In matters of general business the usual lines of legislation have been the ordinary ones found in English history.  That is to say, statutes of frauds, usury or interest laws, and other familiar matters.  The only tendency one can note is a broad range of legislation devised in the interest of the debtor—­not only liberal insolvency laws now superseded by the national bankruptcy act, which is still more liberal than the laws of the States preceding it, but statutes restricting or delaying foreclosure of mortgages, statutes exempting a substantial amount of property, implements of trade, agricultural articles, goods, land, or even money, from the claims of his creditors.  The exemption of tools or implements of trade goes back to Magna Charta, it will be remembered, but the exemption of other articles is modern and American.  There is probably, however, no subject which is so apt to be let alone by our legislatures as that of business law.  Upon that subject, at least, they are fairly modest and inclined to think that the laws of business are known better by business men.  Imprisonment for debt is, of course, absolutely abolished everywhere, and in most States a woman is not subject to personal arrest in civil process.  The statutes prevailing throughout the country, which give special preference to claims for wages or even for material furnished by “material men,” have already been noted.  It may be broadly stated that the presumption is that such claims are everywhere a preferred debt to be paid out of the estate of the insolvent, living or dead, in preference to all claims except taxes.

The security of mortgages is very generally impaired by legislation confining the creditor to only one remedy and delaying his possession under foreclosure.  That is to say, in far Western States generally, he cannot take the land or other security, and at the same time sue the debtor in an action for debt for the amount due, or the deficiency.  This, of course, makes of a mortgage a simple pledge.  Moreover, with the practice of delaying possession under foreclosure, appointing receivers in the interest of the debtor, etc., he is in many States so delayed in getting possession of his security that by the time he acquires it he will find it burdened with overdue taxes and in a state of general dilapidation.  We have already alluded to the practice in California of compelling the executor of a mortgage to submit himself to the jurisdiction of the local public administrator, which practically results in a sequestration of a considerable portion of the property.  For all these reasons, many conservative lawyers in the East, at least, would not permit their clients to invest their money in mortgages in California, Minnesota, Washington, or the other States indulging in such legislation, and partly for this reason the rate of interest prevailing in mortgages is very much higher in the far West than it is in States east of the Missouri River.