The Rights of War and Peace

by Hugo Grotius

There is something more specious in the argument, which maintains, that, as one thing is here given in return for another, and the use and profits of a thing cannot be distinguished from the thing itself, when the very use of it depends upon its consumption, nothing more ought to be required in return for the use, than what is barely equivalent to the thing itself.

But it is necessary to remark, that when it is said the enjoyment of the profits of consumable things, whose property is transferred, in the use, to the borrower or trustee, was introduced by an act of the senate, this does not properly come under the notion of Usufruct, which certainly in its original signification answers to no such right. Yet it does not follow that such a right is of no value, but on the contrary money may be required for surrendering it to the proprietor. Thus also the right of not paying money or wine borrowed till after a certain time is a thing whose value may be ascertained, the delay being considered as some advantage. Therefore in a mortgage the profits of the land answer the use of money. But what Cato, Cicero, Plutarch and others allege against usury, applies not so much to the nature of the thing, as to the accidental circumstances and consequences with which it is commonly attended.[34]

XX. There are some kinds of interest, which are thought to wear the appearance of usury, and generally come under that denomination, but which in reality are contracts of a different nature. The five shillings commission which a banker, for instance, charges upon every hundred pounds, is not so much an interest in addition to five per cent, as a compensation for his trouble, and for the risk and inconvenience he incurs, by the loan of his money, which he might have employed in some other lucrative way. In the same manner a person who lends money to many individuals, and, for that purpose, keeps certain sums of cash in his hands, ought to have some indemnity for the continual loss of interest upon those sums, which may be considered as so much dead stock. Nor can any recompence of this kind be branded with the name of usury. Demosthenes, in his speech against Pantaenetus, condemns it as an odious act of injustice, to charge with usury a man, who in order to keep his principal undiminished, or to assist another with money, lends out the savings of his industry and frugal habits, upon a moderate interest.

XXI. Those human laws, which allow a compensation to be made for the use of money or any other thing, are neither repugnant to natural nor revealed law. Thus in Holland, where the rate of interest upon common loans was eight per cent, there was no injustice in requiring twelve per cent of merchants; because the hazard was greater. The justice and reasonableness indeed of all these regulations must be measured by the hazard or inconvenience of lending. For where the recompence exceeds this, it becomes an act of extortion or oppression.

XXII. Contracts for guarding against danger, which are called insurances, will be deemed fraudulent and void, if the insurer knows beforehand that the thing insured is already safe, or has reached its place of destination, and the other party that it is already destroyed or lost. And that not so much on account of the equality naturally requisite in all contracts of exchange, as because the danger and uncertainty is the very essence of such contract. Now the premium upon all insurances must be regulated by common estimation.[35]

XXIII. In trading partnerships, where money is contributed by both parties; if the proportions be equal, the profits and the losses ought to be equal also. But if they be unequal, the profits and the losses must bear the same proportion, as Aristotle has shewn at the conclusion of the eighth book of his Ethics. And the same rule will hold good where equal or unequal proportions of labor are contributed. Labor may be given as a balance against money, or both labor and money may be given, according to the general maxim that one man's labour is an equivalent for another man's money.

But there are various ways of forming these agreements. If a man borrows money to employ his skill upon in trading for himself, whether he gains or loses the whole, he is answerable to the owner for the principal. But where a man unites his labor to the capital of another in partnership, there he becomes a partner in the principal, to a share of which he is entitled. In the first of these cases the principal is not compared as a balance against the labor, but it is lent upon terms proportioned to the risk of losing it, or the probable gains to be derived from it. In the other case, the price of labour is weighed, as it were, against the money, and the party who bestows it, is entitled to an equivalent share in the capital.

What has been said of labour may be applied to voyages, and all other hazardous undertakings. For it is contrary to the very nature of partnerships for any one to share in the gain, and to be exempt from the losses. Yet it may be so settled without any degree of injustice. For there may be a mixed contract arising out of a contract of insurance in which due equality may be preserved, by allowing the person, who has taken upon himself the losses, to receive a greater share of the gain than he would otherwise have done. But it is a thing quite inadmissible that any one should be responsible for the losses without partaking of the gains; for a communion of interests is so natural to society that it cannot subsist without it.

What has been said by writers on the civil law, that the shares are understood to be equal where they are not expressly named, is true where equal quotas have been contributed. But in a GENERAL partnership the shares are not to be measured by what may arise from this or that article, but from the probable profits of the whole.

XXIV. In naval associations the common motive of utility is self-defence against pirates: though they may sometimes be formed from less worthy motives. In computing the losses to be sustained by each, it is usual to estimate the number of men, the number of ships, and the quantity of merchandise protected. And what has hitherto been said will be found conformable to natural justice.