The Check Collection Muddle

Abstract

Were it not for the fact that checks are already in general use, in order that transactions might continue to be carried on with the facility and dispatch which we have come to expect, some such instrument would have to be invented promptly. A suggestion that we return to the more cumbersome and very much more hazardous method of settling accounts with cash is unthinkable today. Nor is there much likelihood of such a suggestion being made, for despite its age of well over two centuries,, the check still presents a satisfyingly modern, even streamlined, appearance. It has long been fully negotiable,'-- more aptly a "courier without luggage" than any other commercial instrument. But, while the holder has thus been highly favored as respects prior parties, we have been amazingly slow to build any comparable legal machinery to facilitate collections. The fact is that in recent years the holder has too often lost a large part or all of the proceeds of his item in the process of collection, a queer state of affairs indeed.