Some Considerations of the Lowering of Interest [17]
the Price, i.e. the quantity given for Money (which is called buying and selling) for an other Commodity, (which is called Bartring) is nothing else but their quantity in Proportion to their vent. If then lowering of Use makes not your Silver more in Specie, or your Wheat or other Commodities less, it will not have any Influence at all to make it exchange for less of Wheat, or any other Commodity, than it will have on Lead, to make it exchange for less Wheat, or any other Commodity. Money therefore in buying and selling being perfectly in the same Condition with other Commodities, and subject to all the same Laws of Value, let us next see how it comes to be ofthe same Nature with Land, by yielding a certain yearly Income, which we call Use or Interest. For Land produces naturally something new and profitable, and of Value to Mankind; but Money is a barren thing, and produces nothing, but by Compact transfers that Profit that was the Reward of one Man's Labour into another Man's Pocket. That which occasions this, is the unequal Distribution of Money; which Inequality has the same effect too upon Land, that it has upon Money. For my having more Money in my Hand than I can, or am disposed to use in buying and selling, makes me able to lend: And another's want of so much Money as he could employ in Trade, makes him willing to borrow. But why then, and for what Consideration doth he pay Use? For the same Reason, and upon as good Consideration, as the Tenant pays Rent for your Land. For as the unequal Distribution of Land, (you having more than you can or will manure, and another less) brings you a Tenant for your Land; and the same unequal Distribution of Money, (I having more than I can or will employ, and another less) brings me a Tenant for my Money: So my Money is apt in Trade, by the Industry of the Borrower, to produce more than Six per Cent. to the Borrower, as well as your Land, by the Labour of the Tenant, is apt to produce more Fruits, than his Rent comes to; and therefore deserves to be paid for, as well as Land, by a Yearly Rent. For though the Usurer's Money would bring him in no Yearly profit, if he did not lend it, (supposing he employs it not himself) and so his Six per Cent. may seem to be the Fruit of another Man's Labour, yet he shares not near so much of the profit of another Man's Labour, as he that lets Land to a Tenant. For without the Tenants Industry (supposing as before, the owner would not manage it himself) his Land would yield him little or no Profit. So that the Rent he receives is a greater Portion of the Fruit of his Tenants Labour, than the Use is at Six per Cent. For generally he that borrows One thousand pounds at Six per Cent. and so pays Sixty pounds per Annum Use, gets more above his Use in one Year, by his Industry, than he that Rents a Farm of Sixty pounds per Annum gets in two, above his Rent, though his Labour be harder. It being evident therefore, that he that has skill in Traffick, but has not Money enough to Exercise it, has not only reason to borrow Money to drive his Trade, and get a livelihood; but as much Reason to pay Use for that Money; as he, who having skill in Husbandry but no Land of his own to employ it in, has not only reason to Rent Land, but to pay Money for the Use of it; It follows, that Borrowing Money upon Use is not only by the necessity of Affairs, and the Constitution of Humane Society, unavoidable to some Men, but that also to receive Profit for the Loan of Money, is as equitable and lawful, as receiving Rent for Land, and more tolerable to the Borrower, notwithstanding the Opinion of some over-scrupulous Men. This being so, one would expect, that the rate of Interest should be the Measure of the value of Land in number of Years Purchase, for which the Fee is sold: For 100 l. per Annum being equal to 100 l. per Annum, and so on to peretuity; and 100 l. per Annum being the Product of 1000 l. when Interest is at 10 per Cent. of 1250 l. when Interest is at 8 per Cent. of 1666 l. or thereabouts, when Interest is at 6 per Cent. of 2000 l.