Note 180-5 — Chapter IV

Thus even in Anderson's time, it was necessary that the profit of one good year in the whale fishery should compensate for the damage caused by six bad ones. (Origin of Commerce, III, 184.) Slave-traders made their calculations to lose from three to four out of five expeditions. (Athenæum, May 6, 1848) Similarly in smuggling and contraband. High rate of interest in gross adventure trade and bottomry contracts, frequently 30 and even 50 per cent.; in ancient Athens, for a simple voyage to the Black Sea, 36 per cent., while the rate of interest customary in the country was only from 12 to 18 per cent.; the interest paid by rented houses only 8-1/7, and by land leases only 8 per cent. (Bockh, Staatshaushalt der Athener, I, 175 ff.; Isaeus de Hagn., Hered., 293) In Rome, before Justinian's time, maritime interest was unlimited. (Hudtwalker, De Foenore nautico Romano, 1810.) And so in the manufacture of powder, the frequent explosion of the mills has to be taken into account: in France and Austria, 16 per cent. per annum. (Hermann, Principien, 119.) Here belong those new enterprises which, when they succeed, pay a high profit. Thaer, in reference to this insurance premium, says: if the capital employed to purchase a landed estate yields 4 per cent., the inventory (Inventar) should bring in at least 6, and the working capital 12 per cent. (Ration. Landwirthschaft.)