Objection 5

Objection 5. Reducing interest is bad for widows and orphans who do not know how to improve their estates

I answer, that by our law now, heirs and orphans can recover no interest from their parents executors, except it be left fully and absolutely to the executors to dispose and put out money at the discretion of the executors, for the profit and loss of the heirs and orphans.

If it be so left to the executors discretion, they may improve the monies left them in trade, or purchase of lands and leases, as well as by interest; or when not, the damage such heirs and orphans will sustain in their minority, being but two per cent. is inconsiderable, in respect of the great advantage that will accrue to the nation in general, by such abatement of interest.

Besides, when such a law is made, and in use, all men will so take care in their life to provide for and educate their children, and instruct their wives, as that no prejudice can happen thereby, as we see there does not in Holland and Italy, and other places where interest is so low.

Having now offered my thoughts in answer to the aforesaid objections, it will not be amiss that we enquire who will be advantaged, and who will receive prejudice, in case such a law be made.

First, his majesty, as has been said in answer to that objection, will, when he has occasion, take up money on better terms. Besides which, he will receive a great augmentation to his revenue thereby, all his lands being immediately worth, after the making such a law, double to what they were before; his customs will be much increased by the increase of trade, which must necessarily ensue from the making such a law.

The nobility and gentry, whose estates lie mostly in land, may presently upon all they have, instead of fifty write one hundred.   The merchants and tradesmen, who bear the heat and burthen of the day, (most of our trade being carried on by young men that take up money at interest) will find their yoke sit lighter upon their shoulders, and be encouraged to go on with greater alacrity in their business.

Our mariners, shipwrights, porters, clothiers, packers, and all sorts of labouring people that depend on trade, will be more constantly and fully employed.

Our farmers will sell the product of their lands at better rates. And whereas our neighbours, the Netherlanders (who in regard of the largeness of their stocks and experiences, the sons continually succeeding the fathers in trade to many generations, we may not unfitly in this case term sons of Anach, and men of renown) 5 against whom we fight dwarfs and pigmies in stocks and experience, being younger brothers of gentlemen that seldom have above one thousand pounds, sometimes not 200 to begin the world with: instead, I say, of such young men and small stocks, if this law pass, we shall bring forth our Sampsons and Goliaths in stocks, subtilty, and experience in trade to cope with our potent adversaries on the other side, there being to every man’s knowledge that understands the exchange of London, divers English merchants of large estates, who have not much past their middle age, and yet have wholly left off their trades, having found the sweetness of interest, which if that should abate, must again set their hands to the plough, which they are as able to hold and govern now as ever, and also will engage them to train up their sons in the same way, because it will not be so easy to make them country gentlemen as now it is, when lands sell at 30-40 years purchase.

For the sufferers by such a law, I know none but idle persons that live at as little expence as labour, neither scattering by their expences, so as the poor may glean any thing after them, nor working with their hands or heads to bring either wax or honey to the common hive of the kingdom; but swelling their own purses by the sweat of other mens brows, and the contrivances of other mens brains.

How unprofitable it is for any nation to suffer idleness to suck the breast of industry, needs no demonstration. And if it be granted me, that these will be the effects of an abatement of interest, then I think it is out of doubt, that the abatement of interest does tend to the enriching of a nation, and consequently has been one great cause of the riches of the Dutch and Italians, and the increase of the riches of our own kingdom in these last fifty years.

Another argument to prove which, we may draw from the nature of interest itself, which is of so prodigious a multiplying nature, that it must of necessity make the lenders monstrous rich, if they live at any moderate expence, and the borrowers extream poor; a memorable instance of which we have in old Audley deceased, who did wisely observe, that one hundred pounds only, put out at interest at  per cent. does in 70 years, which is but the age of a man, increase to above one hundred thousand pounds; and if the advantage be so great to the lender, the loss must be greater to the borrower, who, as has been said, lives at a much larger expence. And as it is between private persons, so between nation and nation, that have communication one with another.

For whether the subjects of one nation lend money to subjects of another, or trade with them for goods, the effect is the same. As for example, a Dutch merchant that has but four or five thousand pounds clear stock of his own, can easily borrow and have credit for fifteen thousand pounds more at % at home; with which, whether he trade or put it to use in England, or any country where interest of money is high, he must necessarily, without very evil accidents attend him, in a very few years treble his own capital.

This discovers the true cause, why the sugar-bakers of Holland can afford to give a greater price for Barbadoes sugars in London, besides the second freight and charges upon them between England and Holland, and yet grow exceeding rich upon their trade; whereas our sugar-bakers in London, that buy sugars here at their own doors, before such additional freight and charges come upon them, can scarce live upon their callings; ours here paying for a good share of their stocks % and few of them employ in their sugar works above six to 10,000 pounds at most; whereas in Holland they employ twenty, thirty, to 40,000 pounds stock in a sugar-house, paying but % at most for what they take up at interest, to fill up their said stocks, which is sometimes half, sometimes three quarters of their whole stocks. And as it is with this trade, the same rule holds throughout all other trades whatsoever.

If the Dutch put their money to interest among us, we shall have the advantage, by being full and flush of coin at home, it is a mere chimera, and so far from an advantage, that it is an extream loss, rendring us only in the condition of a young gallant, that has newly mortgaged his land, and with the money thereby raised, stuffs his pockets, and looks big for a time, not considering that the draught of cordial he hath received, though it be at present grateful to his palate, does indeed prey upon his vital spirits, and will in a short time render the whole body of his estate in a deep consumption, if not wholly consumed.

Besides, whatever money the Dutch lend us, they always keep one end of the chain at home in their own hands, by which they can pull back when they please their lean kine, 6 which they send hither to be fatted.

This makes me conclude that Moses, that wise legislator, in his forbidding the Jews to lend money at use one to another, and permitting them to lend their money to strangers, ordained that law as much to a political as a religious intent, knowing that by the latter they should enrich their own nation, and by the former no public good could ensue.

The consequence being only to impoverish one Jew to make another rich.

This likewise takes off the wonder how the people of Israel, out of so small a territory as they possessed, could upon all occasions set forth such vast and numerous armies, almost incredible, as all histories, sacred and prophane, report they did; which is neither impossible nor strange to any that have well considered the effects of their laws concerning usury, which were sufficient to make any barren land fruitful, and a fruitful land an entire garden, which by consequence would maintain ten times the number of inhabitants that the same tract of land would do where no such laws were.

Conclusion

Merchants, artificers, farmers of land, and such as depend on them, which for brevity-sake we may here include under one of these general terms, viz. seamen, fishermen, breeders of cattle, gardiners, &c. are the three sorts of people who by their study and labour do principally, if not only, bring in wealth to a nation from abroad; other kinds of people, viz. nobility, gentry, lawyers, physicians, scholars of all sorts, and shopkeepers, do only hand it from one to another at home. And if abatement of interest, besides the general benefit it brings to all, except the griping dronish usurer, will add new life and motion to those most profitable engines of the kingdom, as I humbly suppose, will be manifest upon serious consideration of what has been said; then I think it will be out of doubt, that the abatement of interest is the cause of the increase of the trade and riches of any kingdom.