The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-10-13
INFLUENCES OF CREDIT.

AN4 0O0AVA0 Va OASAO4As
| Whether it is q misfortune or not for
farmer, q mechanic, q merchant, q bank, a
railroad, county, city, State or nation
to be in debt, depends upon facts and con-
siderations as various as are human wants,
ways and ends. When thing is needed for
some useful and honest and profitable pur-
pose. he who wants it is justified in buying it
if he has the means, or if he has nothing to
exchange for it, he is justifable in buying it
on credit. A has toiled fifty years and his
surplus earnings are crystalized in money
which he wishes to loan SO that he may enjoy
the benefit of the usance. B has business
in which he can use AS money SO proftably
as to afford to pay interest. BIS debt is no
misfortune to himself, and AS loan is nothing
for him to be ashamed of. A by his loan,
though he has ceased to work, gets share
of the profits Of BIS shop, or store, or bank.
They help one another mutually because
gets the benefits of AS money, or OF that
which represents the work which did
years before, while A gets the benefits OF
what B is doing now. Where the loan is safe,
the security ample. and the interest fair,
the lender is the gamer; where the money
borrowed is judiciously used for profitable
purpose, the debtor is a gamer. The bor-
rover should not forget that his mere pos
session of what he has borrowed gives him
only a qualified ownership of that which he
has bought with the money borrowed; it is
not his, strictly speaking, until it is paid
for. And thus throughout all the range
of business, the creditor has a
modified and limited interest in all
that his debtor has bought with his money.
Neither party should forget the rights and in
terest5 of the other, and where both are sa-
gacious and fair-minded the industry Of
the borrower may benefit the lender as much
as the capital of the lender benefits the bor-
rover. Debts contracted with good judgment
ought to leave both parties free. A man who
has vacant house is as much under obliga-
tons to tenant who takes it and pays him
rent, as the tenant is to the landlord for the
use of the house at rational rates. The own
er of an idle horse and he who hires and uses
it are mutually obliged and mutually accom-
modated.
This is primitive, natural, simple borrow
ing and lending. But when the debtor and
the creditor are no longer personally known
to each other, when they no longer take an
interest in each other, when there is no de-
sire on the part of the creditor to accommo-
date and no gratitude felt by the debtor for
the accommodation derived from the loan,
when the instrument Of obligation passes
through numerous hands until the original
lender is quite lost sight OF, when the whole
becomes as thoroughly mercenary
as buying goods at a public auction, borrow
ing and lending lose their moral sanction.
The man who carries around with him roll of
or bank notes ceases to remember
who it is that has obliged him by putting
into his hands the condensed and essential
substance of labor done at some remote |
period and at some distant place. 1t is still
credit, and the paper which he carries repre-
sents something which he has given in con-
'ideration Of the promise Of payment which
he paper contains But the sense of obliga-
ion and the feeling of mutually are almost
entirely lacking.
Hence it is that while borrowing and lend
ng in the way Of business among neighbors.
osters mutual and friendly interest, profta-
lie to all concerned, and while commercial
redit facilitates business, and at the same
ime promotes integrity by giving strength to
he motive which induces merchants to full
LII their engagements, the kind of involuntary,
and unrefecting credit involved
n the receipt and payment Of paper money,
las no such salutary effects.
Credit, to be healthful and strengthening,
must be commerce of thorough good faith
n one side and of entire confidence on the
ther. Where either of these elements is
acking it becomes mere abuse and prostitu-
ion Of both faith and confidence which reacts
Inevitably upon morals Hence there can be
othipg SO universally damaging to the
,orals of business as an irredeemable paper
urrency, consisting OF many millions of
romises, which pass from hand to hand
ntil they become detaced, ragged and filthy.
he material damage done by these circula-
ng false promises, great as it is, amounts to
ut trife in comparison with the damaging
lfuences which they exert upon the morals
society.
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.