Among barbarous nations, the loaning of capital is wont to happen so seldom, and to be limited so strictly to near relations, that it does not yet occur to any one to stipulate for a regular compensation therefor.[184-1] But, however, when they pass from this state to interest proper, the rate must be, of course, very high.[184-2] The premium for insurance is here very great, the possibility and inclination to accumulate capital exceedingly small. Even of the existing supply of capital, a great part remains idle, because the faculty and the institutions necessary to concentrate it and permit it to flow are wanting. (§ 43.) The unskillfulness of labor is more than overcome by the excess of fertile and naturally productive land, of rich sites still unoccupied, the cream of which, as it were, needs only to be culled. Population is indeed sparse, but the usually prevailing absence of freedom of the lower classes prevents wages claiming the full benefit of competition.[184-3] This last circumstance is especially important.[184-4] For a given amount of the national income and of rent, every depression of wages must obviously raise the rate of interest, and every enhancement of wages lower it.[184-5] [Footnote 184-1: _Tacit._, Germ., 26; _Marculf_, Form., 18, 25 ff., 35; _Savigny_, Ueber das altrömische Schuldrecht, in the transactions of the Berlin Academy, 1833, 78 seq.] [Footnote 184-2: According to the Lex Visig., V, 5, § 8, the maximum rate of interest allowed on loans of money was 12½ per cent., and on other _res fungibiles_, 50 per cent. From the 12th to the 14th century, the Lombards and the Jews in France and England took generally (?) 20 per cent. a year. (_Anderson_, Origin of Commerce, _a._, 1300.) Philip V. of France, in 1311, fixed the rate of interest at the fairs in Champagne at 15 per cent. (a species of discount) at most, and at a maximum everywhere of 20 per cent. (Ordonnances de la France, I, 484, 494, 508.) The legal rate of interest in Verona, in 1288, was fixed at a maximum of 12½ per cent.; in Modena, 1270, at 20 per cent. (_Muratori_, Antiquitt. Ital., I, 894); in Bresica, 1268, at 10 per cent. (_v. Raumer_, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, V, 395 ff.) Frederick II. wished to reduce it to 10 per cent. for Naples, but failed. (_Bianchini_, Storia delle Finanze di Nap., I, 299.) The tables of _Cibrario_, Economia polit. del medio Evo., III, 380, for 1306-1399, show for upper Italy interest to have been at 20, 15, 14, 10, and also 5½ per cent. About 1430 the Florentines, in order to moderate the enormously high rate of interest, called Jews to their city, and the latter promised not to charge over 20 per cent. (_Cibrario_, III, 318.) In the Rhine country, the Kowerzens, during the 14th century, took from 60 to 70 per cent., for which they had, however, to pay