Fresh back from a run round Spain, just to hearten up the Valencia Government, Miss Ellen Wilkinson had the signal triumph on Friday of introducing to. Parliament a Bill which received the Government's whole-hearted blessing. And she a Socialist, and from Jarrow, the thought of which usually makes Ministers get hot under the collar.
But Miss Wilkinson's Bill, to amend the whole system of hire purchase, had everybody's sympathy. In the hands of a respectable firm hire purchase is useful and free from objection. But it has opened the door to any amount of knavery and hard treatment.
There is for instance the "linking up" system. A young couple order, say £40 worth of furniture on hire purchase and pay their installments regularly up to perhaps £35. Then the salesman calls and says "You have good customers, wouldn't you like another £25 worth? If they agree, no new contract is drawn, but the fresh £25 is linked on to the original £40. Perhaps before everything is paid up, the couple have some had luck and get into arrears. Then as there is only one contract ihe salesman seizes every bit of the furniture even the original lot which has been paid for.
One Member told of his own knowledge of a firm which sold the same radio set eight times. Another gave the case of a man who boasted that he had trained 100 salesmen in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.