consumers' hands. We assume that banking money is, on the whole, turned over by importers twice a year. We don't speak particularly of the influence borne on the prices of imported goods by the imposition of customs duties, from fifty to seventy-five per cent of which may be charg ed to the existence of usury or borrowed money. Thus, if twenty per cent is imposed as duty, ten per cent of it and upwards owes its existence entirely to the accumulation of national debts, for the payment of the interest of which these customs duties are in part imposed.

The differences in the prices of goods must always be regulated according to the mode or period of payment. It would be absurd to suppose that people can sell their goods as cheap on credit as for immediate cash. They must not only charge for the want of the use of their money, but also for the risk. Each credit purchaser therefore pays something more than the absolute price of the goods. He may be said to pay for his inability to pay, or for the use which he makes of the seller's capital for the period of credit. The risk of the credit has been amply verified by experience. As it is not known where this risk may particularly fall, a general distribution is made of it, in the same manner as fire risks are distributed amongst the insurers. Prices are thus enhanced in two ways to every purchaser. The ancient fathers and canons of the church forbade selling on credit at a higher price than for cash, which was, in effect, to forbid credit altogether. Well would it have been had the precepts of these wise men been more regarded. The modern fathers of the church, on the contrary, consider that a little debt, or as commerce calls it, a reasonable credit," is a very good thing. People thus become familiar with debt, and are taught to regard it as indispensable to human progress. Hence the ridiculous attempts to associate this debt with good reputation and character, and hence the strenuous endeavors of governments so sustain their credit, although over head and ears in debt. On no other point are people so exceedingly jealous and sensitive. A breath of suspicion may destroy their prospects for life. Is not this a melancholy commentary on that state of absolute dependence always associated, more or less, with credit?

To illustrate this subject still further, let us suppose that ten bales of cotton are disposed of for $400, and that, before it comes finally into the manufacturer's possession, it changes hands six times by speculation. If the six different securities taken for this cotton are discounted at six per cent, and have, on the average, three months to run, a tax of $36 is imposed upon the cotton in its raw state. If the notes had, on an average, six months to run, the tax would be $90. This is, on the whole, beyond the average rate of net trading profits in the community. If the notes had twelve months to run, by renewal or otherwise, the tax imposed by usury on the $400 worth of raw cotton would then amount to $180. Most of the chief articles of consumption, such as sugar, tea, coffee, flour, wheat, change hands many times. When trade is brisk, or speculation active, the tendency is to inflate prices, for which the consumer must pay until the period of reaction comes. This is the harvest time of the banks, for an imperious necessity is laid upon all parties to meet banking obligations. Keeping risk out of view, the oftener the goods change hands, the better will the money lenders fare. We are accustomed to be told that this activity or briskness of business is an index of prosperity. It is such, no doubt, to commerce, but quite the reverse to those

vital interests upon which commerce rests, and without which it could not exist at all. Consumption in general goes on with very great regularity. The wants of a family to-day are the same as yesterday, this week as last week. The existence of debt does not afford us better clothing or food. When the credit system overreaches itself the community may be compelled to practice economy through the existence of debt or inability to buy. It is not therefore in the region of consumption that we must look for the causes of those irregularities, fluctuations, and convulsions which now so seriously affect commerce.

No great objection can be made to our assuming, as above, that mercantile bills have occasionally twelve months to run. Taking into consideration the fact of renewals, accommodations, and notes granted on account of composition and time, and that many notes are drawn ordinarily at six months, it is possible that the average of actual payments may be nearer twelve than three months. In this city (Montreal) the credit for goods varies from three to six months. As the principal sales, as to amount, are made at six months, the average may be stated at five months. It matters not that generally only short dated paper, or notes having only three months to run, are discounted at the banks. The credit is given, and must be paid for by the consumer accordingly. As to removals, the average amount of payment on promissory notes in all trades may be set down at from fifty to sixty per cent. The period of credit is, consequently, correspondingly extended. Notes given in bankruptcy vary, in time to run, from three months to three years.

We may look at this subject of prices from another and perhaps still more striking point of view. If the reader will glance at the tables in the banking department of this Magazine, he will find that the amount of loans specified in the returns of the principal banks throughout the country represent no mean sum. The banks of New York report a line of discounts of about 130 millions of dollars; of Boston, about half of that sum; of Philadelphia, nearly half of those of Boston; of New Orleans, about three fourths of those of Philadelphia; and of Providence, about the same as New Orleans. These banks alone represent a total of loans of 260 millions of dollars. The banks of Canada report a line of discounts usually averaging thirty millions of dollars. These sums combined represent a total of 300 millions of dollars lent on hire. The interest of this vast sum at 7 per cent is 21 millions of dollars. But this does not indicate anything like the real amount paid for the hire of money. Mr. Colwell has given some valuable statistics on this point. He estimates the sums paid for interest and discount in and out of bank in the United States alone, during 1856, at $100,000,000! He assumes that the daily payments of New York city amounts to $30,000,000, and that the whole payments of the United States range to ten times this sum, or $300,000,000 each day. Were interest charged for the whole of this, it would amount to the almost fabulous sum of $900,000,000. Mr. Colwell estimates the amount paid yearly for interest as high as $450,000,000. The amount is probably overstated, for all these payments are not on account of discounted paper. The annual clearings of the banks of New York amounted, in 1857, to $7,000,000,000, or about $20,000,000 daily. Even at one-half of this estimate, the sum paid by the consumers throughout the United States for a so-called accommodation, as false and hurtful as it is useless, would amount annually to the

enormous sum of three hundred millions of dollars. We are inclined, however, to believe that a sum of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars may be set down as a safe estimate. If the banks throughout the United States reap a sum of $100,000,000, it gives to each of the 1,400 banking establishments a yearly profit of $70,000; $2,100,000 is the sum drawn out of the pockets of the consumers in Canada by the banking institutions of that colony. If we divide this among the ten chartered banks, it gives to each the snug sum of $210,000 yearly. If we calculate the interest upon other transactions in and out of bank, and the sums paid on account of the provincial debt, and of the thousands of mortgages throughout the country, we are probably not far astray in estimating the sum paid in Canada, on account of interest, at four dollars per head of the population. These are the sums which usury adds to the price of the goods we consume, and for no benefit whatever. It passes from the pockets of the many into the pockets of the few. The price the Americans pay annually in the way of a tax upon their goods for the use of this worthless commercial "wampum" is equal to one-fifth of all the capital employed in the United States in manufacturing, mining, and art, or more than double the annual yield of California gold! Every man, woman, and child in the United States pays at least a sum of six dollars annually for the privilege of being robbed. These are the sums which usury is instrumental in adding to the price of every article of consumption, luxury, or use; or, in other words, the labor of the community suffers a loss equivalent to what is designated by these vast And what is the recompense we receive? Positively worse than nothing. A fatal currency is introduced throughout the whole of the community-the men of commerce are reduced, by the blandishments and charms of a system as cruel as it is delusive, to stake their interests on a cast of the dice-the framework of society is periodically broken up, and its energies paralyzed-and the minds of all are kept in a state of nervous expectation and excitement, but ili suited either for the concerns of domestic life or the safe and steady progress of labor and com

sums.

merce.

If these exactions were to end where they begin, there would not be so much cause of complaint. But it is impossible to confine them to commerce. They fall with the heaviest effect upon those who constitute the foundations of society-the agriculturists and laborers of the land. It cannot be alleged that these classes receive any accommodation from the banks; yet it is upon them, the backbone of the nation, that the burden is principally laid. We must trace all interests eventually to the soil, for the profit of the earth is for all, and the king himself is served by the field. Upon what principal of equity ought these important classes to be saddled, not only with a tax for which they receive not the remotest benefit, but at the same time with a currency liable at any moment to be dishonored? All classes are indeed equally deceived with regard to the paper currency, because it drags down the value of gold to its own level, so that the gold is found to exercise no more exchangeable value than paper, and this circumstance is that which principally deceives the laboring classes into the belief that paper money is as good as gold. I have said, in a previous article, that the possession of money, real money, either by a family or nation, ought ever to indicate that it has been received in exchange for articles of similar value. It is not easy to

apply this law to the case of paper money, seeing that it is a sort of capital which can be created with the greatest facility, and tha: a fertile source of wealth is found to lurk in a stereotype plate. Now, it has become the fashion to consider, if this capital should become dormant or be permitted to lie unemployed, that much evil must result to the community at large. The man who chooses to purchase a hundred or a thousand gold sovereigns, and to lay them past for some future emergency, or for the wants of old age, is stigmatized as a hoarder, a miser, or something worse. It is difficult, however, to perceive where the guilt of such a transaction lies. If the "hoarder" has given real value for his gold, society has certainly no right to complain, for he has put something valuable in its place. We can easily perceive why credit men, or borrowers and lenders, should cry out against such proceedings. I know many men who clear six per cent and upwards by inducing frail people to let their money pass through their hands, and those who indulge in borrowing money will of course be always anxious that there should be no stoppage of the supplies. Hence has arisen the notion that if a sum of money is permitted to lie unemployed for a few days, it is so much lost interest. This idea, it will be perceived, is associated exclusively with usury, for if no usury existed traders would no more distress themselves about a few pounds lying unemployed than they would do about a few yards of cotton. All this reacts ultimately in an evil way upon the matter of prices. The more lenders there are, and the more money there is lent, the greater the enhancement of prices, and the greater the strain upon producers. Another evil is, that vast quantities of goods are manufactured, which become speedily unsaleable through change of fashion. These goods, however, must be paid for one way or another, else they could not be produced, and this is done in a way so evident that I need not specify it.

The impetus thus given to carry transactions far beyond the wants and means of society, and the tendency thus given to enhance prices far beyond the necessary and ordinary limits regula ed by demand and supply, and associated as these are with a spurious currency, cannot but periodically result in panic and convulsion Bank credits have their share in bringing about these results, for they perform the very same functions as bank notes, and so far as they operate in payments, so far do they operate as currency or money; whatever will in reality pay a debt or recompense a sale, must be considered, to all intents and purposes, as perfect a currency as gold or silver. That, and that only, is the idea the public have of bank notes and bank credits, a fact which is abundantly demonstrated by every commercial crisis. It is beyond the power of the wealthiest corporations, or the most powerful governments, to prevent the recurrence of these panics, so long as business is carried on so generally by the present means of credit.

That commercial transactions are carried by debt and credit far beyond what they ought to be, will be evident from the following calculation. If we estimate the daily payments throughout the United States at $100,000,000, it exhibits to us each family purchasing and selling commodities every day to the extent of twenty dollars, or over seven thousand dollars per annum. If we take the payments at $200,000,000, which is nearer the truth, it gives us each family buying and selling property every day to the value of forty dollars, or over fourteen thousand dollars per

annum! Surely a tenth part of this sum should be considered a good trade-all the rest may be set down to the speculation sustained and fostered by lending on usury, or the facilities afforded by discounts. A state of things such as this cannot go on long without reaction. The greater portion of the tax incurred on this head will go to augment the prices of articles entering into daily consumption-a part of the loss will also fall upon those who engage in this wild game.

What an oppressive and grinding system must that be which leads to such a state of things. The abolishment of usury would prune off almost all this unhealthy growth. It would arrest the progress of that putrid stream which now flows through the land, draining it of its strength, and spreading pestilence on every side. People will be very cautious with their speculations when they come to use their own money, the value of which they have fully learned by the labor they have given

for it.

If

The reader will perceive, from what has been now stated, what a fat pasture is afforded for usury by our present system of commerce. commercial convulsions can only be warded off, the pecuniary success of the lenders will be in proportion to the amount of the tax, in the aggregate, laid at last upon labor A large portion of the net profit of the trade and of the producer thus passes into the pockets of the money lenders. Usury could not exist a day without speculation, for speculation, in its worst feature, begins the moment a person becomes a borrower, or fails to stand exclusively on his own resources. It is thus the interest of usury to build up a vast foreign commerce, to sustain large houses at the outports, and to foster the concentration of large manufac turing establishments in a few great cities. It is, on the other hand, the real interest of the community at large to encourage home manufactures of all kinds, and to have these manufacturing establishments distributed throughout the country, in some measure commensurate with the natural facilities afforded, and the general distribution and wants of the population. In all the adjustments of our social condition there is a healthy limit, which can never be overstepped with impunity.

There is another element bearing an important influence upon this question, which must not be overlooked. If it be true that a season of profusion and plenty of agricultural products indicates a state of general prosperity, it must be also true that the same rule applies to everything which ministers to the ordinary wants of the human race. The free and full development of the labors of each individual are requisite to attain this desirable end. Of the distribution of the products thus produced we need not now speak, as those rules which, from their nature, tend to equalize prices, will, if allowed unfettered operation, transmit them through their proper channels. Anything acting as a barrier to these popular energies must react perniciously upon trade and society. If, for example, one-half of the community were suddenly to experience some sort of physical calamity which would reduce them to the condition of paupers, a double strain would be put upon the other half to feed, clothe, and shelter these paupers. There is great wisdom in the necessity which has been imposed upon us, to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. When multitudes are thrown out of employment, as during the periods of commercial convulsions, a dangerous element is in the ascendant. The introduction, therefore, of any division of labor, the practical result