body in consequence employed an additional horse or servant, or improved his land, or did aught else to give bread to the poor. The diminution of the interest on private debts reaches in a direct form all enterprising persons in trade or business of all descriptions; or it reaches proprietors of land, who are thereby enabled to improve their estates, to give accommodation to their tenants, and employment to all around them. In short, it is of more importance to relieve a few persons, especially enterprising men, effectually of a great burden, than to diminish trifling payments made by millions. Not that the diminution of taxes will not give relief;-I merely speak comparatively. There is nothing unjust in this proposal as applied to the national creditors; they are merely required to submit to the same law that affects and binds all other creditors.

To be sure, among other sage theories, a project or proposal in favour of what was styled liberty, was some years ago made to repeal the laws which fix a rate of interest on loans. Jeremy Bentham had written in favour of this project. It was broached in Parliament in 1816. The Edinburgh reviewers

published an article in favour of it. In 1818 a bill was brought in to repeal these laws, and a committee of the House of Commons reported in favour of the bill. In the way government were proceeding, doing whatever they were bid by opposition, it should have passed. But there were too many debtors among our legislators; and it has been said that where the legislators are money-lenders or creditors, as formerly in Holland, laws against usury, are with difficulty enacted or enforced; but where the borrowers are law-makers, then high usury is a grievous offence. The French Convention at one time, among other novelties, repealed the usury laws, but restored them in twenty-three days.

As the cases are extremely numerous, in which men have occasion to claim money from each other, and in which it has been detained, to the benefit of the debtor, with or without the creditor's consent, it follows, that in a busy period of society, it is absolutely necessary to fix a certain general rate, as the compensation due for the detention of money. If this were not done, the courts of law would be overwhelmed by millions of actions of damages for de

tention of money, and their proceedings would be altogether arbitrary in fixing the rate that in reason ought to be paid in each particular case. But it is said, Why should not men be allowed to fix beforehand, at their pleasure, the rate to be paid for the use of money? Why should our liberty be abridged in that respect ?—The first answer is, that liberty is a good thing; but liberty to oppress is not a good thing; neither is it good to be placed under temptation to submit to oppression. In the next place, the law of usury abridges no man's natural liberty. A man states that he has in view a most profitable project, which will make his fortune. He requests a loan, and promises boundless gratitude, and lest this be not enough, he promises to the monied man repayment, with 20 or 30 per cent. more for the accommodation. The borrower gets the cash, and afterwards pays it back, and the 20 or 30 per cent. promised. Nobody prevents him from doing this, or even from paying more than he promised.

But the borrower fails to pay the usury. The creditor calls upon the judge to interfere, to compel the debtor to fulfil his promise, or to seize his goods, or to lock him up in a public castle or jail.

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The question is, Ought the community, through the judge in that case, to take the side of the creditor, and to enforce such a promise? There are many promises which the law does not enforce. There is a long list of them in the Scottish law bookswagers, bribery, black-mail, smuggling, pactions against liberty, simony, to commit crimes. all these, and multitudes of other cases, a promise to pay or perform is not enforced by courts of law. No such promise is, or ought to be, enforced to the effect of producing injustice or oppression. Before the judge interpose his authority, he is bound to see, not merely that a promise has been made, but that the demand of fulfilment has nothing in the face of it inconsistent with fair dealing. Hence it is not inconsistent with ordinary rules for a community to say generally, that it will not interfere to enforce fulfilment of a promise, to pay for a loan, at the rate of 20 or 30, or even 6 per cent. per annum, because every such bargain is, on the face of it, oppressive against the debtor. This is accordingly the language of the law in this country, with regard to interest on money lent or detained, where more has been promised than 5 per cent. The law

is constrained to fix a fair market rate of money, and it is not unreasonable to say, that he who bargains for more than the ordinary rate of the market, is attempting to derive undue profit from the necessities of his neighbours. The law has even gone farther, and, holding a bargain for a higher exaction to be culpable, any stranger is authorized to sue for a penalty, if he do so within a year after the illegal rate of interest, in addition to the debt, has been actually paid. But this, like many other penal enactments, is scarcely ever enforced, and ought to be repealed.

What I mean to say is, that in loans, debtors and creditors never meet on equal terms. The one is needy, and the other is rich. If there were no usury laws, there never would be paid at a bankruptcy a dividend of sixpence per pound. Embarrassed men would borrow at higher and higher rates, as they became desperate. The usurers would get all, and the creditors nothing. As a rate of interest must therefore be fixed for the protection of all and sundry, it is not unjust for a community to fix the rate at which it will enforce such claims. All that the public creditors have a title to demand is fair

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