Anyone can figure on this and see if it be correct.
Had Peter only thought to put one cent at interest, there would be no call now for Peter's pence.
With any accretion allowed, the concentration of wealth is irresistible. However small the amount of capital, if permitted to grow at any rate of increase it will ultimately absorb everything. Any finite quantity permitted any finite rate of increase, will, in finite time, gather all that is less than infinite.
The only difficulty in this accretion is to secure debtors that will not die. We inherit the property of our fathers, but fortunately we do not inherit their personal debts. This difficulty is being overcome by bonds of corporations and nations that live on, though the individuals composing them may, age after age, pass away. This makes the increase perpetual. Generations may come and go, but the concentration of wealth goes uninterruptedly on.
This is not visionary theory, but is shown in the practical results everywhere apparent.
The usurers of England, a little over two hundred years ago, secured a charter for a bank on the condition that they loan the crown or government 1,200,000 pounds sterling, about six million dollars.
This was a perpetual loan, never to be repaid, but annual interest at eight per cent. was to be paid by the government forever. This constant annual interest paid to this bank has made it such a financial power that it reaches and draws to itself of the resources of all lands. The aggregated wealth of the institution, if the accretions were continuous, would now be $25,165,824,000,000. The wealth of the United Kingdom is estimated at fifty billions, and all Europe two hundred billions, the United States seventy billions, and the whole world's wealth at five hundred billions.
Were the accretions of the bank at eight per cent. undisturbed and unconsumed, it would now take fifty worlds as rich as ours to pay that debt. It is sometimes wondered how there can be such an accumulation of wealth in one institution as to control the finances of the world.
It is often attributed to superior wisdom or some profound, occult manipulation. It is but the natural operation of the principle of interest—accretion from age to age.
The managers may be stupid dolts, only so they do not interfere with the usurious principle in its eternal pull on the resources of mankind.