The Portland daily press., 1867-02-16

| can wait a while for them to ripen.
The late rains have pretty thoroughly clear
| ed our streets, and horse-cars are once more
IN fashion. .53l EcEENrRIc.
| fu..4B Rates Of Interest.
Mr.. EDrroR,-You seem to think the ar
| guments in the Legislature, by which the
| proposition to enforce contracts bearing a
| higher rate Of interest than six per cent. was
cried down, not entitled to much considera-
ton, and from the specimen you publish
think you are right, But suspect the men
who voted down the proposed law were wiser
than they knew and that this is case where
the popular instinct is more sagarious than
the counsel OF the prudent and judicious.
The object Of the law was undoubtedly to
give men who have money to lend, larger
compensation for the loan, than the law win
now sanction or enforce. think the leeisla-
t'ire acted wisely IN refusing to do so
ln the first place, in spite of the dogmas OF
political economists, who hold contrary
opinion, l believe that regulating the rate OF
interest Is proper subject for legislation.-
Capital has advantages enough and can well
submit to the restriction OF its profits to just
marimum. 1t win not do for the lenders to
have the borrowers too much at their mercy
II it is asked why not limit the profits of 9th
er business, l answer, we do in many depart
ments as in limiting fees and salaries, fixing
the amount OF toll on grists, on bridges, ca
nails DC, and postage ON letters, and shall
perhaps hereafter find that we can beneficial.
ly intervene with legislation to prevent extor-
tion and exacton in many other branches of
trade and business rt"ta] rHt 1as
New England has built up and distributed
its wealth upon basis of sic per cent. The
Massachusetts legislature has just refused to
allow Boston, the centre OF this business sys-
tenn, TO Increase its rate ofinterest twill dis
turb the harmony of our monetary and indus
trial affairs to establish by law a rate OF inter-
est in one New England State, unless all the
rest adopt it simultaneously New England,
In its solvency, prosperity, and comparatively
equal distribution OF wealth, is pretty fai +
exemplification of the expediency OF regulat-
ing interest, and OF fixing it at six per cent
To allow the interest OF money to be increased
land the law establishes a usage as to inter
est stronger than its direct force,) is to add so
much to the cost Of all production. Thelman
who builds house, computes interest as an
elemento the cost. 1t is considered in fixing
the rent. The extra rate is paid in the end
by the tenant. SO as to every thing produced,
the enhanced cost falls on the consumer
1t is no time to give capital the advantage Of
itc lala
ital in the form OF private wealth has been so
greatly increased. Twenty years ago 1t was a
matter of admiration and establishment, that
there was one man in New York and another
in Philadelphia worth more than million
dollars each Men worth million are as
common now as men worth a hundred thou
sand were then. We are rather approaching
the time already reached by England when
the rates of interest ought to be lessened to
five per cent, four and three, to keep the
claims of capital and labor properly adjusted
Within five years something like billion Of
the national debt falls due and may be paid.
1t is confidently expected that the vast amount
now drawing interest at currency rates Of from
to per cent, can be replaced by long bonds
drawing an interest Of not more than five per
cent. But if the State legislatures shall mean
time have got the notions of all capitalists up
to rates OF interest ranging from s to II per
per cent, where is the money coming from to
supply this loan? With government in the
| market borrowing billion dollars, and the
business of the country now practically sus-
| pended, requiring as much more will not the
money lenders have it their own way? If it
is said this loan can DE negotiated abroad, the
answer can be found in the fact, that in Eng
lard where interest on consols is 3 per cent
U. $. 5-2Os are quoted at 72, OF at currency
rates, 80, while in the United States, where
interest on the national debt is now about
per cent the same securities are 10S.
1t is said that towns cannot borrow money. |
What do towns want to borrow money for {? |
They are already in debt a large fraction of |
their valuation. They ought now to be pay
ing and not increasing debts, turning so much |
dead capital into the channels OF trade. Is it |
for the interest of the people at large to allow |
these sums when repaid to be loaned to bust |
ness men at eight per cent. at the very time |
when government is reducing its offer for in |
terest from seven and half to five per cent? |
1t is pity that the facilities of towns for bOr-
rowing have been so great. II they had not |
been, their present situation might have been |
more desirable. States, counties, cities, towns,
all political corporations have a tendency to
run to debt which it were wiser to check than
TO increase. aaaa s1
In the exigencies of great civil war we |
debased our currency by suspending specie
payments an1 swelling the circulating medi-
um from $2O0,OOO,OOO to $sOOOOO,0OO. One |
interest after another protected themselves
from loss by combining to raise prices. Hold |
ers of goods of all kinds reaped the first ad- |
vantages, next producers, lastly laborers Ar |
lists, lawyers, actors, editors, all classes of |
skilled laborers soon found meaas to make |
their various services as expensive under the I
new scale as they were under the old Only |
two considerable interests are left out In the |
new adjustment and these are money lenders,
compelled still to loan at six per cent if they
loan at all, aud men receiving fixed salaries,
much scrambled for under the former regime,
but ludcrously inadequate to maintain any
sort of dignity upon under the raging extor-
tions of these times. .,.....t. .f.4
When these classes are satisfied land rnea-
sures to do it are before our Legislature and
all legislatures, Congress included,) there will
be nobody having an interest to desire re-
turn to specie payments, and we may make
our financial bed upon irredeemable paper
money and 60 to sleep upon IL. Instead of
accepting the present abnormal state OF affairs
as permanent and changing laws and depend
ant usages that have subsisted since the set
tlement Of our State 10 accommodate il, it |
seems wiser to legislate to bring back the
business of the country to natural cond-
tion under which sic per cent. will be an am
pie compensation for the use of capital. 1t |
has long been held as an axiom, that no
business can be proftably carried ON that costs
for capital more than six per cent. 1t is
well to consider whether the legislature
ought to encourage either towns or corpora
tions or individuals to borrow at such rates
of interest as would for the present at least |