The activity with which Jews took part, or were supposed to take part, in the debasement of the coinage, and in the prohibited practice of usury,[178] must have aroused in the mind of the King some misgivings on the subject of his new policy. Nevertheless, he did not as yet despair of its ultimate success. The crimes of the Jews were no greater than those of the Christians around them, though they called forth heavier punishment. Christians clipped and coined; Christians still lent money on usury.[179] And a certain amount of crime among Jews could not but be looked for as a natural result of the terrible difficulties in the way of the social revolution that had been demanded of them. Edward saw that he had been trying to do too much at once. The Jews could not change their occupation as suddenly as he had wished. The country could not do without money-lenders. By making the lending of money at interest a penal offence, and thus encouraging debtors and creditors to keep their transactions secret, Edward had weakened the supervision that had been exercised by the Treasury, since 1194, over the business and property of the Jews, and thus he had increased the chance of fraud in the collection of tallages, and in the apportionment of the share of each estate that had long been claimed by the Crown as the succession due on Jewish property.[180] But he had not stamped out usury, though the Statute of 1275 had forbidden it. He had not even secured the redemption of all pledges of Christians from the hands of the Jews, though the Statute of 1275 had demanded it. And, therefore, in order that he might not keep on the Statute Book a law of which the effective administration was impossible, he mitigated the severity of the provisions of 1275, and issued, probably a few years later, a new Statute, in which he prescribed certain conditions under which usury was to be permitted. He allowed loans to be made under contract for the payment of interest at the rate of half a mark in the pound yearly, but for three years only; and, in order to reduce the temptation to conclude secret transactions, restored legal recognition to all debts of the value of £20 or upwards that were made under the prescribed conditions, and were registered before the chirographer and clerk, and threatened heavy penalties against all who should lend up to that amount without registration.[181]