FARMERS' REGISTER— NEW ZEALAND FLAX. 



119 



thing tohick is inatpable of generating or breeding. 

 Money is barren: one daric cannot generate ano- 

 ther daric — therefore interest ought not to be charg- 

 ed on money.'''' Thus you may charge lor the loan 

 ol" shecj) or cattle. You may take hire lor lauds 

 and slaves, &c. because sheep and cattle may 

 Ijreed, aud laud and slaves may produce or gene- 

 rate value. But you must not take interest on 

 money, because Aristotle has made the wondcr- 

 lial discovery thiit one piece of money cannot be- 

 get another piece. "It is worthy of remark," says 

 Steuart, "that the argument, such as it is, 

 Avas manifestly suggested by the etj-mology of the 

 word, tokos (interest) Irom tikto (pario,) an ety- 

 mology which seems to imply that the principal 

 begets the interest. The same idea too, occurs 

 in the scene between Antonio and Shylock, in the 

 Merchant of Venice. 



"If thou will lend this mone}% lend it not 



As to thy friend, (for when did friendship take 



.4 breed of barren metal from his fr'tend?) 



But lend it rather to thine enemy, 



Who, if he break, thou may'st with better face 



Exact the penalty." 



It is hardly necessary to inform you, after what 

 lias already been advanced, that although one 

 dollar cannot beget another dollar directly, in the 

 way of generation, it may do it indirectly, in the 

 way of business or trade. A borrows ^1000: he 

 does not, it is true, expect this money to breed 

 in his hands like cattle and sheep, l)ut he may 

 buy a fiu-ra with it and stock it with labor, and 

 cattle, and sheej), from the proceeds of which, he 

 may sell yearly sj^slSOO worth of produce, thereby 

 making 15 ))er cent, on the capital, 6 of which he 

 can well aflbrd to pay the lender, who has enabled 

 him to do this. Or if he be a merchant, he may 

 buy goods to the amount of .^ 10,000, from New 

 York, and sell them out for ^13,000, thereby 

 making 30 per cent, on his borrowed capital. Or 

 if he be intended for the professions of law, or 

 medicine, he may obtain his education, purchase 

 his books, buy his establishment, and support him- 

 self in credit until hie practice may bring him in 

 }i^'2,000 a year. Surely no one will now be hardy 

 enough to deny the productive agency of money 

 in these several cases. 



The seventh and last cause which I shall men- 

 tion as operating in favor of the usury laws, is the 

 generulincU nation of legislators to govern and or- 

 ganise every thing iviihin their reach. "Arbitrary 

 regulations (says Say) are extremely flattering to 

 men in power, as giving them an air of" wisdom 

 and foresight, and confirming their authority, 

 Avhich seems to derive additional importance from 

 tlie frequency of its exercise; and hence one prin- 

 cipal cause of the constant tendency of all legis- 

 lative bodies to over-action." The legislator who 

 claims the right, and thinks himself endowed with 

 wisdom sufficient to "organise the whole labor and 

 capital of a country," and to regulate the rate of 

 interest, is an infinitely more bustling, important 

 character, especially in his own estimation, than 

 he who believes that commerce contains within it- 

 self, its own self-sustaining principles, and there- 

 fore practises upon the simple but wise policy of 

 "laisscz passer,'''' and ''laisscz faire.''^ 



I hope by this time, I have satisfied you as to 

 the causes which have led to the almost universal 

 adoption of the usury laws, and that you are now 

 fully prepared to assent to the great proposition on 



this subject, which Bentham has established liy a 

 chain of reasoning pronounced by the most intel- 

 ligent, to be almost as rigorous as mathematical 

 demonstration, "that no man of ripe years and 

 sound mind, acting freely, and with his eyes open, 

 ought to be hindered, w'lth a view to his advantage, 

 from making such bargain in the way of obtaining 

 money as he thinks fit: nor (what is a necessary- 

 consequence) oi/!;^/<< a?!y /jocZy /o be hindered from 

 supplying him, upon any terms he thinks proper to 

 accede to.'''' If then I am correct in the views 

 which I ha\e taken, the usury laws ought certam- 

 ly to be repealed as speedily as possible. In or- 

 dinary times, the legal rate, 6 per cent, corresponds 

 with the market rate, and consequently no incon- 

 venience whatever, would result from the repeal 

 of the usury laws. Just at this time however, the 

 market is much above the legal interest, and con- 

 sequently some little inconvenience might result 

 irom too sudden a repeal. But it would not be so 

 great as generally apprehended: for the moment 

 you repeal the usury laws, you would put an end 

 to most of those circuitous devices which persons 

 have recourse to for the purpose of evading those 

 laws, and which uniformly impose, as I have be- 

 fore shown, nuich harder conditions on the bor- 

 rower, than when he is enabled to borrow directly. 

 You may say indeed, that a sudden repeal would 

 cause creditors to call immediately on their debtors 

 to pay up, in order that they might lend to others. 

 I doubt very much, however, whether the debtor 

 would be placed in a worse situation than now; for 

 at present the creditor who does not wish to jiush 

 his debtor himself, just sells his bond to the broker, 

 Avho will be certain to demand payment immedi 

 ately, for he wants the money for purposes of sj)e 

 culation. To obviate, however, all objections on 

 this score, I would recommend, if the market 

 should continue long above the legal rate in this 

 state, to repeal the laws gradually; to raise the 

 rate of interest one per cent, or one-half per cent, 

 every year, until the laws may be -wholly abol- 

 ished. Of course, there must still be a legal rate for 

 all those cases not stipulated for, which might be 

 fixed according to the wisdom of the legislature, 

 fi-om time to time. I shall then conclude my lec- 

 tures on this subject, by expressing the wish that 

 the states of our union will, ere long, see that the 

 usury laws are in fact a branch of that odious sys- 

 tem of restriction, Avhich has blighted the prospe- 

 rity of so many countries — which has raised the 

 demon of discord in our own happy land, and 

 threatened a dissolution of our confederacy: and 

 that they will, by the repeal of those obnoxious 

 laws, give another example of the innovatmg spi- 

 rit of republicanism, which by its success here, 

 and consequent adojition abroad, may have a ten- 

 dency to break those chains of eiTor, authority 

 and long continued prejudice, in which the people 

 of Europe have been for centuries bound, as if un- 

 der the influence of some potent magic spell. 



NEW ZEALAND FLAX — {Pkormium Tenax.') 



This plant stands the winter of England. In 

 1828 only 60 tons, valued at £2,6000, were im- 

 ported from Sydney in Great Britain. In 1830 

 there were 814 tons, and in 1831, 1062 tons. The 

 flax as prepared by the natives, is superior to any 

 analogous material. Its price in London is from 

 15 to £25 pounds per ton. 



