"All experience," says a clever English writer^ on the subject, " teaches us how unprofitable it is for the law to fix a maximum rate of interest applicable to every period ; when there is little demand for money, it can be borrowed for less than the legal rate of ' Kelly on Us.
EFFECT OF USURY LAWS. 137 interest on good security ; when the contrary is the case, the law is evaded, and more than legal interest given, for whatever may be the municipal regulation, there is no axiom better established than that ' money, like water, will always find its own level ; that it is governed by the same rules as to production and dis- tribution, which aflFect all other merchantable com- modities, and that the rate of interest for its use is no more capable of being regulated by law, than are the rates of insurance or the price of labor, and that 'free trade in money is the only way of rendering it abwnd- ant' " On this point, too, we have the dictum of one of the greatest statesmen of the age,-' in the fol- lowing remarkable words : " The repeal or modificar tion of the usury laws, is a measure, in the present age, which nearly all mankind agree is perfectly safe, and calculated to afford the greatest measure of relief, and is besides innocuous alike to the borrower, to the lender, and to the state."
"What, then, after all, is the effect of usury laws ? They embarrass business, keep up the rates of in- terest usually paid, induce a laxity of principle among the people, in respect to the obedience due to law, and in fact offer a premium for unfair dealing. They check the exercise of enterprise, throw stumblingblocks in the way of commercial advancement, and are among the last vestiges of those times when the principles of commercial policy were unknown, and 1 Lord John Brougham, in the House of Commons.