THE USURER 83 



point of starving can no more make a judicious bargain 

 with the person who offers him the chance of a meal 

 than a drowning man can debate the price he shall 

 pay to a bystander for throwing him a rope from the 

 bank. The moral reprobation which attaches in all 

 countries to the usurer's trade is based upon the 

 human instinct that a man has no right to exploit the 

 miseries of his fellows for his own profit. As in the 

 economic conditions of primitive society there was 

 little scope for the use of capital (in the true sense), 

 the loans of those days were usually made to persons 

 in distress, and it was the usurer's harshness in turn- 

 ing that distress to his own advantage which was con- 

 demned in the old prohibitions against usury. To the 

 modern economist usury differs from interest in this, 

 that the principal lent is not devoted to the production 

 of more wealth, but to the immediate satisfaction of 

 human wants. The difference of the use to which the 

 principal is put in the two cases is the cause of the 

 difference in the rates which are paid for the loan. A 

 man borrowing capital for productive purposes is able 

 to calculate exactly the rate of interest which he can 

 afford to pay, and interest is therefore never in excess 

 of the profit which it is estimated that capital will 

 yield. But the alleviation of misery is not capable of 

 quantitative estimation, and the poor wretch in distress 

 is ready to promise anything which will procure him 

 the immediate satisfaction of his wants. It must, in 

 fairness to the usurer, be confessed that all loans for 

 which usury is taken are not contracted under the 

 compulsion of want. An unthrifty villager, foi 

 instance, may borrow for the marriage of his son o. 

 the prosecution of a lawsuit larger sums than his 

 resources justify. In this case the usurer does not 

 exploit the necessities of his client, but his want of 

 forethought, his weakness under social pressure, or 

 his vindictiveness ; the value of this loan to the 

 borrower cannot be subjected to any arithmetical 



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