xlviii.), which the Jews apply to David, and the Christians to their Christ: _Manus ejus contra omnes_.In our day, the robber--the warrior of the ancients--is pursued with the utmost vigor.His profession, in the language of the code, entails ignominious and corporal penalties, from imprisonment to the scaffold.A sad change in opinions here below!
"My right is my lance and my buckler." General de Brossard said, like Achilles: "I get wine, gold, and women with my lance and my buckler."We rob,--8.By cheating; 9.By swindling; 10.By abuse of trust;11.By games and lotteries.
This second species was encouraged by the laws of Lycurgus, in order to sharpen the wits of the young.It is the kind practised by Ulysses, Solon, and Sinon; by the ancient and modern Jews, from Jacob down to Deutz; and by the Bohemians, the Arabs, and all savage tribes.Under Louis XIII.and Louis XIV., it was not considered dishonorable to cheat at play.To do so was a part of the game; and many worthy people did not scruple to correct the caprice of Fortune by dexterous jugglery.To-day even, and in all countries, it is thought a mark of merit among peasants, merchants, and shopkeepers to KNOW HOW TO MAKE A BARGAIN,--that is, to deceive one's man.This is so universally accepted, that the cheated party takes no offence.It is known with what reluctance our government resolved upon the abolition of lotteries.It felt that it was dealing a stab thereby at property.The pickpocket, the blackleg, and the charlatan make especial use of their dexterity of hand, their subtlety of mind, the magic power of their eloquence, and their great fertility of invention.Sometimes they offer bait to cupidity.Therefore the penal code--which much prefers intelligence to muscular vigor--has made, of the four varieties mentioned above, a second category, liable only to correctional, not to Ignominious, punishments.
Let them now accuse the law of being materialistic and atheistic.
We rob,--12.By usury.
This species of robbery, so odious and so severely punished since the publication of the Gospel, is the connecting link between forbidden and authorized robbery.Owing to its ambiguous nature, it has given rise to a multitude of contradictions in the laws and in morals,--contradictions which have been very cleverly turned to account by lawyers, financiers, and merchants.Thus the usurer, who lends on mortgage at ten, twelve, and fifteen per cent., is heavily fined when detected; while the banker, who receives the same interest (not, it is true, upon a loan, but in the way of exchange or discount,--that is, of sale), is protected by royal privilege.But the distinction between the banker and the usurer is a purely nominal one.Like the usurer, who lends on property, real or personal, the banker lends on business paper; like the usurer, he takes his interest in advance; like the usurer, he can recover from the borrower if the property is destroyed (that is, if the note is not redeemed),--a circumstance which makes him a money-lender, not a money-seller.But the banker lends for a short time only, while the usurer's loan may be for one, two, three, or more years.Now, a difference in the duration of the loan, or the form of the act, does not alter the nature of the transaction.As for the capitalists who invest their money, either with the State or in commercial operations, at three, four, and five per cent.,--that is, who lend on usury at a little lower rate than the bankers and usurers,--they are the flower of society, the cream of honesty! Moderation in robbery is the height of virtue!
It would be interesting and profitable to review the authors who have written on usury, or, to use the gentler expression which some prefer, lendingat interest.The theologians always have opposed usury; but, since they have admitted always the legitimacy of rent, and since rent is evidently identical with interest, they have lost themselves in a labyrinth of subtle distinctions, and have finally reached a pass where they do not know what to think of usury.The Church--the teacher of morality, so jealous and so proud of the purity of her doctrine--has always been ignorant of the real nature of property and usury.She even has proclaimed through her pontiffs the most deplorable errors._Non potest mutuum_, said Benedict XIV., _locationi ullo pacto comparari_."Rent," says Bossuet, "is as far from usury as heaven is from the earth." How, on{sic} such a doctrine, condemn lending at interest? how justify the Gospel, which expressly forbids usury? The difficulty of theologians is a very serious one.Unable to refute the economical demonstrations, which rightly assimilate interest to rent, they no longer dare to condemn interest, and they can say only that there must be such a thing as usury, since the Gospel forbids it.
But what, then, is usury? Nothing is more amusing than to see these INSTRUCTORS OF NATIONS hesitate between the authority of the Gospel, which, they say, NEVER CAN HAVE SPOKEN IN VAIN, and the authority of economical demonstrations.Nothing, to my mind, is more creditable to the Gospel than this old infidelity of its pretended teachers.Salmasius, having assimilated interest to rent, was REFUTED by Grotius, Pufendorf, Burlamaqui, Wolf, and Heineccius; and, what is more curious still, Salmasius ADMITTEDHIS ERROR.Instead of inferring from this doctrine of Salmasius that all increase is illegitimate, and proceeding straight on to the demonstration of Gospel equality, they arrived at just the opposite conclusion; namely, that since everybody acknowledges that rent is permissible, if we allow that interest does not differ from rent, there is nothing left which can be called usury.and, consequently, that the commandment of Jesus Christ is an ILLUSION, and amounts to NOTHING, which is an impious conclusion.
