Afi I? 15 INTEREST OF MONEY A LEGALISED ROBBERY: HAS BKKN THE RUIN OF ALL NATIONS, IS RUINING ENGLAND. Usury bnngeth the treasure of a nation into a few hands, for the usurer being at certainties, and the others at uncertainties, at the end of the game most of the money will be in the box.”— THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF DISTINGUISHING INTEREST OF MONEY FROM USURY. Bt R.V. // ■yytTy LIVER P 0-0 L : PllEl^VCE. I rose from my bed one morning', at half-past Five, and looked out of the window. It was raining heavily, and I saw a working man, without overcoat or umbrella, running along the streaming flags to his work. I returned to my warm and comfortable bed, and asked myself why he was hurrying to his work at that hour, whilst I could enjoy a dose till eight o’clock ? And I answered myself, “ I am an Annuitant. I am living on Interest of Money. This man, moneyless and landless, is going to his work; not one penny of his wages will he pocket till he has paid the Government for taxes, the poor-rate for paupers, the landlord for rent, and the pawnbroker for interest. 1 determined to write this pamphlet. It may be asked, “ How comes it that you, a landlord and an annuitant, take advantage of a system which you denounce ?” I answer, “ This annuitantism has given me leisure to study the question, and the means to publish and circulate the truth; and this, though I incur the enmity of that large class whose sinister interests I expose—an enmity expressed by Shylock :— “ I hate him, for ho brings down The rate of usuries here with us in Venice ; He rails, even where merchants most do con^egatc, On me, my bargains and my well-won thrift. Which he calls interest. Many a time and oft In the Rialto he has rated me About my monies and my usuries,” |Q7^E Usury the offspring of Gold Money. The scourge of all nations, ancient and modern. Usury, or the Monopoly of Money. Rent, or the Monopoly ot Land. Between these two Thieves Labour Is crucifietl. INTEREST OF MONEY A LEGALISED ROBBERY. “ At tho ond of tlio game most of tho money will bo in the box ” ! Here we have tho secret how tho rich are so rich in this England of ours, and the poor are so poor. Hero is tho explanation of tho immense wealth of tho Rothschilds, the Barings, tho Overstones, tho Burdett Couttses, tho Eieldens, and the Strutts, and the dreadful scenes of tho Casual Ward. How these enormous accumulations are got together will be made plain by tho following table, which shows how usury in its worst form, that of compound in¬ terest, enables these insatiable monopolists to add to their hoards. Let us take the case of a young man, in his 21st year, putting by year by year a thousand pounds, and that he secures 10 per cent, year by year up to his 71st year, and, moreover, that ho secures 10 per cent, on interest, premising first that it is calculated that it takes seven years for £1000 to double itself at compound interest. In seven years, that is in his 28th year, our youth has doubled his 1000 sovereigns, which, by some magical pro¬ cess, becomes 2000. We are thus to suppose that each sovereign “ to bo endued with a capability of self increase and with the power of propagation,” as Mr. Lowe told us in his Budget Speech. But, to our calculation :— In bis 27tb year the In his 34th „ „ In his 41st „ „ In his 48th „ „ In his 65th „ „ In his 62nd „ „ In his 69th „ „ 1000 sovereigns would become 2000 2000 4000 4000 8000 8000 16,000 16,000 32,000 82,000 64,000 64,000 „ 128,000 Incredible, and yet true; for, though it may bo urged that to secure 10 per cent, for a life time on interest, and interest on interest, is not within human probability, yet, on the other hand, how many of these Usurers get their 20 or 30 per cent., say, investors in coal mines or share¬ holders in the London and Westminster Bank ; and what would compound interest bo at 20 per cent. ? " Figures would fail and calculation toil after it in vain.” 4 Bufc these accumulations must be ultimately calculated and brought into sovereigns—sovereigns ! our only money by Peel’s Bill—and then the fallacy of the whole system is proved by that infallible test, panic —panic, which means every rich man running to his bank to turn his “ promises to pay ” into gold; and, as sovereigns are not endowed with power of self-increase—are not gifted with powers of pro- pagation, he, in his character of depositor, breaks the bank and the house of cards tumbles down. As Bishop Berkeley truly asks, “ Whether the capricious tyrant, which usurps the place of reason, doth not most cruelly torment and de¬ lude the poor men, the usurers, stockjobbers, and projectors of content to themselves, from heaping up riches, i.e. from gathering counters, from multiplying figures, and from enlarging denominations, without knowing what they would bo at, and without having a proper regard to the use or nature of things ? ” To show the hollow and deceptive system under which these usurers levy blackmail on industry, afflicting the nation wdth their insatiable, cruel, and yet law-protected exactions, I will take the statement of that most successful of all these financing combinations, the London and West- minster Bank;*-’ and here is the statement of their liabilities, and the amount of gold they hold to meet these liabilities. In 1866, when, owing to suspicions being aroused by ru¬ mours set afloat, the Bank of London succumbed and stopped payment, the liabilities of the Bank of London and West¬ minster, i.e. what it had in its books as owing to depositors, amounted to Liabilities. 20 millions. Gold in its drawers and vaults . 1^ ,, What a rotten system is this ; for any depositor may demand to be paid his debt over the counter in sovereigns of the full weight and fineness. He is ignorant of the system who thinks that the bank note is any addition to oiir circulation ; for it is of the convertible theory that no £o note is to be issued, unless there are 5 sovereigns stored in the Bank of England to honor it, as it is called, the Bank Note, running, “ I promise to pay”—^that promise Peel’s Bill declares must bo made good. The worst of it is, these men have got into the House of Commons in great numbers, and they, even now, beard their rivals, the landed aristocracy. In fact, the landed aristocracy, being a spendthrift class, are always poor, and * And these Usurers, because Collie beat them at their own game, consigned him to a prison van, refusing him even a car. to recruit their fortunes have made raids on the city, yes, even before Queen Elizabetli’s time, for heiresses for their sons: as the vulgar saying is, “ exclianging blood for groats,” The Reform Bill was the agency by whieh they wrested a moiety of the government of the country from the territorial magnates. The large towns, enfranchised by that measure, send up to the House of Commons a host of bankers, bill-discounters, brewers, and gin shop-keepers, for their constituencies, in¬ fected with the slavish adoration of wealth which marks the times, will only choose millionaires and rich men. These are the men who laud Gladstone up to the skies, because he puts a penny stamp on the rich man’s £1000 transaction, and the same on the £2 receipt of the poor man—these are the men who uphold our present taxation: 2 millions on land, 30 millions on the peoples’ articles of consumption, tea, spirits, coffee, &c., and who move heaven and earth to reduce, and if possible annihilate, the income tax. It is time now to prove that Interest of Money is a law- protected robbery. ^ Interest op Money is a most glaring robbery, committed by usurers and annuitants on the class who live by labour, and the injustice lies in this, First— It is an annual payment exacted from labour. Second— That interest lasts for ever. Third— That it recognises the aristocratic principle, that the son is to be rewarded for the virtues (virtues!) of the father. Fourth— That simple interest inevitably creates com¬ pound INTEREST, When we recollect that labour is the source of all WEALTH, f I ask, why should labour be condemned to pay this heavy fine for the use of an instrument which but for that labour would have no value ? of what use would sove¬ reigns be in the desert of Sahara ? What value did Robinson Crusoe attach to the ducats, pieces of eight, and Spanish dollars he found in the wreck ? If a man has the skill and industry to make a chair or a table (we wont talk of ships * One of the devices of these speculators is the Insurance Co,mpant. Under pretence of insuring Widows and Orphans on the death of the Bread-Winner, they invent a cunningly-organised system, by which enormous dividends—in some cases 20 per cent.—are declared, and which the shai-eholders take from the insurers and divide among themselves, + Not merely manual labour, but the labour of the brain—the care, anxiety, and mental organising power of the heads of great works—of the captains of industry. G and locomotives) why should he be forbidden to put forth his powers, till he can find a capitalist (this is a deceptive term, it should be monied man) who can find him or advance him, certain discs of gold ? If labour is the source of wealth, labour should be the source of money. As the substance comes into existence BO should the shadow. ’ The only thing wanted is, that man should work, not in excess, for Robert Owen tells us, that with proper insti- tutions, three hours labour would provide a man (aided as he is by machinery) with all necessaries, nay, luxuries. If men will work, every facility should be provided them, and not be compelled to go, cap in hand, to the monied man, generally his employer, for advances. Secondly— Interest lasts for ever. Not for a few years, not for centuries, but for over. If the father dies, the son must pay;—if the husband dies, the widow must pay. But lot us take the most striking illustration of this cruel and unnecessary exaction, The National Debt. It began in Dutch William’s reign, and gradually increased till, at the beginning of George III.’s reign, it rose to 100 millions. Now, in this 1875, it amounts to 800 millions. Let it be here noted that Mr. Edward Capps, in his excellent work, “ The National Debt financially considered,” shows, by analysing the debt (p. 29) that, whilst the Nation is debited in the National Ledger with £173, the money actually received from the fundholder was only £100. On this debt of 800 millions the nation has paid two thousand five hundred millions. But is there any likelihood of the debt .being paid off? No; it must inevitably increase, for war becomes more imminent every year, and more costly. Here is a prospect for our children. Here wo see our domestic foe, the fundholder, who exacts from us more than a foreign invader could possibly levy—25 millions a year! and, this payable in sovereigns of the full weight and fineness.*^ Is not this Egyptian bondage? Are we not compelled to mako bricks without straw? Heavy taxation, and not supplied with a money to pay it in ? Lot your oppressors know that when the tale of bricks is doubled, a Moses is at hand. * The foot note to the taxation psiper is— “No LIGHT GOLD TAKEN." It is propo.sccl to make it penal to offer a light sovereign, and yet Mr. Lowe told ns that one-thud of the sovereigns arc light. Yes! you and I, and our children after us, are paying- interest on the gold lace on the jackets of Marlborough’s officers, and on the men-of-war lost off the Scilly Islands, under Sir Cloudesley Shovel, a century since, o Another instance of the everlasting claim for interest is that of Railways. — Railways, Banks, Insurance Companies, including Gas and Water Companies, are governed by Directors. Pope, 150 years since, denounced these men. “ Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet ; I only use it in a land of hectors, Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and DIRECTORS.” Again:— “ Now Satan sees his time; makes his descent In one abundant shower of cent, per cent.— Sinks deep within him and possesses whole. Then dubs director and secures his soul.” To make a railway, it is necessary to raise the money in sovereigns—in shares among monied people. And for ever after the shareholders sit there, like Sinbad’s Old Man of the Island, demanding 4, 5, 6, nay 7 and 8 per cent, on the receipts of the traffic. Interest rewards the son for the virtues of the FATHER. In many cases for the father’s vices. As the aristocracy of bii’th springs from royal bastardy, or pandering to regal tastes, as often as from services to the state, so the interest of the father’s accumulations as often springs from the hoards of avarice and extortionate dealing, as from the rewards due to industry, and skill, and commercial talent. The middle class, the great recipients of interest, declaim on platforms on the evils of an hereditary peerage, and it was from Mr. Bright’s lips, in his days of tribuneship, that we heard the words, “ Bloated Aristocracy.” Now Mr. Bright belongs to a bloated aristocracy of a much more injurious character, for, whilst it is encroaching on the landed interest, absorbing estate after estate, it robs labour, _^refusing employment, by withholding money, except at high interest—keeping the W'orking classes in a state of degradation and misery. * Erckman Chatrian, in his Histoire d’un Paysan, thus graphically describes the true scourge which afflicts this unfortunate class. “ On parle quelque fois de maladies qui vous rongent le emur, qui vous dissechent le sang ; mais la vriu maladio des pauvres, la voila ! Ce sont CCS usurers, ce gens qui se donnent encore I’air de vous aider, ct qui vivent sur vous jusq’a ce que vous soyez sous terre, Alors ils tiicheut de se rattrapper sur la veuve et les enfaus.” As the landed aristocracy live by a monopoly of land, so does the monied aristocracy on the monopoly of money! This is the modus operandi:— A man leaves a fortune, as it is called, to his son_that fortune being after all by certain parchments, deeds, scrips and papers, a mere lien on the labours of others.' The son becomes an annuitant, and by virtue of these parchments and scrip he demands, and the law enforces the demand, a portion of the food, clothing, housing, fuel furniture, &c., produced by the labour of the nation. An annuitant is one living on income. The son, like his class, has some vague idea that his money is rained from heaven* but, analyse it—eliminate the money and you will find his income is derived from the labour of tens, hundreds, and in the case of millionaires, of thousands of labourers in foundries, in shipbuilding yards, in factories, in fields, in mines, and in quarries. Let this son, for example, invest in a railway, say £10,000 : his annual income, at 4 per cent., is £400; but whence is this sum derived, if not from the labours, first, of engineers, excavators, rail-makers, plate-layers; and afterwards from the labours of station- masters, engine-drivers, porters, pointsmen, &c. Where would his income be if the labour of these workers were suspended ? The son to be rewarded for the virtues of the father! say rather vices : for these immense fortunes are generally the result of stockjobbing, land, railway and mining specu¬ lations, of a daily watch of the “turn of the market,” and a close scrutiny of the share-list—of penuriousness—of a griping and overreaching cunning—of a hard implacable selfishness—deaf to the claims of kindred or of country, and blind to the surrounding poverty, of which they and their usury are the principal cause. We have heard much lately of the “Piods Founder.” Here we have a man, who, to raise a name, bequeaths property for certain charitable uses; but a slight examin¬ ation will show that he is leaving nothing behind him but a mortgage on the labour of generations unborn. As Godwin well puts it in his Political Justice: “ It is a great imposition that men are accustomed to put upon themselves, when they talk of the property bequeathed by their ancestors, * Parchments ! yes, parchments, are venerable, but they should at all times represent as near as they can, the writings of the Rhodamanthine tables, otherwise they are not so venerable. Benedict, the Jew, in vain pleaded parchments—his usuries were too many. The king said, “Go to ; for all thy parchments thou shalt pay just debt : or observe this tooth forceps.— Carlyle. 9 that property being- produced by the daily labour of men now in existence. All that their ancestors bequeathed to them was a mouldy patent, by which, as a title, to extort from their neighbours what the labour of these neighbours has produced.” To make this clear, take the estates which, in 172-1:, Thomas Guy left to found his hospital (be it be premised that it was by purchasing seamen's prize tickets and by speculations in South Sea Stocks, and by usury generally, that he accumulated his wealth:) Weill here we have these estates, loO years after his death, producing large rentals ; but how ? By the labour of the present generation of men, ploughing—sowing—reaping—ditching—exercising honest industry. But for this industry and labour where would the rentals be ? I have said in my title page, that Usury has been the ruin of all Nations. Rome,— Sismondi clearly traces the ruin of the Roman Empire to the usurious exactions of the Patricians. The Italian Republics. —Under the sway of the Medici and other Bankers rapidly decayed. Poland. —Under the iron grasp of the dominant race, the Jews, has never emerged from a state of semi-barbarism. Turkey. —The funding system, lately introduced into this country, is grinding the population under a grievous weight of taxation, and the Armenian money-lender is the remorse¬ less agent, who, to use the words of R. A. Arnold, “ is the real acting cause of all this desolation ; no visionary Pasha, but some wealthy Armenian money-lender, some usurer, whose cent, per cent, has taken away the upper garment, and the very millstone, not for pledge, but for sale.” India is a very hot-bed of this vice, and 20 to 30 per cent is the common rate. The introduction of Sir Robert Peel’s system, by which the unfortunate Hindoo is compelled to pay his taxes in gold, is the cause of that habitual discontent which shows itself in periodical rebellions and outbreaks. France, under the Second Empire, was the prey of the Bourgeoisie, who have devoted themselves heart and soul to speculations on the Bourse. America is gasping under the baneful influence of the Tweeds, the Fisks, the Stuarts, the Vanderbilts and Astors. Result—A million of men out of work and the tide of emigration turned! * In Rome, “ the law of debt, framed by creditors, and for the protection of creditors, was the most horrible that has ever been known among men.”— Macaulay, 10 Mortgage— Space will not allow me to expose this cruel weapon, so remorselessly wielded by the monied men. By foreclosing- they are enabled to become possessed of lands and tenements, and this to such an extent, that one-third of the land and houses in the country have, in the course of generations, fallen into their hands. “ This,” as Lord Bacon tells us, “ from the usurer being at certainties, and the bor¬ rower at uncertainties.” How long is this to last? So long as the working-man, giving himself up to despair, takes to drinking. Let him take to thinking, and then_ Let Samson once find himself between the two pillars of this Philistine Temple— Rent and Interest —and the whole thing will come down in ruin on the heads of the oppressors. We are already “ in the torrent’s smoothness ere it dash below,” finally, as Carlyle prophecies —To shoot Niagara! Remedy. The remedy for dear money, the great cause of usury, is cheap money. Let the Exchequer issue a Taxation Money— a paper instrument, signed by the Chancellor, declared Legal Tender for all taxes and debts, and issue it in sufficient quantity to keep interest down permanently at 2 per cent Since going to press, the astounding revelations before the Foreign Loan Committee have shown the world how the simple-minded annuitant class maybe fleeced (‘‘easy got, easy lost”) by loan mongers and financing sharks. The bait to catch these gulls is simply a promise of a 10 or 15 per cent dividend. Hay, Laing, Grant, Fothergill, and Sampson, the late City Editor of the Times, figure in the front rank. The Times dismissed Sampson, after he was found out, its virtue finding vent in an indignant article. The public laughed at the farce! The Reform Club! contributes its contingent to this dis¬ reputable class. Liverpool Printed by Q. J. Hawe, 10, Mount Vernon Road. “Look at this locomotive—inspect that steam-ship—examine the works of this watch. Did the monied man make them ? “No,” it is answered, “ but he caused them to be made. He found the means.— his money was the creative power.” Be it so. Then labour will make its own money, and the capitalist will no longer be wanted.”— Kellog. “ The remedy for dear money, the great cause of Usury, is cheap money.” Though, through the influence of the T/mes and its jackals, the provincial press, the question of state paper money, or taxation money, is stifled in this country, in America the case is different. In the United States the advocates for a state paper money, or greenbacks, are bestirring themselves, and the Great West is taking up the question with earnestness, whilst the Eastern States, the stronghold of the monied power of the Usurers — of the Tweed, Eisk, and Vanderbilt tribe—are developing their full powers of abuse. Their , craft is in danger. ^ The Great West is determined no longer to be enslaved by this insane worship of gold;—they are determined to make Labour, King;—they have resolved that the great productive powers of the Mississippi Valley shall no longer be bound down and crippled by the bullionist theory that nothing is valuable but gold. The dreadful state of their country, where distress abounds where there ought to be plenty and happiness—where bankruptcy is ravaging the mercantile class — where, whilst a million of men have been thrown out of work, the tide of emigration is ebbing, and thousands are returning to the Old Country, I say, this unhappy state of things, only equalled hero in the year 1819, when Peel’s gold bill came into play, has roused the attention of the Americans to the Money Question, and it is to be hoped that the sympathy that exists between the two countries will induce our leaders of opinion to shake off* their apathy, and at least give the controversy between gold and paper a Ip^ir consideration.. Z’ / W itc-tt f, ii. ^ s ~i^