

150 



added, if there be only a surety ;* and if there be 

 neither pledge nor surety, two in the hundred may 

 be taken ;" that is to say, one and three-fifths per 

 cent, per mensem, or nineteen and one-fifth per cent, 

 per annum with a surety ; and twenty -four per cent, 

 per annum without one. 



It will naturally be objected that the ancient 

 laws of ancient lawgivers have little to do with a 

 practical question in the middle of the nineteenth 

 century. True. I refer to ancient law, however, to 

 show what little progress India has made since the 

 days of Manu what little change the revolution of 

 so many centuries has made in the value of money 

 in this country. The rates of interest for money \&0 

 India, it must be admitted, are extremely arbitrary, \ 

 varying- from 6 to 75 per cent. ; but the following 

 will, I think, give, as nearly as is necessary, the 

 prevailing* rates all over the country. Bankers 

 / / lend money to bankers, at 6 per cent, per annum. 

 Bankers lend money in large sums, to other approved 

 parties, or on good security, mortgage of landed 

 property, &c., at 12 per cent. The normal rate of 

 Bankers' interest of the country, for small sums, 

 is 24 per cent. An enormous business, however, 

 in very small sums, is done by Buneeas, small 

 Traders, Headmen, &c., at 2 an ana with a surety 



* Commentators are not happy in their explanation of this 

 passage. They make * the eighth part added ' to be a sixteentfi ; 

 but are only able to do so, by assuming a clerical error which 

 as it occurs in many MSS. seems hardly admissible. 



