The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-10 00:00:00

MONEY LENDING.

The Hcraid holds, in opposition to Jeremy Bentham
and Mr. Lloyd the banker, that there should be some
legal lirnit as to the rate at %%hich money may be hint,
and that the repeal of laws against usury, is a measure
of exceedingly questionable policy :
" Concurrently with what is useally styled the
progress of civilization,' may be noted the per-
petual tendency of money to rise in value, re i of
labour to decline. As population increases, and ar
commercial exchanges multiply, the uses of monov
become more numerous, and the demand for it, by
consequence, greater. In conditions of society, which
we, in the plen'tude of our self-sufficiency, are wont to
regard as only semi-civilise:], the custom of barter in an
infinite variety of forms prevails, and enables the people
who carry on the business of life, to a great extent, to
dispense with the use of money. The adVal:CO of "
vilsation," however, involves the gradual ascendancy of
the money-power in every state ; and all wise govern-
ments, in oil ages of the world, have deemed it neeer-
sary to sustain by legislative enactments, the cause of
industry against the encroachments of the usurious prin-
ciple. It may be true, that direct legislation agains
usury may never have succeeded in checking altogether
the practice of lending at enormous rates of interest
because, undoubtedly, under all systems of Govern-
ment there has been found wretchedness willing to bor-
row on any terms, and rapacity not unwilling to lend a
little, for the chance of receiving back an hundred or a
thousand fold. The beneficial effects, however, of le-
gislation against the practice of usury, are proved by
the fact that a public opinion has always been created,
in aid of the law—a public opinion which branded as
disgraceful the acceptance of more than a moderate
per-centage for the use of money. The law has already
in this country, been materially altered, and may, very
probably soon, be altogether repealed. Public opinion
will, in this event, follow the law, as it did before ; and
the imputation of usurious dealing will lose its terrors.
But mark the result. The power of the moneyed
classes will in consequence of such a revolution in sen-
timent, be obviously increased to a scarcely calculable
extent ; while the whole commercial arrangements of
society will assume, every day, more deeply the aspect
of gambling. The money of the country will, gradually,
find its way into the possession of a smaller number ill
men ; while the parties desirous to borrow must, in or-
der to meet the demands of the parties willing to
lend, engage in trading transactions of the most wildly-
speculative character. Such has been, for many years,
too much the tendency of English trade ; and the re-
peal of the Usury Laws will, unquestionably, stimulate
that tendency to an incalculable extent.
The evils, for which, according to Mr. Loyd, thepar-
tial repeal of the Usury Laws has proved, to a certain
extent a remedy, have been caused almost exclusively
Aree
moretlfieat effi-
cacious bthyeoduirsourdsr u f
the currency currency.
might be found
in relieving the distress of the mercantile corn-
munity,neod system
cu r r
e oft
ill
rove.
, than the repeal of the Usury Laws ever
p

At the last meeting of the loyal Asiatic So-
ciety, it was stated that Major Rawlinson, one of our
most distinguished Persian travellers and historians, was
now on his return to this country after ninny years' ab-
sence. His latest labours have been devoted to an elu-
cidation of the cruciform characters, the key to the
ancient history
of Persia, in which he has already made
much greater progress than any antiquarian who had
preceded him.
The new opera, which has been put into re-
hearsal at Covent-garden, is understood to he the pro-
duction of Mr. Jolly, the leader of the band at the
Surrey Theatre. It will be brought out after the run
of the pantomime.