1824.1 Objections to the Proposed 

 For the Monthly Magazine. 



PROPOSED REPEAL q/"<Ae USURY LAWS. 



NOTWITHSTANDING llie seve- 

 rity of tlic laws agiiiiist murder, 

 yet atrocious murders are often commit- 

 ted ; "better, tlicrefore," exclaim many 

 of our legislators in the House of Com- 

 mons, " will it be to leave the securily of 

 life to the moral sense, than 1o continue 

 the inefficient laws against murder, — 

 let us, therefore, repeal them!'' 



Such -reasoning is evidently not of 

 that correct kind which we should expect 

 to hear in the grave senate of an enlight- 

 ened i)eople, yet exactly analogous is 

 that which has been employed by the 

 supporters of the new Bill for repealing 

 the Usury Laws. 



It appears that these Laws are often 

 evaded; and that, by means well under- 

 stood, and as notorious as the sun at noon 

 day, certain rapacious money-lenders 

 contrive to obtain more than ten per 

 cent, instead of five. Now, as by the 

 Jiypothesis this is admitted to be an evil, 

 and as the nature of the evil is well 

 known, it might have been expected 

 that legislation would have sedulously 

 applied itself to correct the evil, and 

 that so monstrous an absurdity would 

 never have been avowed and enter- 

 tained, as to propose to legalize the evil 

 for the purpose of removing it. No one 

 could have supposed, that, if ten per 

 cent, is an abuse, any legislators could 

 have proposed, as a means of defeating 

 rapacity, to remove all its difficulties, 

 so as to let it loose on mankind, and 

 make an open prey of them. 



This mode of reasoning seems, how- 

 ever, to be the mere artifice of sophistry. 

 As many families in both Plouses have 

 deeply suffered from the rapacity of an- 

 nuity-grantors and buyers of post obits, 

 so the proposers of the repeal imagine 

 that, by allying the prejudices of such 

 sutl'erers with their measure, they shall 

 thus be able to carry it. Which party, 

 however, is to gain, by enabling money- 

 lenders to receive more than five per 

 cent.? — surely not the public, — because 

 no law prevents lenders from taking less 

 than five per cent., and to enable them 

 to take more is to confer a claim in 

 favour of lenders, without any equi- 

 valent in favour of borrowers. The 

 present legal range of interest is from 

 6 to per cent., and this is the 

 known and long-establishcil value of 

 capital ; but the capitalists, and their 

 retainers, now wish to persuade us, that 

 we shall gain by extending the range 

 from to any indefinite rate per cent. 



Monthly Mag. No. 394. 



Repeal of the Usury Laws. 1^9 



They must form a very low estimate of 

 the understanding of parliament, and of 

 its protecting power! 



I do not charge on the immediate 

 proposers of the measure any corrupt 

 motives. Nevertheless, golden harvests 

 are doubtless expected by many indivi- 

 duals, and the prospect of these is likely 

 to stimulate many supporters of the 

 repeal. The originators seem to be honest 

 dupes of theorists, who have not distin- 

 guished between gold, silver, and copper, 

 as proper commodities for free and unre- 

 stricted trade ; and Money, in the ab- 

 stract, as the simple representative of 

 industry, whether in the form of metals, 

 paper, wooden tallies, shells, or parch- 

 ments. " Leave us to ourselves," is the 

 just and proi)er answer of merchants to 

 legislators, and is a principle which ap- 

 plies, without excc[)tion, to every tangi- 

 ble commodity ; but it is wholly irrele- 

 vant when applied to abstract value, 

 and its representative called money. 



The error arises from confounding 

 money, in its modern nature and signi- 

 fication, with its ancient one, which re- 

 stricted its meaning to coin in the pre- 

 cious metals. A just clamour has arisen 

 in favour of non-restricted trade in these, 

 but the arguments do not apply to 

 money as such, mucli less to the inter- 

 est of it. Commodities, generally speak- 

 ing, are property every where ; but 

 money is a local, national, and conven- 

 tional, thing; and, as money, it can 

 neither be exported nor imported. The 

 notion of a free trade in money is a gross 

 absurdity,— greater even than that would 

 be, of a free trade in sunshine or 

 moonshine ! If so contemptible an ab- 

 surdity is worth a moment's observa- 

 tion, it may be made manifest by the 

 consideration, that, if we could trade in 

 it with other nations, we should need no 

 other article of export; for we have 

 800,000,000 in the funds, and as much 

 more in bonds, bills, and paper and 

 parchment securities, without taking the 

 monied value of our lands, houses, com- 

 mercial stocks, &c. &c. Let us hope, 

 therefore, that we shall hear no more of 

 the free trade in money ; and, if any 

 parliament should pass a law re- 

 cognizing such trade, it, ought to the 

 end of time to be called the Gotham 

 Parliament! 



I have shown, therefore, that the put- 

 ting an end to the sale of annuities anil 

 post-obits is a false pretence, and that 

 the doctrines about free trade in money 

 is an absurdity in terms ; but it remains 

 to examine the policy of our conven- 

 2 D tional 



