A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions: Shewing the nature and measures of crown-lands, assessements, customs, poll-moneys, lotteries, benevolence, penalties, monopolies, offices, tythes, raising of coins, harth-money, excize, &c.; with several intersperst discourses and digressions concerning warres, the church, universities, rents & purchases, usury & exchange, banks & lombards, registries for conveyances, beggars, ensurance, exportation of money [&] wool, free-ports, coins, housing, liberty ofPetty, William, Sir
History
A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions: Shewing the nature and measures of crown-lands, assessements, customs, poll-moneys, lotteries, benevolence, penalties, monopolies, offices, tythes, raising of coins, harth-money, excize, &c.; with several intersperst discourses and digressions concerning warres, the church, universities, rents & purchases, usury & exchange, banks & lombards, registries for conveyances, beggars, ensurance, exportation of money [&] wool, free-ports, coins, housing, liberty of
Petty, William, Sir
Finance -- Great Britain -- Early works to 1800; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1660-1688; Taxation -- Great Britain -- Early works to 1800
3. Now the Questions arising hence are; what are the natural
Standards of Usury and Exchange? As for Usury, the least that
can be, is the Rent of so much Land as the money lent will
buy, where the security is undoubted; but where the security
is casual, then a kinde of ensurance must be enterwoven with
the simple natural Interest, which may advance the Usury very
conscionably unto any height below the Principal it self. Now if
things are so in _England_, that really there is no such security
as abovementioned, but that all are more or less hazardous,
troublesome, or chargeable to make, I see no reason for endeavoring
to limit Usury upon time, any more then that upon place, which
the practice of the world doth not, unless it be that those who
make such Laws were rather Borrowers then Lenders: But of the
vanity and fruitlessness of making Civil Positive Laws against the
Laws of Nature, I have spoken elsewhere, and instanced in several
particulars.
4. As for the natural measures of Exchange, I say, that in times
of Peace, the greatest Exchange can be but the labour of carrying
the money _in specie_, but where are hazards and emergent uses for
money more in one place then another, &c. or opinions of these true
or false, the Exchange will be governed by them.
5. Parallel unto this, is something which we omitted concerning
the price of Land; for as great need of money heightens Exchange,
so doth great need of Corn raise the price of that likewise, and
consequently of the Rent of the Land that bears Corn, and lastly
of the Land it self; as for example, if the Corn which feedeth
_London_, or an Army, be brought forty miles thither, then the Corn
growing within a mile of _London_, or the quarters of such Army,
shall have added unto its natural price, so much as the charge of
bringing it thirty nine miles doth amount unto: And unto perishable
Commodities as fresh fish, fruits, &c. the ensurance upon the
hazard of corrupting, &c. shall be added also; and finally unto
him that eats these things there (suppose in Taverns) shall be
added the charge of all the circumstancial apparatus of House-rent,
Furniture, Attendance, and the Cooks skill as well as his labour to
accompany the same.
6. Hence it comes to pass, that Lands intrinsically alike near
populous places, such as where the perimeter of the Area that feeds
them is great, will not onely yield more Rent for these Reasons,
but also more years purchase then in remote places, by reason of
the pleasure and honour extraordinary of having Lands there; for
----_Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci._
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