But since the legitimacy of interest has been contested so [p203] seriously in our day as to put capital to flight, or force it to conceal itself, I may be permitted to show how utterly foolish and insensate this controversy is. And, first of all, let me ask, would it not be absurd and unjust either that no remuneration should be given for the use of capital, or that that remuneration should be the same, whether the loan were granted and obtained at one year’s, or two years’, or ten years’ date. If, unhappily, under this doctrine of pretended ‹equality›, such a law should find a place in our code, an entire category of human transactions would be suppressed on the instant. We should still have ‹barter›, and ‹sales for ready money›, but we could no longer have sales on credit, nor ‹loans›. The advocates of equality would relieve borrowers from the burden of paying interest; but they would, at the same time, balk them of their loans. At the same rate, we might relieve men from the inconvenient necessity of paying for what they buy. We should only have to prohibit them from purchasing; or, what would come to the same thing, declare ‹prices› illegal. There is levelling enough, in all conscience, in this pretended principle of equality. First of all, it would put a stop to the creation of capital; for who would desire to save when he could reap no advantage from saving? Then it would reduce wages to zero, for where there is no capital (instruments, materials, and provisions), there can be neither future work nor wages. We should very soon arrive at the most perfect of all equalities, the equality of nothingness. But is there any man so blind as not to see that delay is ‹in itself› a circumstance which is ‹onerous›, and, consequently, entitled to remuneration? Apart, even, from the consideration of loans, would not every one endeavour to abridge delays? It is the object of our perpetual solicitude. Every employer of workmen lays great stress on the time which must elapse before his returns come in. He sells dearer or cheaper according as his returns are more or less distant. Were he indifferent on that subject, he must forget that capital is power; for if he is alive to that consideration, he must naturally desire that it should perform its work in the shortest possible time, so as to enable him the oftener to engage it in a new operation.