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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OE

prohibited all interest. This prohibition, however, like allothers of the same kind, is said to have produced no effect,and probably rather increased than diminished the evil ofusury. The statute of Henry VIII . was revived by the 13thof Elizabeth, cap. 8. and ten per cent, continued to be thelegal rate of interest till the 21st of James I. when it wasrestricted to eight per cent. It was reduced to six percent, soon after the restoration, and by the 12th of QueenAnne , to five per cent. All these different statutory regula-tions seem to have been made with great propriety. Theyseem to have followed and not to have gone before the marketrate of interest, or the rate at which people of good creditusually borrowed. Since the time of Queen Anne , five percent, seems to have been rather above than below the marketrate. Before the late war, the government borrowed at threeper cent.; and people of good credit in the capital, and inmany other parts of the kingdom, at three and a half, four,and four and a half per cent.

Since the time of Henry VIII . the wealth and revenue ofthe country have been continually advancing, and, in thecourse of their progress, their pace seems rather to have beengradually accelerated than' retarded. They seem, not onlyto have been going on, but to have been going on faster andfaster. The wages of labour have been continually increasingduring the same period, and in the greater part of the dif-ferent branches of trade and manufactures the profits of stockhave been diminishing.

It generally requires a greater stock to carry on any sortof trade in a great town than in a country village. The greatstocks employed in every branch of trade, and the number ofrich competitors, generally reduce the rate of profit in theformer below what it is in the latter. But the wages of labourare generally higher in a great town than in a country village.In a thriving town the people who have great stocks to em-ploy frequently cannot get the number of workmen they want,and therefore bid against one another, in order to get as manyas they can, which raises the wages of labour, and lowers theprofits of stock. In the remote parts of the country there is fre-quently notstock sufficientto employ all the people, who there-fore bid against one another in order to get employment, whichlowers the wages of labour, and raises the profits of stock.

In Scotland , though the legal rate of interest is the same asin England, the market rate is rather higher. People of the