1826.] Debtors. 123 
_ We have said, nine cases out of ten, the debtor is really unable to 
pay ; of this we feel sure from the nature of the thing, and something 
too from our own experience in the world; but we recollect a strong 
fact to the purpose. Within these three or four years, the debts of 
those who took the benefit of the insolvent act, in one year, amounted 
to more than a million, and the average dividend collected from the 
property was actually not quite one farthing in the pound. 
Debt must be regarded as a crime, or not as acrime. It is nota 
crime—it has not the characteristics of a crime. ‘There is no violence 
—no treachery. I cannot pay you now, but I shall be able by and bye: 
will you give me credit? ‘The creditor is a consenting party. The 
debt cannot be incurred without his consent. But the debtor, by risking 
the chances of his own solvency, exposes the creditor to the chances of 
loss, which he has no right to do; and this it is which entitles him to 
so sharp and authoritative a remedy. Then make it illegal to incur a 
debt at all, and moreover to give credit. Do not punish one, where both 
are to blame. For the fact is, the creditor knowingly hazards the risk. 
The very taking of credit proves to him his debtor's present insolvency. 
If the debtor ventures to incur the debt on the belief of his future com- 
petency, the creditor ventures to incur the risk of loss on the belief that 
the debtor will be able and willing to repay him; it is strictly his own 
concern—a voluntary act, and he should be made to abide by the 
consequences of his own actions. No, say you, he gives credit under 
the protection of the law of arrest, by which he knows he can enforce 
payment. Then, if there were no law of arrest, he would not consent to 
the creation of the debt. No. Why then need he so vehemently oppose 
the abrogation of the law? He may be a law unto himself; he has the 
matter in his own hands, and can effectually secure himself by refusing 
. to part with his preperty, except on prompt payment, or equivalent 
security. It is the shopkeeper, the dealer, the seller generally, who 
opposes ;—why should he do this, when we see that he has a complete 
and peremptory remedy in his power? Oh, says he, if we do not give 
credit our neighbours will, and we shall thus be thrown entirely out of 
business ; and that credit we cannot grant without the protection of the 
law of arrest. But if there be no law of arrest, your neighbours, who of 
course act on the same principle as yourself, will also refuse credit, and 
thus you will be again on equal terms, The truth is, these reasons are 
all empty pretences. Every dealer likes to give credit ; he makes his 
advantage of it; he lays an equivalent, and more than an equivalent, 
charge upon his wares; he binds his customer to him, and thus secures 
__ accontinuance of his custom. This is an advantage, he feels it to be so, 
and will by all means retain it; but the question is, is it one for which 
a nation is to legislate—is it one, in which the general interests of a 
people are concerned—is it one, for which an extraordinary power 
should be granted, destructive of the great charm of life, to be exer- 
cised at the will and caprice of the heedless, disappointed, or exasperated 
individual ? 
But not only is imprisonment oppressive and inapplicable, because 
debt is not a crime, the law which inflicts it is also defective in prin- 
ciple: it is partial in its application, and disproportionate in its effects. 
It is defective in principle, because the point at which it commences 
is perfectly arbitrary. It is not the nature of the offence, but the quan- 
By which determines—a quantity apaaennes by a nominal value, whose 
eee 
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