If philanthropists are in want of a scheme by which
they may relieve misery and earn ten per cent., there is one ready to their hands. Let them establish a Bank, lending money at that rate on bills of sale. The present system is monstrous. The poor householder, wanting £20, borrows it on the security of a bill of sale over furniture worth £100, from men who constantly charge five per cent. a month, and sometimes more. The loan runs for a time, and then the lender seizes the furniture, sells it for next to nothing, often to brokers in league with him, and presents a bill for interest and ex- penses which swallows up the whole sum obtained. It is said that in 75 per cent. of all cases of bills granted the furniture is thus seized. Mr. Monk, who has taken up the question, pro- poses that no bill be legal under £50, but that will deprive the householder of a valuable right over his property. He does not want to take his bedsteads to the pawnbroker's. A far better remedy would be to allow the bill to be realised only through the County Court, which could hear objections, and, if need- ful, decree payment by instalments, or sale through its own valuers. The best remedy, however, would be an honest and partly philanthropic Lending Bank.
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