchase traders will certainly benefit from this Bill no less than the purchasing public, for undoubtedly they have suffered from the disrepute into which the whole system is tending to fall as result of these abuses. The. prospects of the Bill were further improved by the Attorney General's affirmation that the Government had the " fullest sympathy with its main objects." It is to be hoped therefore that an opportunity will be found for dealing with its further stages promptly.
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