_From the Rev._ P. T. OUVRY.
On the meaning of usury, I would add a few words. I start with this
proposition. There is nothing contrary to the will of God for one free
man to buy from another free man anything he wants. I have two
houses,--one I live in, one I let. My tenant pays the market rent of
houses to me, and so both parties are benefited. I have two thousand
pounds. I have no capacity, or opportunity, or desire to use more than
one thousand pounds in trade on my own account. My neighbour has energy
and activity to use more money than he has in trade. He gladly offers me
five per cent. for my spare thousand pounds. I willingly lend it on
those terms. He makes ten per cent. by using it. He gives me five pounds
and has five pounds for himself. If this be usury, it is lawful and
right.
A number of small cultivators of land have no capital. A money-lender
supplies what they require on condition that they sell their crops to
him at a price which he is able to fix. From the circumstances of the
case the money-lender makes an enormous profit. The cultivator has
barely the necessaries of life. This is usury, in the bad sense of the
term, but is more correctly called oppression or extortion.
Again, a man lends money to ignorant inexperienced youths, on promise of
repayment when they come of age. This, too, is oppression or extortion.
Similar oppression is witnessed when bad houses are let to poor people
at high rents.
It is not, then, that usury, in the sense of oppression or extortion, is
inherent in money-lending; but it belongs equally to every transaction
between man and man, where any unrighteous dealing is practised.