"Could not understand how money breeds,
Thought it a dead thing."
But there were men, too, who saw that the taking of moderate interest was a blameless act. Calvin was a contemporary of Bishop Jewell, and his mind exhibits a curious mixture of feelings upon the subject. Blaxton triumphantly places a sentence from Calvin's "Epistola de Usura" as a battle-flag in his title-page:—
"In republica bene constituta nemo fænerator tolerabilis est; sed omnino debet e consortio hominum rejici." "An usurer is not tolerable in a well-established Commonwealth, but utterly to be rejected out of the company of men." So again, in his Commentary on Deuteronomy. But again, in a passage quoted from the same author, without reference, in Dugald Stewart's Preliminary Dissertation (Encyd. Brit.) we come across a different view.
"'Money begets not money!'—What does the sea beget? What the house for which I receive rent? Is silver brought forth from the walls and the roof? But that is produced from land, and that is drawn forth from the sea, which shall produce money; and the convenience of a house is paid for with a stipulated sum. Now if better profit can be derived from the letting out of money than by the letting of an estate, shall a profit be made by letting perhaps some barren land to a farmer, and shall it not be allowed to him who lends a sum of money? He who gets an estate by purchase, shall he not from that money derive an annual profit? Whence then is the merchant's profit? You will say, from his diligence and industry. Does anyone suppose that money ought to lie idle and unprofitable? He who borrows of me is not going to let the loan lie idle. He is not going to draw profit from the money itself, but from the goods bought with it. Those reasonings, therefore, against usury are subtle, and have a certain plausibility; but they fall as soon as they are examined more narrowly. I therefore conclude that we are to judge of usury, not from any particular passage of Scripture, but by the ordinary rules of justice and equity."
To come at once to modern days and practical views. Let us suppose lending on interest forbidden by the Church and the law. Then sums of money required for good and legitimate business purposes must be begged as a great favour. No honourable man would do this. The instinctive repugnance felt by an independent man to place himself under pecuniary obligations which he could not reciprocate would stop many a promising young man of slender means from going to college, many a good man of business from using the most favourable opportunities. I am not speaking of borrowing money to gain temporary relief from pecuniary embarrassment, but of money honourably desired to realize advantages of apparent life-value. So the necessitous would be doomed to remain in hopeless necessity until some benevolently-minded person with a mass of loose unemployed capital came to his rescue, and such men are not to be met with every day.
So far for the man who would like to borrow, but that the law will not allow it except as a free loan or gift. Then for the willing lender, if he dared. He has, say, a few thousands in hand, which he does not wish to spend. He looks round, if he is anxious to use it for good, for an object of his charity who seems least likely to disappoint him. Does our experience of human nature teach that a sense of gratitude for benefits received is a good security for honourable conduct? Alas! in a multitude of cases—I fear the majority—the lender would only be met with cold and alienated looks when he expected to receive his own again, if indeed he found anywhere at all the object of his kindness. The memory of past ingratitude, the fear of worse to come, would dry the sources of benevolence, and make the upright and honest to suffer equally with the swindler and the hypocrite.
But there is no such fear now. The recognized system of lending upon approved security for a fair and moderate rate of interest removes the irksome, galling sense of obligation, and enables any man to borrow with a feeling that if he receives an obligation he is also conferring one; that if he makes ten per cent, by trading, or a good stipend by his degree, he will divide his profits fairly with the man who served him, and that he is helping him in his turn to keep his money together for the sake of his children after him. Take away these benefits, and what good is done by free lending? Not any that we can see with ordinary eyes, but a good deal of suspicion, disappointment, ingratitude, and loss.
An honourable man would a hundred times rather accept a loan as a matter of profit to the lender than as a charity to himself. The right result of an honourable system of borrowing and lending with equal advantage to both, is the will of God, and not contrary to sanctification. The result of a compulsory system of charitable loans would lead only to the destruction of credit and mutual confidence, and the sacrifice of a multitude of Christian graces and virtues.
We cannot help observing with what vehemence Mr. Ruskin constantly thrusts the thief, the adulterer, and the usurer all into the same boat to be tossed against the breakers of his wrath. Now I would ask some one of those numerous disciples of his, whose affection almost prompts them to say to him, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," "Pray, my good friend, what is your own practice? Providence has blessed you with ease and affluence far more than you need for daily bread. What do you do with your money? Of course you would never think of investing in consols, in railway shares, or dock-bonds, would you? you would not lend money upon mortgage, or exact rent for your household and landed property? I see that you hesitate a little; you have something to confess. Come! what is it?" And my amiable friend replies, "Oh, but you see all the world is gone after interest of money; all our mutual relations are so intimately bound up with that accursed, abominable practice, that I have no alternative. I have large sums lodged in various safe investments, and employ an agent to collect my rents and settle with my tenants." And so I am forced to exclaim, "What! you who are persuaded that usury, and theft, and adultery, are all of equal blackness, if you find that one sin is unavoidable, what about the other two? Would you then invite the robber and the licentious to sin with impunity, as you practise your own convenient iniquity, with the applause of the world and your own acquiescence?"
Positively I see no escape from this argument. It is the argumentum ad hominem,—generally an uncivil mode of address; but here, at any rate, it is impersonally used.