Book 3 — CHAPTER IV.
John J. (John Joseph) Lalor translation
INTEREST ON CAPITAL.
SECTION CLXXIX.
THE RATE OF INTEREST IN GENERAL.
Interest on capital,[179-1] or the price paid for the use of capital, should not be confounded with the price of money (§ 42); although in common life people so frequently complain of want of money where there is only a want of capital, and sometimes even when there is a superabundance of money.[179-2] This error is connected with the fact, that for the sake of convenience, loans of capital are so often effected in the form of money and that they are always at least estimated in money; but neither of these things is essential.
In reality, however, we as seldom meet with interest[179-3] pure and simple, as we do with rent pure and simple. A person who works with his own capital can, at best, by a comparison with others, determine where, in the returns of his business, wages stop and interest begins.[179-4] And even in the loaning of capital, it depends largely on supply and demand, whether the creditor shall suffer a deduction in consequence of the absence of care and labor attending his gain, and whether the debtor, in order to get some capital at all, shall sacrifice a part of the wages of his labor.[179-5] When Adam Smith assumes it to be the rule that the "profit of stock" is about twice as great as the "interest of money,"[179-6] it is evident that a considerable amount of what is properly wages or profit of the employer (Uhternekmer = undertaker) is included in the former.
Many businesses have the reputation of paying a very large interest on the capital employed in them, when in reality they only pay the undertaker of them wages unusually high as compared with the amount of capital employed in them. Apothecaries, for instance, are called in some places "ninety-niners," because it is said that they earn 99 per cent. To discover the error, it would be sufficient to inquire the rate of interest on the capital borrowed by the apothecary on hypothecation, for instance, to enlarge his industry. But on the other hand, such a man who has more than any other manufacturer to do with the most delicate materials and with them in greater variety, requires proportionately greater caution and knowledge. Besides, as the guardian of the health and life of so many, and even as the comptroller of physicians, he should be a man who inspired universal and unqualified confidence.[179-7] By the rate of interest customary in a country, we mean the average rate of the interest on money-capital employed safely and without trouble.
SECTION CLXXX.
RATE OF INTEREST IN GENERAL.—ITS LEVEL.
Within the limits of the same national-economic territory, the different employments of capital tend uniformly to pay the same rate of interest.[180-1] If one branch of business were much more profitable than another, it would be to the interest of the owners of capital to allow it to flow into the former and out of the latter, until a level was reached.[180-2]
The most noticeable exception to this rule is only an apparent one. The revenue (Nutzung) derived from the use of capital must not be confounded with its partial restoration.[180-3] Thus, for instance, the rent of a house, if the entire capital is not to be sooner or later consumed entirely, must embrace, besides a payment for the use of the house, a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of repairing it, and even to effect a gradual accumulation of capital for the purpose of rebuilding. The risk attending the investment of capital plays a very large part and must be taken into special consideration. If the risk in a business be so great that ten who engage in it succeed and ten fail, the returns of the former, which are more than double those usual in the country, in reality pay, when the ten who failed are taken into the account, only the rate of interest customary in the country. The risk may depend on the uncertainty of the person to whom the capital is confided;[180-4] on the uncertainty of the branch of business in which it is intended to employ it,[180-5] or on the uncertainty of the commercial situation in general; but especially may it depend on the uncertainty of the laws.[180-6] The temporary lying idle of capital, for instance, in dwelling houses at bathing places during the winter season, increases the rate of interest much more than it does the rate of wages in the corresponding case of the lying idle of labor; for the reason that there is something pleasurable in the repose of the latter. (Senior.) On the whole, the vanity of mankind has an effect upon the rate of interest similar to that which it has on the rate of wages. (See § 168.) It causes the small chances of loss to be estimated below their real value, and the extraordinary chances of gain above it.[180-7]
SECTION CLXXXI.
RULE OF INTEREST IN GENERAL.—CAUSES OF DIFFERENT RATES.
The real exceptions to the above rules are caused by a prevention of the leveling influx and outflow of capital. Among nations in a low stage of civilization, there is wont to be a multitude of legal impediments in this respect. The existence of a difference of classes, of privileged corporations, etc., not only restrains the transition of workmen, but also of capital from one branch of industry to another. But even the mere routine of capitalists, that blind distrust of everything new so frequently characteristic of easily contented men, may produce the same result.[181-1] In the higher stages of civilization, patents for inventions and bank privileges, are causes of a lastingly higher rate of interest than is usual in the country.[181-2] Finally, since in many enterprises only a large amount of capital can be used at all, or at least with most advantage, the aggregation of which from many small sources is ordinarily much more difficult than the division of a large one into small fractional parts; the rate of interest for very small amounts of capital, and especially in the higher stages of civilization, is usually lower than that of large amounts of capital. We need only mention interest paid by savings-bank investments.[181-3]
If circulating capital has been changed into fixed capital, its yield will depend upon the price of the particular goods in the production of which it has been made to serve. Compared with the cost of restoration of fixed capital, this yield may, in a favorable case, constitute an extraordinarily high rate of interest, in an unfavorable a very low one; and the former of these two extremes has a greater chance of being realized, in proportion as it is difficult to multiply fixed capital of the same kind; the latter, the more exclusively it can be employed in only one kind of production, and the longer time it takes to be used up by wear.[181-4] When fixed and circulating capital coöperate in production, the latter, because it can be more easily withdrawn, but also more easily replaced, first takes out its own profit, that is the profit usual in the country and leaves all the rest to the former. When fixed capital is sold, practically no attention is paid to what it originally cost. The purchaser pays only for the prospective revenue it will yield, which he capitalizes at the rate of interest usual in the country. The seller henceforth looks upon his gain as an accretion to capital, his loss as a diminution of capital, and no longer as high or low interest.[181-5] That accretion might be considered the wages, paid once for all, for the intelligent labor which governed the original investment of the capital, and vice versa.
SECTION CLXXXII.
VARIATIONS OF THE RATE OF DISCOUNT.
The fact that in commerce, etc., the rate of interest on capital loaned for short periods of time (discount) is subject to great fluctuations, while the mortgage rate of interest, for instance, remains the same throughout, depends on similar causes.[182-1] Yet there are contingencies in trade which, when taken immediate advantage of, promise enormous profits, but which may disappear within a month; risks of the most dangerous kind which can be conjured only by the immediate aid of capital. These are both sufficient grounds of a high rate of interest. Again, there are times of the profoundest calm in the commercial world, during which capitalists are perfectly willing to make loans at a low rate of interest, provided they are sure to be able to get back their capital with the first favorable breeze that blows. Agriculture is too immovable to come opportunely to the assistance of capitalists, here as a receiver and there as a loaner of capital. As the cycle of its operations is gone through usually only in a series of years, sudden influxes or outflows of capital would cause it the greatest injury.[182-2]
SECTION CLXXXIII.
EFFECT OF INCREASED DEMAND FOR LOANS.
The price paid for the use of capital naturally depends on the relation between the supply and demand, and especially of circulating capital. The increase of the supply need no more unconditionally lower the rate of interest than the price of any other commodity. If 50 hunters kill 1,000 deer yearly, and give 100 deer per annum as interest to the capitalists who provided them with ammunition and rifles, a second capitalist with an equal number of rifles and an equal amount of ammunition may appear on the scene. If now 2,000 deer a year are killed, the rate of profit of the capitalists will probably remain the same. But if the woods are not rich enough in game for this, or the hunters not numerous enough, too indolent, or too easily satisfied, the rate of interest falls.[183-1]
The difficulties in the way of the desired increase of capital are here of great importance. The smaller the surplus over and above their absolutely necessary wants, which the people produce, the less their tendency to make savings, the less the inclination to capitalization; and the less the security afforded by the law is, the higher must the rate of interest be to induce people to face these difficulties. We may very well transfer the idea of cost of production to this condition.[183-2]
The demand for capital depends, on the one hand, on the number and the solvability of borrowers, especially of non-capitalists like landowners and workmen; and, on the other hand, on the value in use of the capital itself. Hence the growth of population is, other circumstances being the same, a means to raise the rate of interest; because it infallibly increases the competition of borrowers of capital, even if the increased rate must take place at the expense of wages. The solvability or paying capacity of the land-owning class as contrasted with the capitalists can, in the last analysis, depend only on the extent and fertility of their lands and on the quality of their agricultural husbandry; the solvability or paying capacity of the working class, only on their skill and industry. Where these have grown, an increase of the rate of interest may be found in connection with an absolute growth of the rate of wages and of rent, because the aggregate income of the nation has become greater.
The value in use of capital, which is more homogeneous in proportion as it has the character of circulating capital (res fungibiles) is, in most instances, synonymous with the skill of the working class, and the richness of the natural forces connected with it. The deciding element, therefore, is the yield of the least productive investment of capital which must be made to employ all the capital seeking employment. This least productive employment of capital must determine the rate of interest customary in a country precisely as cost of production on the most unfavorable land determines the price of corn (§§ 110, 150), and as the result of the work of the laborer last employed does the rate of wages. (§ 165.)
What portion of the total national income, after deduction is made of rent, shall go to the capitalists and what portion to the working class, will depend mainly on whether the capitalists compete more greedily for labor or the laboring classes for capital.[183-3] If, for instance, capital should increase more rapidly than population, there must be a relative increase in wages, and vice versa.[183-4] This is true especially of that peculiar kind of higher wages which we shall (§ 145, ff.) designate as the "undertaker's profit." The smaller the number of persons engaged in enterprises is, in comparison with the number of retired persons who live on their rents, incomes, etc., the smaller is the portion of the so-called net profit of enterprise the latter must be satisfied with in the shape of interest.[183-5]
SECTION CLXXXIV.
HISTORY OF THE RATE OF INTEREST.
Among barbarous nations, the loaning of capital is wont to happen so seldom, and to be limited so strictly to near relations, that it does not yet occur to any one to stipulate for a regular compensation therefor.[184-1] But, however, when they pass from this state to interest proper, the rate must be, of course, very high.[184-2] The premium for insurance is here very great, the possibility and inclination to accumulate capital exceedingly small. Even of the existing supply of capital, a great part remains idle, because the faculty and the institutions necessary to concentrate it and permit it to flow are wanting. (§ 43.) The unskillfulness of labor is more than overcome by the excess of fertile and naturally productive land, of rich sites still unoccupied, the cream of which, as it were, needs only to be culled. Population is indeed sparse, but the usually prevailing absence of freedom of the lower classes prevents wages claiming the full benefit of competition.[184-3] This last circumstance is especially important.[184-4] For a given amount of the national income and of rent, every depression of wages must obviously raise the rate of interest, and every enhancement of wages lower it.[184-5]
SECTION CLXXXV.
HISTORY OF THE RATE OF INTEREST.—INFLUENCE OF AN ADVANCE IN CIVILIZATION.
With an advance in civilization, the rate of interest is wont to decline.[185-1] [185-2] One of the chief causes of this phenomenon is the necessity, as population and consumption increase, to employ capital in the fertilization of less productive land, and in less profitable investments.[185-3] An increase in the stock of money does not necessarily depreciate the rate of interest. If this increase comes in connection with a corresponding depreciation of the individual pieces of metal, it cannot be said that the nation has thereby become richer in capital. All that would be required in such case is only a greater number of pounds of gold or silver, or more paper bills to represent the same capital.[185-4] Only during the transition-period, during which the depreciation of money is still incomplete, is the rate of interest wont to be lowered; and all the more, since loaned capital is generally offered and sought after in the form of money.[185-5] [185-6]
The decline of the rate of interest generally shows itself earliest in the large cities, which are everywhere the national organ, in which the good and bad symptoms of later civilization may be soonest observed.[185-7]
Moreover, the condition of capitalists is not necessarily made worse by a decline of the rate of interest. It is possible that, for a long time, the increase of capital should continue more rapid than the decrease of interest for each individual. (If, indeed, the aggregate interest of capital should become absolutely smaller, there is always a pleasant remedy available, viz.: to consume a part of the capital!) But, however, a decline of the rate of interest is nearly always followed by increased activity on the part of capitalists; and they come to the resolve to retire later to enjoy the results of their previous labors. In Holland, after the time of Louis XIV., no branch of business was wont to pay more than from two to three per cent. In the case of the purchase of land, no one calculated on more than two per cent. Hence it was scarcely possible for small capitalists there to live on their interest; and the good sense of the people so well adapted itself to this state of things that to live in leisure on one's rents was considered a not entirely honorable mode of existence.[185-8] The lower the rate of interest, the larger, in highly civilized countries, is the stock on hand of cash apt to become, for the reason that business men then hope to gain more by the advantages of cash payments than by the saving of interest. [185-9] [185-10]
SECTION CLXXXVI.
HISTORY OF THE RATE OF INTEREST.—CAUSES OF A HIGH RATE IN THRIVING COMMERCIAL NATIONS.
There are, however, even where a people's economy is in a flourishing condition, many obstacles which cause the decline of the rate of interest to take a retrogressive course, or which at least may delay it for a time.
To this category belong all the modifications of a nation's economy alluded to in § 183.[186-1] Among them, therefore, is every extension of the limits of productive land. Let us suppose a nation which, its capital and labor remaining the same in every respect, should suddenly double its territory. The less productive places where investments were made in the old province are now abandoned, and labor and capital emigrate to the new. The result is, of course, an increase of the aggregate national income, and, at the same time, a decrease of rent. (§ 157.) Hence, the interest on capital and the wages of labor, taken together, must greatly increase. Which of these two branches shall profit most and longest by the increase will depend upon whether capital or the number of workmen increases most rapidly.[186-2] A similar effect must be produced when, by changes or modifications in the commercial situation, in the tariff, etc., a nation is enabled to obtain the means of subsistence at cheaper rates from more fertile and less settled countries.[186-3]
The introduction of better methods of production has very different immediate consequences, according as these methods affect the commodities which minister to the wants peculiar to workmen as a class, or do not. Let us suppose, as a first case, that the cost of ordinary clothing is reduced one half by reason of newly discovered material, better machines, etc. As in the case of the whole people, so also in that of the owners of capital as consumers, there is, in consequence, an addition to their enjoyment of life. Their interest as well as their capital, compared with clothing material, would have become more valuable. But the relation between capital and interest, that is, the rate of interest, could not be directly changed. (Compare infra, note 3.) Only when the working class employ their materially increased wages to increase population; when in consequence hereof, their wages, estimated in money, again decline beyond what it was before; when, therefore, the price of a given quantity of labor declines, does the rate of interest rise, although a portion of that which the workmen have lost may be added to rent on account of the increased population?[186-4] [186-5] If the applicability of the new method of production is confined to articles of luxury used by the upper classes, for instance to fine lace, the rate of interest usual in the country will be affected thereby only to the extent that through the medium of commerce such products are exchanged with foreign nations against commodities consumed by the working classes. But there are very few improvements in production which have not led to a greater cheapness of those things which satisfy the wants of the working class; and this is especially clear in the improvements in the means of transportation so usual in our day.
However, the increase of fixed capital, such as machines, railroads, etc., once they are completed, may, at first, cause a depression of the rate of wages, as well as an enhancement of the rate of interest; the former from the fact that a number of workmen is thereby, at least temporarily, thrown out of employment; the latter because the conversion of so much circulating into fixed capital must diminish the supply of the former.[186-6]
A second class of obstacles consists in the diminution of the supply of capital. War, for instance, always causes such a destruction of capital, and at the same time for the most part renders the reproduction of capital more difficult to such a degree that the rate of interest is wont to rise greatly.[186-7] Something similar is true of other great catastrophes and of extravagance on a large scale.[186-8] Every state loan, whether intended for direct consumption or to procure capital for use (Nutzkapitalien), decreases the supply of circulating capital which most directly determines the market rate of interest.[186-9] [186-10]
SECTION CLXXXVII.
HISTORY OF THE RATE OF INTEREST.—EMIGRATION OF CAPITAL.
Midway between these classes of obstacles lies the very usual proceeding of highly civilized nations whose rate of interest is low, to transfer their capital into countries with a higher rate of interest, where the production of raw material is predominant.[187-1] This is most thoroughly accomplished by the emigration for good of the capitalists themselves; but also least frequently, because the natural attachment of man to his native country is usually too powerful, among the well-to-do classes, to be overcome by the attraction of a higher rate of interest. Temporary settlements in foreign countries are by far more frequent. Either the capitalist removes there himself, for a time, to return enriched, at farthest, in his old age; or he establishes a permanent branch of his business there, and superintends it through the agency of a trusted representative. The inhabitants of northern Italy, during the last centuries of the middle ages, maintained such establishments, not only for the purpose of carrying on commerce in merchandise along the shores of the Levant, but also the money trade in the principal countries of the west.[187-2] Similarly, the Hanseatic cities contemporaneously in the north and northeast of Europe; and, to-day, the English in almost all the important seaport cities in the world.[187-3] Such enterprises are always somewhat dangerous, especially in countries but little advanced in civilization.[187-4]
The best means to facilitate the migration of capital is credit. It is, indeed, true, that in international trade, ordinary private loans are seldom made. To make such loans would be to run too many risks; risks through a want of knowledge of persons or circumstances, on account of the difficulties in the way of continued supervision, and of being able to assert and defend one's rights away from home.[187-5] Loans are much more readily made to foreign states, to great corporations, or joint-stock companies, whose condition is well-known; and which, by reason of their perpetuity, have a deep and obvious interest in maintaining an honorable reputation. The issuing of certificates of stock, etc., has greatly facilitated international trade in capital.[187-6] But the mode of loaning in foreign parts preferred is to sell them commodities, and to require payment for them only after some time has elapsed, of course, with interest. Purchases, on the contrary, are paid for immediately, possibly even in advance.[187-7] The lower the rate of interest in a country is, the longer and more cheaply can it give credit to others; a new reason why the less civilized countries are particularly fond of trading with the most civilized. [187-8] [187-9]
SECTION CLXXXVIII.
HISTORY OF THE RATE OF INTEREST.—EFFECT OF A LOW RATE ON STATIONARY NATIONS.
Beneficial as the spur of a low rate of interest is for countries capable of development, it is a heavy drag on a stationary people, and more so on those who have lost a portion of the field for the investment of their capital by the competition of too powerful rivals.[188-1] A real superabundance of capital is attended with cares and temptations for the middle classes very similar to those caused by a so-called over-population, especially to dishonesty and extravagance.[188-2] When capital, population and the skillfulness of labor remaining the same, continues to increase, the enlarged capital may very readily have every succeeding year only the same return to divide among its owners, that the smaller had in previous years.[188-3] Hence additional saving here would produce no real enrichment of the people; and it might even happen that the instinct to accumulate capital might in the future become torpid to a greater degree than the capital itself had increased. In any case, however, the decline of the rate of interest can continue only to a certain point. There are numberless persons who would rather consume their capital, or invest it in hazardous speculations than put it out at interest at one per cent. a year.[188-4] At least, the tendency of a decline in the rate of interest is, in the case of the richer, to increase the amount of capital consumed as compared with productive capital. The more moderate, sober and provident a people are, the lower may the rate of interest decline without producing this effect. And so, the more the capital of a nation is concentrated in the hands of a few; because then the owners of capital are all the later forced to break in upon it, for the sake of subsistence.[188-5] [188-6]
Among nations which have totally declined, the rate of interest is wont to reach a high point once more; the natural result of great losses of capital and men, while, at the same time, the freedom of the lower classes and the security of property have been either curtailed or lost. The weakness of age is, in many respects, even in the case of nations, a second childhood.[188-7]
SECTION CLXXXIX.
INTEREST-POLICY.—LEGITIMATENESS OF INTEREST.
The legitimateness of interest is based on two unquestionable grounds: on the real productiveness of capital, and on the real abstinence from enjoyment of it by one's self.[189-1] Let us suppose a nation of fishermen with no private ownership in land and no capital, living naked in caverns, on sea-fish which the ebb of the ocean has left in the puddles along the shore, and which are caught only with the hand.[189-2] All workmen here may be equal, and each catch and consume three fish a day. Let us again suppose that some clever savage reduces his consumption to two fish a day, for one hundred days, and uses the stock of one hundred fish collected in this way to enable him to devote all his strength and labor, during fifty days, to the construction of a boat and a net. With the aid of this capital he, from the first, catches thirty per day. What now will his fellow tribesmen, who are not capable of such intelligent and systematic self control to do as he has done, do? What will they offer him for the use of his capital? In discussing this question both parties will very certainly consider not only the fifty days' labor spent in the construction of the boat, etc., but also the one hundred and fifty days during which its maker had to abstain from his full ration of food. If the borrower, of the thirty fish which may be caught daily with the aid of his capital, gives twenty-seven away, his condition is at least no worse than it was at first. On the other hand, the lender, if compensated only for the wear and tear of his capital, would reap no profit whatever from his loan. The interest to be paid will be fixed somewhere between these two extremes by the relation between demand and supply. A loan which pays no interest is a donated use of capital. (Knies.)[189-3] Interest may be called the reward of abstinence (Senior), in the same way as wages is called the reward of industry.[189-4] With the abolition of interest, exchange would be limited to the mere present, without any mediation between the past and the future. A great number of services would bring no equivalent in return, and, therefore, as a rule, never be performed. Most of the charges commonly made in our day against the "tyranny of capital" are, at bottom, only a complaint that capital is not inexhaustible; and even those workmen who are obliged to pay most to capital would be much worse off without it.
SECTION CXC.
INTEREST-POLICY.—AVERSION TO INTEREST.
At the same time, there is a strong aversion to the taking of interest prevalent among nations in a low stage of civilization. Industrial enterprises of any importance do not as yet exist here at all, and agriculture is most advantageously carried on by means of a great many parcels of land, but with little capital. The purchase of land is so rare, and hampered by legal restrictions to such a degree, that loans for that purpose are almost unheard of. And just as seldom does it happen, by reason of the superabundance of land, that the heir of a landowner borrows capital to effect an adjustment with his co-heirs, and thus enter alone into the possession of the estate. Here, as a rule, only absolute want leads to loaning.[190-1] If, in addition to this, we consider the natural height of the rate of wages in such times, the small number and importance of the capitalist class (§ 201), the tardy insight of man into the course and nature of economic production,[190-2] it will not be hard to understand the odium attached in the middle age of every nation to so-called interest-usury[190-3] (Zinswucher).
Most religions, the Christian excepted (the universal religion!), have been founded in the earlier stages of the nations who profess them, and have there, at least outwardly, exercised their greatest influence. No wonder, therefore, that so many religions have prohibited the taking of interest. Thus, for instance, the Jewish which, indeed, allows interest to be taken from foreigners, but raises loaning without interest among Jews in their commerce with one another, to the dignity of a duty binding on the conscience of the beneficent rich.[190-4] [190-5] Similarly in the Koran.[190-6] The Fathers of the Church, also, on the whole, look with disfavor on the taking of interest, relying upon well-known passages in the Old Testament, and, in part, on misunderstood expressions in the New.[190-7] This is especially true of the Fathers of the Church from the beginning of the fourth century, when the Roman empire was frightfully impoverished by the devastations of the barbarians, and as a consequence the conditions as to interest which prevail in the lowest stages of civilization had returned. Mercy towards the poor usually occupies the foreground in the demonstrations of the Fathers.[190-8]
SECTION CXCI.
INTEREST-POLICY.—THE CANON LAW, etc.
The canon law, from the first, endeavored to prevent contracts for interest. We may even say that the prohibition of interest-usury is the key-stone of the whole system of the political economy of the Corpus Juris Canonici. The development of that law coincides, as to time, with the senility of the Roman Empire and the childhood of modern nations.[191-1] In the golden age of papal power, every interest-creditor was refused the communion, the testamenti factio and the right of ecclesiastical burial. Proceedings at law could not be instituted for the recovery of the principal debt until the creditor had restored all the interest obtained. In the council of Vienna, in 1311, it was declared heresy to defend the taking of interest. The universal antipathy of the church towards the growing importance of the bourgeoisie,[191-2] and the desire to give the spiritual courts an extensive jurisdiction in litigated cases, may have contributed largely to the adoption of these measures. In later medieval times, the secular power offered its services to execute these laws;[191-3] and, to judge of what public opinion in this matter was, we need only call to mind the decided disapproval of interest by Dante, Luther and Shakespeare.[191-4]
The Weddeschat, a species of pledge or loan on security, constituted the transition from this state of things to the modern economic system of interest. The Weddeschat was a sale with a reserved right of redemption, by which the debtor gave his creditor the use and enjoyment of a piece of land a sort of interest in kind, but which he could at any time recover back, by payment of the principal. This was not very oppressive on the debtor, as he was the only party who could recall the contract.[191-5] In a higher stage of civilization, indeed the continuance of this species of land-pledge would be exceedingly disadvantageous, since the momentary possessor of a piece of land which might be bought back by another person at any time at a price fixed in advance, would scarcely think of improving it.[191-6]
And so, the introduction of rent-purchase (Rentekauf) was an important step in advance: the incumbrancing of a piece of land which remained in the possession of the debtor with an interest in kind paid to the creditor. The latter could never claim anything further, while the debtor and his heirs might redeem the land from this interest-incumbrance by paying back the purchase money.[191-7] As the Pope, on the 19th of January, 1569, renewed, in express terms, the prohibition of all interest not based on rent-purchase, so did the police ordinances of the Empire, of the sixteenth century, declare it to be the only lawful form of loaning at interest; provided, always, that only the debtor could demand the cancellation of the contract.[191-8] We find, however, that, on the whole, at least Protestant countries had, before 1654, adopted the modern Roman law relating to interest.[191-9] [191-10]
However, the long persistence of the prohibition of the canon law in relation to interest, even with the refuge afforded by the introduction of the rent-purchase system, and of dormant partnerships (Commanditen) etc., so common in the sixteenth century,[191-11] would be unintelligible, if, contemporaneously, the Jews did not carry on an important and somewhat free trade in capital,[191-12] precisely as the Armenians, Hindoos and Jews do in the Mohammedan world of to-day.
SECTION CXCII.
INTEREST-POLICY.—GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE.—FIXED RATES.
Instead of the medieval prohibition of interest, most modern states have established fixed rates of interest, the exceeding or evasion of which, by contract or otherwise, is declared null and void, and is usually punishable as usury.[192-1] If the fixing of the rate is intended to depress the rate of interest customary in the country,[192-2] [192-3] it uniformly fails of its object. If control were great enough, vigilant and rigid enough, which is scarcely imaginable, to prevent all violations of the law, it is certain that less capital would be loaned than had been, for the reason that every owner of capital would be largely interested in employing his capital in production of his own. More capital, too, would go into foreign parts, and there would be less saved by those not engaged in any enterprise of their own. All of this would happen to the undoubted prejudice of the nation's entire economy.[192-4] [192-5]
If, on the other hand, the control by the government be not great enough, the law would, in most cases, be evaded; especially as each party, creditor as well as debtor, would find it to his advantage to evade it. The latter, who otherwise would not be able to borrow at all, is, as a rule, more in need of obtaining the loan, than the creditor is to invest his capital. How easily, therefore, might he be induced to bind himself by oath or by word of honor![192-6] He would, moreover, be compelled to pay the creditor not only the natural interest and the ordinary insurance premium, but also for the special risk he runs when he violates the law threatening him with a severe penalty.[192-7] Hence the last result is either a material enhancement of the difficulty of obtaining loans or an enhancement of the rate of interest.[192-8]
SECTION CXCIII.
INTEREST-POLICY.—EFFORTS TO AVOID THE EVIL EFFECTS OF A FIXED RATE.
It has been thought possible to avoid the evil effects of a fixed legal rate of interest, by regulating it in such a way as to make it coincident with the rate customary in the country.[193-1] But there are numberless transactions in which an insurance premium, or premium for risk or certain expenses of administration[193-2] on the part of the loaner is inseparable from the true interest. Here, even the law which entered most into detail could never properly provide for the infinite gradations or shades of risk and trouble; and the rate in a great many transactions would, therefore, be placed below the natural height. Turgot long since observed that the value of a promise of future payment is different not only for different persons, but at different times. Thus, for instance, it is really less after there have been numerous cases of bankruptcy than at other times.[193-3] If, now, it was desired to fix the maximum rate of interest in such a way that it should equal the rate customary in the country, where the security is good, the best real property security for instance, the consequence would be, that those persons who had no such guaranty to offer (leaving the loaning "among brothers" out of the question) would either be unable to borrow money at all, or, by evading the law, only at an artificially higher rate. Hence the legislator causes injury where he wished to favor. This has been observed in England in almost all past commercial crises.[193-4] The man who makes it his business to loan his capital, on short time and in small sums, undertakes a trade which the examination, and the surveillance of a large number of small debtors, and the necessity of reinvesting the many small sums paid him, render exceedingly[TN 26] troublesome and disagreeable. Moreover, in loaning on short terms of payment, there is always danger that his money may lie idle for some length of time. These are reasons sufficient, why, in such cases, when the whole compensation is denominated interest, a rate of interest greater than usual in the country is equitable and even necessary. (§ 179.)[193-5]
It has been frequently suggested that spendthrifts and adventurers should be hindered using, or to speak more correctly, abusing the nation's wealth by laws prohibiting the rate of interest at which they might be expected to obtain credit; and this in the interest alike of the creditors they might possibly find and in their own.[193-6] But almost every inventor of genius, from Columbus to Stephenson, has been obliged to be considered "an adventurer" for a time by "solid men." The law limits him thus, and more especially during the critical period of outlay which precedes the undoubted triumph of his idea, to his own means or the gifts of others. [193-7] And how inadequate, as rule, are both. The rich are as seldom discoverers, as discoverers are skillful supplicants. And, as regards spendthrifts, they may ruin themselves in so many thousands of ways, especially by buying or selling, and unhindered by the state, that it is scarcely apparent why the one way of borrowing should be legally closed to them.[193-8] How is it, if the law itself drives them into the hands of a worse class of creditors, and compels them to pay yet a higher rate of interest? Are they not simply more rapidly ruined? States, themselves, have scarcely ever given any heed to their own usury laws in borrowing or loaning.[193-9]
SECTION CXCIV.
INTEREST-POLICY.—REPEAL OF THE USURY LAWS.
However, the complete repeal of the usury laws[194-1] has not under all circumstances accomplished what it was supposed it would; and the state should take great care, lest by an incautious framing of its laws, it should put judges in such a position that they may be compelled to coöperate in the execution of immoral contracts.[194-2] In the lowest strata, so to speak, of the loaning business, the medieval condition continues to exist (§ 190) after it has disappeared in the upper. Here, the loan is effected scarcely ever for the purposes of production, but most generally because of the most urgent necessity; and the debtor is not in a condition, from want of education, and especially from his ignorance of arithmetic, to estimate the magnitude of the burthen he has undertaken. The business of loaning is, under such circumstances, considered dishonorable, to some extent, by the public. And when a business necessary in itself is held disreputable by public opinion, the usual result is that bad men alone engage in it.[194-3] Real competition which would but fix the natural price is wanting here in proportion as the debtor is anxious for secrecy.[194-4]
Abuses in this respect are best guarded against by the establishment of government loan-institutions, and by the publicity of the administration of justice to debtors.[194-5] Besides, every contract might be prohibited the terms of which were such that an inexperienced borrower could not from them obtain a clear conception of the burthen he accepts, or which hindered him from paying the debt at a proper time.[194-6]