96. The interest of the money is not disposable in one sense,
viz. so as the state may be authorized to appropriate, without
any inconvenience, a part to supply its wants.
But it does not ensue that they are of the disposing class in
such a sense, that the state can appropriate to itself with
propriety a portion for the public wants. Those 1000 crowns are
not a retribution, which culture or commerce bestows gratuitously
on him that makes the advance; it is the price and the condition
of this advance, independently of which the enterprize could not
subsist. If this retribution is diminished, the capitalist will
withdraw his money, and the undertaking will cease. This
retribution ought then to be inviolable, and enjoy an entire
immunity, because it is the price of an advance made for the
enterprize, without which the enterprize could not exist. To
encroach upon it, would cause an augmentation in the price of
advances in all enterprizes, and consequently diminish the
enterprizes themselves, that is to say, cultivation, industry,
and commerce.
This answer should lead us to infer, that if we have said,
that the capitalist who had lent money to a proprietor, seemed to
belong to the class of proprietors, this appearance had somewhat
equivocal in it which wanted to be elucidated. In fact, it is
strictly true, that the interest of his money is not more
disposable, that is, it is not more susceptible of retrenchment,
than that of money lent to the undertakers in agriculture and
commerce. But the interest is equally the price of the free
agreement, and they cannot retrench any part of it without
altering or changing the price of the loan.
For it imports little to whom the loan has been made: if the
price decreases or augments for the proprietor of lands, it will
also decrease and augment for the cultivator, the manufacturer,
and the merchant. In a word, the proprietor who lends money ought
to be considered, as a dealer in a commodity absolutely necessary
for the production of riches, and which cannot be at too low a
price. It is also as unreasonable to charge this commerce with
duties as it would be to lay a duty on a dunghill which serves to
manure the land. Let us conclude from hence, that the person who
lends money belongs properly to the disposable class as to his
person, because he has nothing to do; but not as to the nature of
his property, whether the interest of his money is paid by the
proprietor of land out of a portion of his income, or whether it
is paid by an undertaker, out of a part of his profits designed
to pay the interest of his advances.
