The daily intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Territory [i.e. Wash.]) 1876-1881, 1878-06-26
Official Press of King County.
Wednesday, June %, 1878.
HOW USURY PARALLELS IN
TEREST.

TO the courtesy of ID. Horton, Esq,
we are indebted for q copy of the re-
marks of Hon. John W. Daniel, of
Lynchourg, Virginia, delivered before
o committee of the House of Represen-
tstives, at Washington, April sth, in
favor Of q repeal of the tax on the de.
posits of State and National banks, and
. reduction of the onerous burden of
the government taxation of banking
capital Among other things he said !:
by our system of banking we sharpen
the teeth of usury, and they are set to
work to tear the industry of the country
to pieces. 1t is fact too generally
admitted too need now various argu-
ments and illustrations to make it plain,
that the business Of this country can
not be conducted successfully with the
rate OF interest st 10, II, or q greater
per cent. Six per cent. is the ultimate
rate upon which the great major
ity of prosperous enterprises can
live; and when the rate Of interest
goes higher than that thousands of en-
terprises are annihilated, and those en-
barked in them cut off from the means
of livelihood. Turgot uses grand
figure to describe the effect of usury.
The rate of interest he likens to flood
level, below which all labor, all cul-
tivatiou, all industry, all commerce
cease. It is like an inundation spread
over vast country; the SUBMITS of the
mountains rising above the waters and
forming fertile and cultivated islands.
But if that sea begins to ebb. in pro-
portion as the level Of the waters fall,
the slopes of the mountains, then the
plains and the valleys. come into view,
and give birth to all kinds of produce
The rise or fall of the flood level to the
extent Of single foot suffices to inun,
date. or to give to cultivation, immense
tracts of country" And commenting
on this striking and picturesque view of
the question an English financial writer
says :" So it is with the rate of inter-
est. Every rise to the extent of single
per cent above the ordinary level tends
to suppress some branches of industry
and when the rate rises to ten per cent.
oil trade becomes wofully contracted
the field of labor is almost submerged,
and scores of our merchants. and thous-
ands Of our working classes perish be-
meath the rising flood" (Patterson's
Science of Finance, p. 1907.
ut 10 not for us. who seek this one
step $50 much needed), of financial re-
form. to point ont other sources of
revenue. We leave that to others.
Suffice it, for the merit of this matter,
that the tax objected to is killing the
goose that lays the golden egg," is put
ting q burden on every man who con-
tracts a loan of bank, and an intoler-
able one upon every bank that borrows
from or lends it to him; is binding up
the muscles of trade which should have
free and unrestricted play; is bleeding
veins already too thinly provided with
tho currents of life; is introducing
hazard and instability into q system
which should be built upon the rock of
durability, reliability. precision is
taxing those who do not reap corres-
ponding benefit is giving to the gov
eminent Q harvest from q field where it
has not sown. The philosophy of Poll
tical Economy dcnouncss it as theory.
Experience has proved it detrimental
in practice. Wherefore should tax
suggested by experimentalists in the
days of war. be perpetuated when dis
aster has followed its continuance in
the days of peace"
It is stated that the amount of Fed
sral taxation on capital employed in
banking amounts to three and four
tenths per cent. and that the revenue
derived from this source last year was
t10. .654, of which amount, S6.500,-
600 was derived from the tax on de-
posts alone. A convention was recently
held in st. Louis in which 5000 State
and 1900 National banks were repre-
sented. who united IN invoking Con-
gress--for the sake of the business of
the country-to lift from them this hard
and oppressive burden,