Mr. NEGLEY. I know they do; but money
being abundant I think the rate of interest is
likely to go down rather than to go up. It is
probable, from the very fact that it. is governed
by the same law. The amount of money in
the country is vastly increased. Hence the
price of everything has gone up. Money
being cheap, everything is dear. The worth
of money, therefore, instead of increasing, is
rather depreciating. The tact is that 6 per
cent. now is a depreciation. If the interest
had kept up, it would be 9 per cent., and
ought to be 15 per cent., if the interest bad
kept up with the increase in the amount of
circulation, fur everything has advanced that
much in price; everything but money; and
it has been kept down by the simple fact that
the supply has been so abundant that money
could be borrowed on accommodating terms.
I do not know that I would be in favor of
disturbing the rate of 6 per cent. as it is now.
I certainly am in favor of the section as re-
ported by the committee.
If it shall be passed, the convention will
have made a very considerable stride towards
bettering the condition of the people, in taking
away the restriction of these usury laws that
have come down to us from Bible bistory.—
Why is it than so much odium was attached
to usury among the Jews? it was to prevent
the Jews from borrowing money, because
when they got into debt they were sold into
slavery, and because the Jewish law put its
face against slavery. It liberated all Jewish
slaves at the end of every seven years. This
was one means of producing slavery. Bor-
rowing money and not being able to pay
when pay-day came, the Jew had to go into
slavery; and hence the odium which has come
down to us. But that docs not apply at all
to a commercial age of the world. You might
as well say that bigamy being recommended
once, or rather permitted once, it is advisable
to be recommended and lived up to now. The
fact is that it was there in the Bible, and that
the circumstances out of which it grew halve
entirely changed; but it has come down to
us with the odium of the Jew; and to this day
the money lender and the Jew are connected
together, and we associate them together,—
Whenever you talk about a Shylock, it is
synonymous with amoney lender or a Jew.
Mr. THURSTON. I do not think there is
anything more apparent now than that money
is not worth more than 6 per cent. when we
see 6 per cent. securities selling above par In
the market. The difficulty is that gentlemen
call money that which is not money. Money
—gold and silver—is very scarce, and very
hard to be got. But when you offer the right
kind of security you can get it at 6 per cent.;
and the proof of that is that good, undoubted
securities are selling for less than 6 per cent.
So that money now is not worth 6 per cent.
Currency is a very different thing from money.
Currency refers to money for its value; but |
it is not money itself. We know that the ex-
perience of civilized nations has been that it
is necessary to have some moderate rate of
interest fixed by law. That has been the ex-
perience of the civilized world for the last
fifteen centuries, I think that this idea that
the money lenders, the people whose only
trade and business it is to lend money, are
themselves best fitted to take statesman-like
views upon the subject of usury is an anoma-
lous argument. Persons can generally look
at things in which they are not interested
under circumstances more favorable to coming
to a right conclusion, than those whose inter-
est it is to make them work in one direction,
and one direction alone, A man whose trade
it is to loan money, finds it to be for his in-
terest to get as much for the arse of money as
he can; and therefore it is his interest to go
to the persons most needy and necessitous to
obtain money, to lend his money to them be-
cause he can get a higher rate of interest
for it.
There is one argument which, to my mind,
is unanswerable against giving no rate at all,
but allowing any rate to be agreed upon by
contract; and it is this. Men who are in
debt upon contracts at a small interest, unable
to pay it at the stipulated time, feeling
themselves in depressed circumstances, will
go and burrow money at any rate) 50, 60, or
100 percent,; and when their creditors come to
be paid from their estates, the honest debt con-
tracted by them when they borrowed money
at 6 per cent. or bought goods to be paid for
on time, will be placed upon an equality with
debts to the man who has loaned them money
at 50 or 100 per cent. A man in failing cir-
cumstances wants $1.000, and perhaps he
never expects to pay it. The creditor runs
a great risk and demands a double payment.
He rather thinks it is good, but he asks 6
per cent. interest and 10 per cent. for the
risk. People who loan money will always
loan it so as to make the greatest profit out
of it.
In the amendment which I propose, and
which goes as far as I am disposed to go,
allows parties to contract at seven and three-
tenths per cent.; and gentlemen must reflect
that that is equivalent to 9 per cent, if you
stipulate, as you may stipulate, as the gentle-
man from Kent (Mr. Chambers) argued, that
the borrower shall pay the taxes; for with
the taxes, seven and three-tenths per cent.
will amount to 9 per cent. which you may
receive for your money. That is a sufficient
interest especially in times when, as I say,
undoubted security does not command 6 per
cent. In other words you must pay such a
price for the bond that it really brings but
5 percent. I think that seven three-tenths
is sufficient. It is a higher rate than is
allowed in any of the States around us, and
therefore it will keep our capital at home,
instead of going to adjoining States, or neig- |
