LAND NATIONALIZATION 263 



it were to cease, business would be lessened by one-third. But only 

 rotten and speculative business would be stopped ; commercial men 

 would then be what they only now appear to be, and no really neces- 

 sary business would cease to be carried on. The late William 

 Chambers has stated (in his "Life of Robert Chambers") that their 

 vast bookselling, printing, and publishing business was established 

 and carried on from first to last without one penny of borrowed capi- 

 tal ; and that, as a result, panics and financial crises which brought ruin 

 to some of their competitors, only caused them a little temporary incon- 

 venience. I believe, therefore, that it would be for the benefit of the 

 community if loans of money, or advances of goods on credit, were not 

 recognized by the law, but were made wholly at the risk of the lender; 

 but I do not see that it follows that he who lends, even under these 

 circumstances, and takes interest for his loan, is doing what is wrong. 

 For I cannot perceive any essential difference in principle between 

 lending on interest, and selling at a profit. If I buy a shipload of 

 drugs or any other goods at wholesale price, warehouse them, and sell 

 them in the course of a year at the current market rate, making a 

 profit of, say, 15 per cent, on my money, am I doing that which is 

 morally wrong? Of the amount gained by me, we may put perhaps 

 1 or 2 per cent, for my personal trouble in the matter, 2 or 3 per cent, 

 for risk of loss, 5 per cent, for interest on capital, and the other 5 per 

 cent, for surplus profit. Is this 10 per cent, illegitimate gain? and am 

 I morally bound to sell my goods at so much below the market rate 

 as to leave me only fair payment for my time and risk? If it is 

 wrong to take interest for the money which, when lent to another man 

 enables him to do this, surely it is wrong to take a larger share in 

 the shape of profit; and this really means that all trade is immoral 

 which returns more than payment for personal labour, and insurance 

 of the capital employed. But if so, it should be so stated, and the 

 question should not be confined to interest on money loans only, and, 

 in fact, Mr. Ruskin does not so confine it. The quotation you make 

 from Mr. Ruskin does not, however, seem to me at all to the point. 

 You freely lend your friend an umbrella in his need, and you would 

 even do the same to the merest acquaintance or neighbour, but if your 

 neighbour called every day for your umbrella on his way to the city, 

 and other neighbours followed his example, so that you ceased to 

 have the use of your own umbrellas, you would soon have either to 

 refuse to lend, or to charge a rent for the use of them, and if this 

 were convenient to your neighbours, and they were willing to pay you 

 sufficient to cover the wear and tear of umbrellas, your time and 

 trouble in looking after them, and interest on your capital invested in 

 them, it will require arguments very different from any yet advanced 

 to satisfy me that you would be morally wrong in doing so. In like 

 manner, though you lend your friend or neighbour cab-money, or give 



