214 
Remarks on the Usury Laws. 
reformer, appears to have been one of 
the first, who in writing objected to 
Aristotle’s dogma, u Pecunia non pecu- 
niam par'd ,” and since his time it lias 
found many learned advocates and op- 
posers ; notwithstanding which scho¬ 
lastic prejudices against usury still 
prevail in many nations. In England, 
a rate higher than the legal, subjects 
the lender to very severe and disgrace¬ 
ful punishments : and the interests of 
commercial men have given a sanction 
to these laws, originally founded in 
prejudice. Some writers have con¬ 
tended for money transactions being 
left free like other branches of trade ; 
amongst the rest that able financier 
Jeremy Bentham. M. Turgot, and 
the economists support this idea, and 
say, that money has a current price, 
like every other article, which should 
not be fixed by law any more than they 
should; and in Hamburgh and Am¬ 
sterdam, the experiment has been fully 
tried. The rate of interest allowed to. 
be taken in different countries, and at 
different periods, varies exceedingly. 
Bv the code of Justinian it was fixed 
at 121.; in England, in the time of 
Henry the VIII. at 31.; in Ireland it 
is now something better than 61.; in 
the West Indies, 81.; in the East, 121.; 
in England, 51., and in Turkey, 301. 
per cent. Which, therefore, of these 
rates shall we say is the most proper, 
or what regulates their amount but the 
conveniency of the parties? or why, 
we may be allowed to ask, should the 
law interfere to regulate the price of 
money, when it does not do so with 
other articles of trade ? 
The expediency of maintaining eco¬ 
nomy among numerous extravagant 
members of the state, is held by Locke, 
and Sir J. Stewart, as the chief grounds 
in favour of anti-usurious laws. But the 
real questions to be asked, are, should 
laws interfere to impose restraints on 
such persons, and if so, are they ade¬ 
quate to the end proposed ? As long as 
the prodigal has any thing to dispose 
of, no laws will check his borrowing, 
nor will he be disposed to give more 
than the average rate of interest, while 
he can get money upon those terms ; 
that is, so long as he shall be able to 
give proper security. 
The usury laws are supposed to pro¬ 
vide for the security of the indigent 
and simple, and against the rashness of 
speculators and projectors. With re¬ 
spect to the indigent class of borrowers, 
what may at first view appear disad¬ 
[Oct. ], 
vantageous in their borrowing, may, in 
reality be the contrary; and as the laws 
have a tendency to check the facility 
of such persons obtaining money to 
carry on their concerns, as far as it re¬ 
gards them the interference of the 
legislation may be considered asoffieious 
and injurious. 
As to the protection afforded to the 
simple and inexperienced by fixing a 
rate of interest, does it not operate 
alike on the wise and enterprising, and 
are not they the more numerous and 
valuable class of society ? What better 
reason is there for fixing a maximum 
than a minimum of interest ? The law 
seems to have professed formerly some 
protecting power, hut is this applicable 
to the present state of commerce, when 
the lender is often poorer than the bor¬ 
rower, as in annuities, &c. ? 
Besides this, the simple would find 
out the market rate of interest as well 
as that of other commodities. Perhaps 
some restraint might be imposed by the 
legislature on two systems of usury now 
much in vogue ; the one mentioned by 
Oolquhoun, in bis Treatise on the Police 
of the Metropolis, when persons lend 
out money to poor women at the rate 
of sixpence per day, for each five shil¬ 
lings advanced, or seven pounds ten 
per annum. The other upon loans 
effected by way of annuity. 
In the course of the last twenty 
years, a great trade has been carried on 
in borrowing money by way of annuity, 
and perhaps nothing so admirably illus¬ 
trates the operation of the usury lawx 
as this, it being a perfectly legal mode 
of evading them, and yet one attended 
with the most ruinous consequences to 
the borrower. The law 7 has already 
imposed a number of regulations upon 
such transactions, with the view of 
preventing them from becoming too 
easy a means of evading the statute of 
usury; but hitherto, the regulations 
have proved insufficient, nor do I know 7 
any positive check upon such practices, 
except that of our ad valorem stamp 
duty upon the sum intended to be 
raised. The present mode of effecting 
these annuities, is by increasing the 
risk of the lender, and thus somewhat 
to raise the price to the borrower. 
Then the nature of the transaction 
renders an assurance upon the life of 
the borrower necessary, and this is a 
dreadful increase of the price of 
money. 
But the number of lenders at usu¬ 
rious interest in the illegal way, being 
narr owed 
