FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   675   676   677   678   679   680   681   682   683   684   685   686   687   688   689   690   691   692   693   694   695   696   697   698   699  
700   701   702   703   704   705   706   707   708   709   710   711   712   713   714   715   716   717   718   719   720   721   722   723   724   >>   >|  
r cent in England, and ten per cent a month in Italy and Spain. Commerce, manufactures, and general enterprise were dwarfed, while pauperism flourished. Yet worse than these were the moral results. Doing what one holds to be evil is only second in bad consequences to doing what is really evil; hence, all lending and borrowing, even for the most legitimate purposes and at the most reasonable rates, tended to debase both borrower and lender. The prohibition of lending at interest in continental Europe promoted luxury and discouraged economy; the rich, who were not engaged in business, finding no easy way of employing their incomes productively, spent them largely in ostentation and riotous living. One evil effect is felt in all parts of the world to this hour. The Jews, so acute in intellect and strong in will, were virtually drawn or driven out of all other industries or professions by the theory that their race, being accursed, was only fitted for the abhorred profession of money-lending.(451) (451) For evil economic results, and especially for the rise of the rate of interest in England and elsewhere at times to forty per cent, see Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Cambridge, 1890, p. 189; and for its rising to ten per cent a month, see Bedarride, Les Juifs en France, en Italie, at en Espagne, p. 220; see also Hallam's Middle Ages, London, 1853, pp. 401, 402. For the evil moral effects of the Church doctrine against taking interest, see Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, lib. xxi, chap. xx; see also Sismondi, cited in Lecky. For the trifling with conscience, distinction between "consumptibles" and "fungibles," "possessio" and "dominium," etc., see Ashley, English Economic History, New York, pp. 152, 153; see also Leopold Delisle, Etudes, pp. 198, 468. For the effects of these doctrines on the Jews, see Milman, History of the Jews, vol. iii, p. 179; also Wellhausen, History of Israel, London, 1885, p. 546; also Beugnot, Les Juifs d'Occident, Paris, 1824, pt. 2, p. 114 (on driving Jews out of other industries than money-lending). For a noted mediaeval evasion of the Church rules against usury, see Peruzzi, Storia del Commercio e dei Banchieri di Firenze, Florence, 1868, pp. 172, 173. These evils were so manifest, when trade began to revive throughout Europe in the fifteenth century, that most earnest exertions were put forth to induce the Church to change its position. The first important e
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   675   676   677   678   679   680   681   682   683   684   685   686   687   688   689   690   691   692   693   694   695   696   697   698   699  
700   701   702   703   704   705   706   707   708   709   710   711   712   713   714   715   716   717   718   719   720   721   722   723   724   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
lending
 

interest

 

Church

 

History

 
England
 

Europe

 
industries
 

effects

 
Commerce
 
results

London

 

English

 

Middle

 

Economic

 

fungibles

 
possessio
 
Ashley
 

dominium

 

consumptibles

 
trifling

Esprit

 

taking

 

Leopold

 

doctrine

 

conscience

 

distinction

 

Montesquieu

 

Sismondi

 
manifest
 
Florence

Commercio

 
Banchieri
 

Firenze

 

induce

 

change

 

position

 

important

 
exertions
 

revive

 
fifteenth

century

 

earnest

 

Storia

 
Wellhausen
 
Israel
 

Beugnot

 

Etudes

 

doctrines

 

Milman

 

Occident