Mr. ONSLOW'S bill for the...
Mr. ONSLOW'S billifor the repeal of the usury laws hav- ing failed in the House of Commons, a bill of a different form has since been prepared, though wvith the same ten- dency and final object-viz., that of releasing money from those bonds whichk are confessed to be inapplicable to com- modities. in. general, and extending the principles of free trade to a class of transactions, perhaps the most *equent, but certainly the most important of all that take place throughout the busy world. It is curious, though not unprecedented, that the recent opposition by which Mr. ONSLOw'S bill was thrown out, proeeeded from tbe very individuals whose interests it was most fitted to secure and to strengtheni. A bill to leave the money-market free, is one which tends in the most direct manner to reduce imoney to its natural value-to adjust the relations of borrower and lender by that which is found to be the only unerring standard when applied to other dealers-namcly,the excess of supply or demand of the article in question between them- Two propositions are so indisputable, that we are almost ashamed to state them; and if admitted, they jointly prove the uselessness or mischief of the usury laws. A fixed rate of interest being established, and no allowance made for unavoidable fluctuations in the market price of money, we say first, that if there be an overflow of mo- ney, so- as to make its value in the market, 3 per cent. only, instead of five, a law forbidding the receipt of in- terest at a higher rate than 5 per cent. is an absurd and inoperative statute. If, again, tbe same maximum be esta- blished when money is scarce, and not to be obtained so low as S per cent., what happens? Why, the unfortunate man, to whom 1,0001. might, if procared at its intrinsic value,-for example, 7 per cent. per annum,-be the means of rescunmg him ancd his family from ruin, must either go without any lean at all, or, instead of S per cent., pay not merely 7 per cent., the current value of the raoney; but 12 perhaps, or 14 per cent., to cover both the natural in- terest, and the risk incurred by the lender through a pro. ceeding which violates the law. Knowing, then, how the landed interest have been ck cumstanced, and how sharply many among them must hS? felt those consequences of the usury laws to which we have just adverted, it was, we repeat, a curious, though not an unexampled fact, that the overthrow of Mr. ONSLOw's bill w as occasioned by the hostility of these same gentlemen in Parliamtent. The newv bill goes to a mitigation of the pe- nalties-not ta a repeal of the ancient law; but if car ried,!I will pave the way, we trust,:for an entire abolition of the existing system.