Note 192-8 — Chapter IV

When Catherine II. reduced the rate of interest in Livonia, in 1785, from 6 to 5 per cent., it soon became impossible, even on the best security, to borrow at less than 7 per cent. (Storch, Handbuch, II, 26.) And so, when in New York, in 1717, the rate of interest was reduced to 6 per cent., it became necessary, the following year, to raise it again to 8 per cent. The merchants, themselves, petitioned that it might be so raised, because they found it impossible to get any loans whatever. (Ebeling, Geschichte und Erdbeschreib. von Nord Amerika, III, 152.) In Chili, the legal rate of interest is 6 per cent., the actual rate, however, never under 12 per cent., and frequently 18 to 24 per cent. In Peru, on the other hand, the repeal of the usury laws rapidly reduced the rate of interest from 50 to 24 per cent., and finally to 12. (Pöppig, I, 118.)