me to ask him the question whether he thinks
he is protecting the honest working classes of
the people of the State of Maryland in allow-
ing the Rothschilds of New York to take
away the money of the State of Maryland to
help build up their colossal fortunes?
Mr. SANDS. The gentlemen will have
plenty of time to argue their view of the case
titter I get through with what I have to say.
I say that it was said of that house, the great
moneyed house of the world, that it was the
most powerful sovereign on earth, and that
every loan was not merely a speculation, but
might be made to fix a sovereign or upset a
throne. That Was so. Money is the great
social lever; and it is the great political lever
too. It is a power that needs no legislative
protection, It is, so far as society is con-
cerned, the Archimedean lever.
Now what is it proposed here to do? It is
proposed to add to the power of the money
seller the right of an additional one per cent of
interest. Against whom do we discriminate ?
Against the laboring poor, A poor man who
is perhaps trying to set up a little atore in
Borne corner, or along one of your streets,
wants a bill of goods, or he wants to get into
this or that vocation, and he wants motley.
He is the man you want to pay your money-
king one per cent. additional on his money.
So you will make the laboring man, the
Working man, the enterprising man, the
man who wants money above all others, and
is least able to pay for it, pay one per cent.
more into the funds of the money king.
I say in my view of the case that is iniqui-
tous. It is a discrimination in favor of
money, when money has power enough.
Then the question reduces itself to this. Is
six per cent. a fair remunerative rate of inter-
est to the moneyed man. I suppose the an-
swer to that question has been given practi-
cally in this State for a long time, and is to
be found in the fact that at that rate of inter-
est it does not take a great many years for
capital to double itself. That ie an answer
to the question whether this is a sufficient
rate of interest or not?
Again, sir, looking about at other money
markets across the water, where is there a
nation of people that pays the same rate of
interest we now pay to-day? In the great
commercial centre of the world—in England?
and France—what have been the rates as
compared with the rates of American inter-
est? Much less,
As to this idea that, a six per cent. rate of
interest is going to keep capital out of Mary-
land, it is utterly fallacious, if capital is
coining to Maryland, what does it come here
for? To be invested at a mere six percent
or seven per cent.? Not a whit of it, If
New York capitalists, according to the ar-
gument of the gentleman from Baltimore
city (Mr. Daniel,) draw away capital because
they pay one per cent. higher interest, will |
they be induced to bring their capital into
Maryland for seven per cent, when they can
get seven per cent. for it in New York? What
is the object to be attained in coming down
here and investing money at seven per cent.,
when everything is unstable and shaken to
the centre, if he can get seven per cent. to-
day at the great commercial centre of the
continent? It would be foolish? So, air;
seven per cent. is not the inducement which
is going to bring Mew York capital or Boston
capital into Maryland.
Mr. DANIEL. It is to keep our capital from
going there.
Mr. SANDS. Well, it is one and the same
thing. It is to keep our capital from going
there. What is going to bring capital into
your Static? We hope that under the new
order of things your lands, your mines,, your
manufacturing facilities, everything you have
at stake, are going to be doubled in value.
When a New Yorker investa a hundred dol-
lars, or a thousand dollars, or a million dol-
lars, it is not simply with the hope of getting
the same interest that lie can get in New
York city. If he invests money here in your
mines, or lands, or in putting up manufacto-
ries along your excellent and beautiful
streams, it is because that land for which he
pays you fifty dollars an acre is going to
be worth one hundred dollars an acre. It is
because he sees and knows that you have com-
mercial, manufacturing, mining resources,
which, if properly developed, must make
an empire out of your State. It is this
which is doing to bring capital into Mary"
land.
It is waiting now, not for a sufficient in-
terest, but wailing and knocking at your
doors. A member of this convention, not now
in his seat, said to me a few days ago, that
to his knowledge there were now ten mil-
lion of dollars of capital waiting to be in-
vested in Maryland. Was it waiting for
this amendment to raise the rate of interest,
30 as to get seven per cent.? Not at all.
How is this section to operate? "In all
cases of private contract the rate of interest
agreed on or contracted for shall be re-
coverable," How will that operate? Here
is a poor fellow in the city of Baltimore,
who in some mercantile crisis gets involved,
his credit is at stake, and be must pay his
note at the bank. There is the man strug-
gling to meet his payments on the one side.
Here is a money king sitting in his broker's
office, with plenty of money on hand, just
waiting for his victim, as the spider watches
for the fly, who knows that the other man
wants money and must have it. He says,
" Yes, you may have it, but you must pay
me for it." And how? At the legal rate
of interest recoverable in the court? No,
sir. " You must pay me just according to
your necessities. Yon are to break to-mor-
row. Pay me twenty or twenty-five per |
