Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1875 — A Ruinous Proposition. [ARTICLE]

A Ruinous Proposition.

A bill is now pending in the Legislature to repeal the existing law which makes the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees, in suits on promissory notes, collectable off the defendant. This was one of the measures of legislation recently petitioned for by the grangers of Lawrence county, and at first blush Is apt so receive the approval of welhmeaning but unthinking men. The argument in its favor is, of course, the general and popular one, iq favor of the borrower against the lender. It is argued that as money-lenders are generally rich, and the borrowers poor, the former are better able to pay lawyer’s feesthan the latter, and should therefore be compelled to do so, This is no argument at all, but simply an ad vaptandum appeal to vulgar prejudice. It is founded not on any principle of justice, but on that ot injustice, since it aims to place legal difficulties and expenses in the_ way ol a . man's obtaining liis rights. It is essentially a dishonest proposition. It says in effect, that the citizen who lends money is not entitled to have it returned to him, principal mid interest, without rebate, but that the borrower may use the machinery of the law to keep him out of 1 1 is own as 1 ong as possible, and' then compel him to pay lawyer’s fees f<>r collecting what should have been returned to him without any suit. The law is not made to ad-' 1 minister sympathy, but to administer justice. Lenders have rights as well as borrowers, and are as strictly entitled to them. One of those is, when they lend money, to have it returned to them at the stipulated time, with the stipulated interest, and without any offset, rebate, or diminution. . . In a commercial point of view, the effect of the passage of this law would be disastrous. At the present time there are millions of dollars of Eastern capitaLJogned: tqpartiesin this State and employed in the various avenues of productive industry. The great bulk of this money, in fact, nearly all, is secures by notes and mortgages containing this provision, saving the tejjder against the contingency of having to pay lawyer’s fees for collecting the same. Let the proposed law be passed, and not one in a thousand of the loans will be be renewed. Of all the Eastern and foreign capital now loaned in the State, probably not two per cent, would be reloaned if tee existing provision in regard to attorney’s fees is repealed. The passage of such a law would he followed by the withdrawal from Indiana during the next two years of millions of dollars off foreign capital which is now contributing to the revival of business and disseminating a healthy influence through all the channels of trade. Other things being equal, capitalists will loan their money where they can find the best collection laws and tfie surest guaranties of their rights. It is a fact that European capitalists who lend money in this city at ten and twelve per cent, per year, lend in St. Louis at eight per cent. Why? Simply because they get better security there and the collection laws of Missouri are better than those of Indiana. The better the collection laws the lower the rate of interest-. So tar from legislating in a spirit of hostility to foreign capital, every inducement consistent with public honor and individual rights should be held out to draw and keep it here. W e need it to assist in developing mines, establishing manufactures, and building towns and cities. *lt would boas wisetolegislate against labor as against capital. A law laying a special poll-tax on skilled laborers and excluding their cbil--1 dren from the common schools | would hardly smack more strongly Jof odions - efass-legislation or be more inimical to the general welfare of society, than a law specially directed against capital, and calculated to drive it from the State.— Indianapolis Journal.