89. The current interest of money is the standard by which
the abundance or scarcity of capitals may be judged; it is the
scale on which the extent of a nation's capacity for enterprizes
in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, may be reckoned.
Thus the current interest of money may be considered as a
standard of the abundance or scarcity of capitals in a nation,
and of the extent of enterprises of every denomination, in which
she may embark: it is manifest, that the lower the interest of
money is, the more valuable is the land. A man that has an income
of fifty thousand livres, if the land is sold but at the rate of
twenty years purchase is an owner of only one million; he has two
millions, if the land is sold at the rate of forty. If the
interest is at five per cent. any land to be brought into
cultivation would continue fallow, if, besides the recovery of
the advances, and the retribution due to the care of the
cultivator, its produce would not afford five per cent. No
manufactory, no commerce can exist, that does not bring in five
per cent. exclusively of the salary and equivalents for the
risque and trouble of the undertaker. If there is a neighbouring
nation in which the interest stands only at two per cent. not
only it will engross all the branches of commerce, from which the
nation where an interest at five per cent. is established, is
excluded, but its manufacturers and merchants, enabled to satisfy
themselves with a lower interest, will also sell their goods at a
more moderate price, and will attract the almost exclusive
commerce of all articles, which they are not prevented to sell by
particular circumstances of excessive dearth, and expences of
carriages, from the nation in which the interest bears five per
cent.
