In the same way in France there is no imprisonment for debt for the poor, and so far from the French admiring our debt-collecting system in England they think it so expensive and futile that French traders absolutely give up all hope of recovering small debts in England and prefer to write them off as bad. And, indeed, I have more than a suspicion that if one could get an accurate financial history of the collection of a forty shillings' debt in the County Court by means of imprisonment for debt, one would find that, when Treasury fees, solicitor's costs, and creditor's time wasted had been duly paid for, there was very little balance to credit in the plaintiff's ledger. The more one sees of the system the more is one convinced that it is only serviceable to those creditors who use it in a wholesale manner to recover undesirable debts. And though in theory I can find no serious argument against the abolition of imprisonment for debt, yet there is one practical difficulty in carrying it out which will have to be faced. The County Court registrars in the small courts are unfortunately paid by fees on the number of plaints issued. A moneylender or tally-man who cleans up his books once a year and brings into Court a few hundred plaints automatically raises the salary of the registrar. If this debt-collecting business is swept away, compensation for the disturbance of these salaries that have been calculated on this basis for many years must certainly be made. Probably it is this real practical objection that stands between the debtor and freedom. I am not alone in thinking that the time is fast coming when the inconvenience of having as the registrar of a Court a solicitor in private practice paid by fees on the number of plaints will be so fully recognised that the country will demand a sweeping alteration in the system. The abolition of imprisonment for debt will give the Courts time to entertain jurisdiction for divorce and other matters where the poor are entitled to the same legal favour as the rich. When these reforms are made it will be found necessary, I believe, that the registrar of each Court or group of Courts should be a whole-time permanent official. One other point remains to be mentioned. It is commonly said of those who desire to abolish imprisonment for debt that they have a lower sense of honesty than their opponents, that their views tend to encourage the man who runs into debt and will not pay when he can. For my part I care not how strict the law is made against dishonesty and debt resultant from dishonesty, but let the imprisonment be imprisonment for dishonesty and not for debt. If the debtor has acted criminally, let him be tried in a criminal court and punished for dishonesty. In the old days a County Court judge had powers to imprison for dishonesty, now he has only power to imprison for debt.