on by law of the rate of interest that
may be charged affects many persons outside the ranks of wage-workers.
Usury laws are found almost universally in civilized lands. By usury
was formerly meant any payment for the loan of goods or money; now it
means only excessive payments. In former times moralists and lawmakers
were opposed to all usury or interest. The reason for this attitude
is not hard to find.[3] Most loans were made in times of distress. The
sources of loanable capital and the chances of profitable investment
were few. But for the last four centuries there has been on the
question of usury a gradual change of opinion, beginning in the
commercial centers and progressing most rapidly in the countries
with the most developed industry. A moderate rate of interest is now
everywhere permitted; but in all but a few communities the rate that
can be collected is limited by law, and penalties more or less severe
are imposed upon the usurious lender.

Usury laws are practically evaded in a number of ways within the
letter of the law.[4] Many persons maintain that they do more harm
than good even to the borrower, whom they are designed to protect. In
a developed credit economy, where a regular money-market exists, they
are superfluous, to say the least, as most loans are made below the
legal rate. Such laws, however, have a partial justification. In a
small loan market they to some extent protect the weak borrower at the
moment of distress from the rapacity of the would-be usurer. There
has been great need to check the rapacity of the "loan-shark" in the
cities. Usury laws are fruits of the social conscience, a recognition
of the duty to protect the weaker citizen in the period of his
direst need. Their utility is diminishing; and at best they are only
negative in their action, preventing the needy borrower from borrowing
when his need is acute. In many European countries a more positive
remedy has been found in the provision of public pawn-shops. In
America a very little has yet been done in this way, and that mostly
by private philanthropy.[5]

Sec. 5. #Public inspection of standards and of foods#. The determination
and testing of standards of weights and measures has long been a
function of government. English laws of the Middle Ages forbade
false measures and the sale of defective goods, and provided for the
inspection of markets in the cities. Usually, the self-interest of
the purchaser is the best means of ensu