Hold.

The imaginary country described in Sir Thomas More’s political romance of that name.

Regulation.

Be paid.

Our author was one of the earliest writers who treated the question of the interest of money with the enlightened views of a statesman and an economist. The taking of interest was considered, in his time, immoral. Laws on this matter are extremely ancient. Moses forbids the Jews to require interest of each other. “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: “Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury.”—Deut. xxiii. 19, 20. Among the Greeks, the rate of interest was settled by agreement between the borrower and the lender, without any interference of the law. The customary rate varied from ten to thirty-three and one third per cent. The Romans enacted laws against usurious interest; but their legal interest, admitted by the law of the Twelve Tables, was, according to some, twelve per cent., or, to others, one twelfth of the capital, i. e. eight and one third per cent. Justinian reduced it to six per cent. In England, the legal rate of interest was, in Henry the Eighth’s reign, ten per cent. It was reduced, in 1624, to eight per cent. It was further diminished, in 1672, to six per cent. And definitively, in 1713, fixed at five per cent., the ordinary rate of interest throughout Europe.