"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 faenerator 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.
These are my views frankly stated. If I am wrong, even by the highest
standard of Christian ethics, I shall be thankful for Mr. Ruskin's
corrections.