" Without some profits [adequate to the risks run) allowed by law, there will be but few lenders, and those principally had men, who will break through the law, and make a profit, and then will endeavor to indemnify themselves from the danger of the pe- nalty by making that profit exorbitant."
' The lenders are also few, where the " profit allowed by law " is insufficient ; and if they " indemnify them- selves" by "making that profit exorbitant," they are "bad men." Yet the law in this case operates with much force to make them so.
£L Com., V. 2, p. 456.
MONEY HAS A MAEKET VALUE.
135 In Hindostan (where no rate is fixed by law), the customary price of money is ten per cent. In Russia, it is limited to twelve per cent. ; ia some of the Ger- man States, it is as high as twenty; in England, ^ve; and in the United States we have various rates, ranging from five per cent, upwards.
Now of all these widely diflFering rates, what one is there that is , intrinsically more proper than another ? What evidences the propriety in each case, but the mutual convenience of the parties? In Holland, it is lawful for a man to take twenty in a hundred, " if he can get it ;" and yet money is plenty there at five and six per cent.
El dinero tiene un valor además del previsto por la ley, y que esta jamás puede fijar, a saber, un valor de mercado; pues al igual que el grano o el algodón, aunque no con tanta frecuencia o repentinamente, fluctúa en valor según el estado del comercio y la cantidad de dinero en el país. Es verdad que, cuando los prestatarios son pobres y los prestamistas despiadados, a veces se dan casos de extorsión; y para suplir una necesidad