Bankruptcy reform
The intolerable behaviour of Mr John Stonehouse is a matter for his constituents and the authorities, though his evidently self-inflicted plight draws attention to one certain area of another sort that may require reform. Apparently it is held that bankruptcy, the inability to pay one's debts even though perhaps -solvent, debars an elected member from Parliament. Mr Stonehouse has complained of blackmail, though his wife and friends say that by this he meant 'pressure,' which sounds suspiciously like a threat to make him a bankrupt if he did not pay up against a personal guarantee to a bank or moneylender, and thus to end his parliamentary career. Now it may properly be said that Mr Stonehouse has, out of his own mouth, adjudged himself unfitted for parliamentary office and for the dignity of a Privy Councillor; nevertheless there are grounds for inquiry into the necessity for bankruptcy debarring a member from Parliament, as indeed there is for a general investigation into the summary nature of these proceedings during a period of collapsed values which could not have been anticipated by either borrower or lender.
When a perfunctory glance at the newspapers reveals five purported suicides by businessmen, including one 'tycoon' and a boy in his twenties frightened from his home into an hotel room where he hanged himself, it may be, quite apart from Mr Stonehouse, time for fresh thought on the subject. It is not suggested that fraud or misdemeanour should not be rooted out and punished, but at present a creditor has the power to force money from a not otherwise recalcitrant borrower — even encouraging him to rob Peter to pay Paul — instead of permitting the orderly rescheduling of debt and interest, that takes account of the national condition, through a process of judicial arbitration. The present processes, drafted for calmer times, permit a creditor, perhaps under pressure himself, to increase interest and to threaten disgrace, well justifying Mr Stonehouse in the use of the word 'blackmail' if this is indeed all that is at the root of his troubles.
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