Defence of Usury [8]
borrowing denied to every body: denied to those who have such security to offer, as renders the rate of interest, they have to offer, a sufficient inducement, for a man who has money, to trust them with it. Just that same sort of distress is produced, by denying that liberty to so many people, whose security, though, if they were permitted to add something to that rate, it would be sufficient, is rendered insufficient by their being denied that liberty. Why the misfortune, of not being possessed of that arbitrarily exacted degree of security, should be made a ground for subjecting a man to a hardship, which is not imposed on those who are free from that misfortune, is more than I can see. To discriminate the former class from the latter, I can see hut this one circumstance, viz. that their necessity is greater. This it is by the very supposition: for were it not, they could not be, what they are supposed to be, willing to give more to be relieved from it. In this point of view then, the sole tendency of the law is, to heap distress upon distress. A second mischief is, that of rendering the terms so much the worse, to a multitude of those, whose circumstances exempt them from being precluded altogether from getting the money they have occasion for. In this case, the mischief, though necessarily less intense than in the other, is much more palpable and conspicuous, Those who cannot borrow may get what they want, so long as they have any thing to sell. But while, out of loving-kindness, or whatsoever other motive, the law precludes a man from borrowing, upon terms which he deems too disadvantageous, it does not preclude him from selling, upon any terms, howsoever disadvantageous. Every body knows that forced sales are attended with a loss: and, to this loss, what would be deemed a most extravagant interest bears in general no proportion. When a man's moveables are taken in execution, they are, I believe, pretty well sold, if, after all expences paid, the produce amounts to two thirds of what it would cost to replace them. In this way the providence and loving-kindness of the law costs him 33 per cent and no more, supposing, what is seldom the case, that no more of the effects are taken than what is barely necessary to make up the money due. If, in her negligence and weakness, she were to suffer him to offer 11 per cent per annum for forbearance, it would be three years before be paid what he is charged with, in the first instance, by her wisdom. Such being the kindness done by the law to the owner of moveables, let us see how it fares with him who has an interest in immoveables. Before the late war, 30 years purchase for land might be reckoned, I think it is pretty well agreed, a medium price. During the distress produced by the war, lands, which it was necessary should be sold, were sold at 20, 18, nay, I believe, in some instances, even so low as 15 years purchase. If I do not misrecollect, I remember instances of lands put up to public auction, for which nobody bid so high as fifteen. In many instances, villas, which had been bought before the war, or at the beginning of it, and, in the interval, had been improved rather than impaired, sold for less than half, or even the quarter, of what they had been bought for. I dare not here for my part pretend to be exact: but on this passage, were it worth their notice, Mr Skinner, or Mr Christie, could furnish very instructive notes. Twenty years purchase, instead of thirty, I may be allowed to take, at least for illustration. An estate then of *100 a year, clear of taxes, was devised to a man, charged, suppose, with *1,500 with interest till the money should be paid. Five per cent interest, the utmost which could be accepted from the owner, did not answer the incumbrancer's purpose: he chose to have the money. But 6 per cent perhaps, would have answered his purpose, if not, most certainly it would have answered the purpose of somebody else: for multitudes there all along were, whose purposes were answered by five per cent The war lasted, I think, seven years: the depreciation