264 ^ 1V LIFE 



him a bed for a night on rare occasions when he urgently requires 



h aid. you would give none ol these things repeatedly to a mere 



acquaintai Yet, if circumstances rendered such accommodation 



very useful to a considerable number of persons, and you or some our 



e found it profitable to Bupply such accommodation, you would 



charge rent for your beds, and interest for your loans, and the trans- 

 action would differ nothing in principle from that of every tradesman 

 who sells goods at a profit, of the innkeeper who cfaargl beds in his 



bill, or of the jobmaster who charges for the use of his horses or his 

 carriages. Nothing deserving the name of proof has yet been given 

 that either of these things are immoral. Whether it is a good and 

 healthy state of society in which large numbers of persons get their 

 living by such means, is another matter altogether. 



The difference of opinion on this question of usury arises mainly 

 from the different standpoints of the disputants. Seeing that it is 

 bound up with many of the evils of modern society, and believing that 

 it should have no place in a system of true Socialism, you and Mr. 

 Ruskin denounce it as immoral. Professor Newman, on the other 

 hand, looks at it as a question of modern society, and finds nothing 

 in its essential nature contrary to justice, and here he seems to me to 

 have the best of the argument. No doubt, in a more perfect state of 

 society, in which private accumulations of capital were comparatively 

 small, and the land and its products were freely open to the use of 

 all, usury would have little place, because loans of money would rarely 

 be needed ; but when they were needed, I cannot see any grounds for 

 maintaining that it would be morally wrong to lend money on inter- 

 est. On the contrary, such loans would then retain their use without 

 the evils their wide extension now brings. There would be no great 

 capitalists, and if one man lent to another it would be a convenience 

 to the borrower, and certainly some loss to the lender, because, as 

 Professor Newman well puts it, £100 paid one year or ten years hence 

 is not as valuable as £100 paid to-day. To say that it is so is really 

 to say that it has no value to-day, for if its payment can be delayed 

 one year without loss it can two, or three, or ten, or a hundred, or a 

 thousand! Where are we to stop? If we suppose a perfect social 

 state, we suppose all men to be producers, and as capital is an aid to 

 production, no man can give up the use of his capital to another 

 without loss. The true solution of the problem is, I believe, to be 

 found in the proposition that all loans should be personal, and, there- 

 fore, temporary; and that, as a corollary, the repayment of the capital 

 should be provided for in the annual payments agreed to be made 

 by the borrower either for a fixed period (if he live so long), 

 or for the term of his life. This would abolish the idea of perpetual 

 interest, which is as impossible in fact as it is wrong in principle, while 

 it would avoid the injustice of compelling one man, or set of men, to 



