Objections 1-4

The most material objections I have met with against it are as follows:

Objection 1. Reducing our interest rates will cause lending to England to drop.

The Dutch and other people that have money put out at interest in England will bring home their money. It will consequently create a great scarcity of money amongst us.

I answer that if interest be brought to %, no Dutchman will call in his money that is out on good security in England. This is because he cannot make above % of it on interest at home.

But if they bring home all the money they have with us at interest, it would be better for us. This is because the borrower is always a slave to the lender, and shall be sure to be always kept poor, while the other is fat and full.

He that uses a stock that is none of his own, being forced for the upholding his reputation to live to the full, if not above the proportion of what he does so use, while the lender possessing much, and using little or none, lives only at the charge of what he uses, and not of what he has.

Besides, if with this law for abatement of interest, a law for transferring bills of debt should pass, we should not miss the Dutch money, were it ten times as much as it is amongst us; for such a law will certainly supply the defect of at least one half of all the ready money we have in use in the nation.

Objection 2. If interest rates decrease, land must rise in purchase, and consequently rents.

If rents rise, then the fruits of the land will also rise. And so all things will be dear, and how shall the poor live?

I answer that if the fruits become dear, it means our people have also grown richer.

The poor in England live better in the dearest countries for provisions, than in the cheapest, and better in a dear year than in a cheap, especially in relation to the public good, for in a cheap year they will not work above two days in a week; their humour being such, that they will not provide for a hard time, but just work so much and no more, as may maintain them in that mean condition to which they have been accustomed.

Objection 3. If interest rates decrease, usurers will call in their money. What shall gentlemen do, whose estates are mortgaged?

I answer that when they know they can make no more of their money by taking out of one, and putting it into another hand, they will not be so forward as they threaten, to alter that security they know is good, for another that may be bad: or if they should do it, our laws are not so severe, but that gentlemen may take time to dispose of part of their land, which immediately after such a law will yield them thirty years purchase at least; and much better it is for them so to do, than to abide longer under that consuming plague of usury, which has insensibly destroyed very many of the best families in England, as well of our nobility as gentry.

Objection 4. As interest is now at % the king’s majesty on any emergency can hardly be supplied; and if it should be reduced to  per

cent. how shall the king find a considerable sum of money to be lent him by his people?

I answer that the reduction of interest to the people, is the abate- ment of interest to the king, when he has occasion to take up money; for what is borrowed of the city of London, or other bodies politic, nothing can be demanded but the legal interest; and if the king have occasion to take up money of private persons, seeing his majesty, according to good right, is above the common course of law, the king must, and always has given more than the legal rate. As for instance; the legal rate is now %. but his majesty, or such as have disposed of his majesty’s exchequer- tallies, have been said to give ten and twelve in some cases; and if the legal rate were , his majesty might probably give  or ; so if interest be brought to  per cent. his majesty in such cases as he now gives must give but  or ; by which his majesty would have a clear advantage.