SOUTHERN AFRICA. 129 
year refusing to renew, it became necessary to recur to the old 
method, to prevent the revenue from suffering, as well as the 
disorders that might be supposed to arise from an unrestrained 
liberty of sale. It was, however, found difficult to get any 
one after this to undertake the farm on the most moderate 
terms. Such is often the effect of making sudden and violent 
chan2;es, even where abuses are meant to be reformed, and a 
certain benefit procured for those who have long been suffer- 
ing under them. Gradual alterations are usually the most 
acceptable, and, in the end, most effectual. 
12. Interest of the capital lent out through the loan or 
Lombard bank arises from a sum of paper money issued by 
the Dutch Government as a loan to individuals, on mortgage 
of their lands and houses, with the additional security of two 
^ufBcient bondsmen. The sum thus lent out is about 660,000 
rixdollars. The interest is 5 per cent., which is one per cent, 
less than the legal interest of the colon}^ Government re- 
ceives a clear profit of 4 per cent., and the bank one per cent, 
for its trouble. The rule is never to lend a greater sum than 
half the A^alue upon estates in town, nor more than two-thirds 
on estates in the country. The term for which the loan was 
made was not to exceed two years, and it rested with the di- 
rectors to prolong the loan, or to call it in, at the expiration 
of that time. 
The establishment of this bank, by the Dutch East India 
Company, was one of the many symptoms, that of late years 
had appeared, of the declining condition of their commercial 
VOL. II. s 
