MUTUAL BARKIEIG. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE USCRY LAWS. 



All vsury laws appear to be arbitrary and uujust. Rent 

 paid for the use of all lands and houses is freely determined in the 

 contract betv.een the landlord and tenant: freight is settled by the 

 contract between the shipowner, and the person hiring of hjm; 

 profit is determined in the contract of purchase and sale. But, when 

 we come to interest on money, principles suddenly change: here 

 the government intervenes and says to the capitalist, "You shall in 

 no case take more than 6 per cent interest on the amount of prin- 

 cipal you loan. If competition among capitalists brings down the 

 rate of interest to 3, 2, or 1 per cent, you have no remedy; but if. on 

 the other hand, competition among borrowers forces that rate up 

 to 7, 8 or 9 per cent, you are prohibited, under severe penalties, from 

 taking any advantage of the rise." Where is the morality of this 

 restriction? So long as the competition of the market is permitted 

 to operate without legislative interference, the charge for the use 

 of capital in all or any of its forms will be properly determined by 

 the contracts between capitalists and the persons with whom they 

 deal. If the capitalist charges too much, the borrower obtains 

 money at the proper rate from some other person; if the borrower 

 is unreasonable, the capitalist refuses to part with his money. If 

 lands, houses, bridges, canals, boats, wagons, are abundant in pro- 

 portion to the demand for them, the charge for the use of them will 

 be proportionally low; if they are scarce, it will be proportionally 

 high. Upon what ground can you justify the legislature in making 

 laws to restrict a particular class of capitalists, depriving them in- 

 vidiously of the benefit which they would naturally derive from a 

 system of unrestricted competition? If a man owns a sum of 

 money, he must not lend it for more than 6 per cent interest, but he 

 may buy houses, ships, lands, wagons, with it, and these he may 

 freely let out at 50 per cent, if ho can lind any person willing to pay 

 at that rate. Is not the distinction drawn by the legislature arbi- 

 trary, and therefore unjust? A man wishes to obtain certain lands, 



*Tliis work is a compilation of a series of newspaper articles, hence 

 they are sonu'what disconnected, and an occasional repetition will be 

 found.— Editor. 



