The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, April 16, 1889. RENT RECOVERY.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 287, 16 April 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, April 16, 1889. RENT RECOVERY.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

Of the cases heard at the present sessions of the Supreme Court, perhaps the most interesting to the ordinary public was that of Joyce v. Maude. 'With regard to the merits of that case we have nothing to say, but the facts adduced in it contain a powerful commentary on the law of distress. The right which a landlord has to seize and sell the goods of his tenant for rent in arrear is somewhat out of place with modern ideas, and should be abolished as speedily as possible. It may have been useful in former times when the only creditor a man had was his landlord, and therefore no injury was inflicted upon any creditor or third person. But the time of its usefulness has gone by, and there is no sufficient reason why the landlord should have a preference over a man’s other creditors, or have any assistance from the law except through the medium of the Courts of the land. As it is the right of distress is being gradually encroached upon, but either from the reverence in which men hold time-honored things, or because the landlords are too powerful, the system still flourishes. Until three years ago it was quite legitimate for a landlord to seize the goods of a stranger found in his tenant’s house, and sell them to pay the rent. We have even heard of a case where an auctioneer being instructed to sell some goods, removed them to a tenant’s house where he intended to hold an auction of other goods, and these other goods being seized by the landlord for rent, the goods brought on the premises were likewise seized and sold, and the owner found he had no remedy. But besides third persons, the law also sits heavily on the tenant and his creditors. In the case first referred to, goods supposed to be of the value of /has were seized for rent, and were sold for some X"57. Assuming that the goods had been Mrs Baldwin’s, she must have been a sufferer by the transaction, although it maybe argued that not having paid her rent she was not entitled to any consideration whatever. However, it is certain that at least len or twelve pounds, if not more, must have been eaten up in expenses, whereas if the landlord had been compelled to resort to the ordinary method of recovering debts, the costs must have been considerably less. Not only that, but the system of interpleader in the Resident Magistrate’s Court would have settled the whole question as to the ownership of the goods with much less trouble and expense than a Supreme Court action could do. Again, assuming that Mrs Baldwin had other creditors, they would have found themselves entirely in the cold if all the assets were seized for rent. To put the case plainly, if Mrs Baldwin had owned one hundred pounds’ worth of property, and had also incurred debts to the extent of eighty pounds (including rent), the whole of the assets would be eaten up to pay the landlord his for rent, leaving nothing whatever for the other creditors. Of course we cannot blame the landlord for this—he simply acts within his rights and under the law’s protection, but we can, and do blame the law of distress, which is answerable for such a state of affairs, and in our opinion it should be altogether swept away. No one class of creditors should have greater privileges than another, except through properly organised channels, and even then it is questionable how far the preference should go. It can only be a relic of barbaric times which allows one creditor to walk into his debtor's house and sell the furniture to pay his debt, and it is wonderful how it has existed so long.