subject was discussed,
anticipating that the division on the bill would not take place till a
late hour, and that their presence was not necessary for its success.
While they were absent the bill was rejected by a majority of forty-five
against forty. This decision was owing partly to the arguments of the
solicitor-general against the measure. Borrowers, he said, might be
divided into three classes: mercantile borrowers, landed borrowers, and
persons who might be considered general borrowers; they not belonging
to either of the above classes. Mercantile borrowers, he continued,
generally obtained a loan to profit by it. They did not borrow from
necessity, but to trade; and if they could make ten or twelve per cent,
on the borrowed money, there was no reason why they should not pay the
lender seven or eight per cent. But was there, he asked, any landed
proprietor so ignorant, as not to see, that, if the monied man could
lend to the trade, at a higher rate than five per cent., he would not
lend to him at that sum. It was one advantage to the lender, that he
could recall his capital at pleasure, or get it back at a short notice.
Now when a man lent capital to a trader, he was generally enabled to
command the use of it when he pleased; but if he lent his money on land
he could not do this: there was all the trouble and inconvenience of a
mortgage; he could not recall it for two or three years; and therefore
in proportion as he could not command the use of his capital when
he lent it to the landowner, he would make him pay a higher rate of
interest for it than the trader. He believed he was not wrong when he
stated that eight out of every ten estates in the kingdom were loaded
with debt. Now under what circumstances did the country gentlemen borrow
money? Was it to employ it at some seasonable crisis, when by prudence
and dexterity he might obtain vast profit? No. The benefits which he
could receive as its produce were fixed: he never could obtain from a
borrowed sum beyond a determined amount. Could any one say, therefore,
that the repeal of the usury laws would be beneficial to the latter
class? But if the terms of borrowing were so unfavourable to the landed
class, what expectation could the general borrower entertain of being
able to obtain a loan under any other than oppressive terms? These
persons generally stood in need of only small sums; their necessities
were pressing, and therefore they were exposed to the most grin