Blow At Usury

New and Drastic Law In French Oceania

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete. Jan. 27

TX the official Journal of December 15, * 1936, notice is given of the promulga tion of a law against usury. This law is embodied in a decree by the President of France “relative to the repression of usury in the colonies, protectorates and territories under mandate.”

The decree specifies as follows: — Article I.—All acts, under private sig nature, constituting loans of money, must be submitted to the visa (or endorse ment) of a qualified official appointed to this duty by order of the Chief of the Colony. This visa will have for its ob ject the certifying that, in the presence of this qualified official: (1) The signa tures have been exchanged; (2) the cash money has been counted; 13) thfe sum so transferred is exact—without any re serve for commission—equal to that men tioned in the act under the private signa tures creating the obligation.

Article 2. —All conventions not fur nished with the visa (as provided in Article 1) are null and void by absolute law.

This nullity is a public mandate. It str kes equally all operations of which the object will be the conversion into a loan of money under a different form to evade the prescriptions of Article 1 of the present decree.

Article 7. —The conventions executed before the publication*©! this decree must on penalty of nullification prescribed in Article 2, be submitted, within a period of six months, to a visa special by quali fied officials appointed for that purpose.

This salutary decree will, it is hoped, bring to an end in French Oceania, a state of affairs which has been cruel, ruinous and scandalous.

The exaction of usurious rates of in terest was one of the contributing causes of the failure of Kong Ah and Company.

Its trail of hardship, ruin and suffering extends back through many years in the history of the colony, and gratitude to the authorities for enacting this law will be deep-seated and universal among all except the usurers themselves.