DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0087
THE DEVELOPMENT OE CREDIT AGENCIES. 71
the Antwerp bankers, and most of the sovereigns made default.
As late as the War of the Spanish Succession, as we learn from
Peterborough's despatches, English government bills were nego-
tiated at Genoa for the Spanish campaigns ; and the commercial
notes of newspapers and other similar publications, quote notes of
exchange between Great Britian and divers foreign countries.
Then, again, credit is internal as well as external, is inevitably
developed between the members of a community as well as
between members of different communities from very early times.
In our own experience, the liquidation of what are called ready-
money transactions is constantly based on credit. If we buy goods
and pay for them over the counter with notes, the trader accepts
the exchange, because he is confident of the solvency of the
issuing banker ; if we pay for them by our cheques, the transaction
is theoretically completed, because he can rely on the solvency of
the drawer, though, of course, it is not practically completed as
far as purchasers are concerned till the cheque is honoured.
Even then, nine cases out of ten, or ninety-nine out of a hundred,
the recipient of the cheque makes it the means of developing
another form of credit, in the form of a balance at his own
bankers.
As human societies have been educated in functions of credit,
and see daily how ail-pervading and significant they are, it has
been natural to assign to credit qualities and powers which it is
far from universally possessing, to say nothing of others which it
does not possess at all. It is really part of the mechanism by
which wealth is mobilized, even in its most stationary forms.
Take, for example, the old forms of obligation conveyed under a
statute merchant or a statute staple, and the recognition of such
pledges as exceptional, by the law of Edward I. A landowner
sought to procure funds for the prosecution of a commercial
venture. The law allowed him for this end to pledge his land and
his personal liberty, before the chief officer of a trading or a staple
town. He raised a loan on this security and traded. It is plain
that he was transmuting during the period of the loan, the passive
wealth which he possessed in his estate into the active wealth of
another person. He was creating no new wealth, though the fact
that he was about to do so lies at the bottom of his transaction.
the Antwerp bankers, and most of the sovereigns made default.
As late as the War of the Spanish Succession, as we learn from
Peterborough's despatches, English government bills were nego-
tiated at Genoa for the Spanish campaigns ; and the commercial
notes of newspapers and other similar publications, quote notes of
exchange between Great Britian and divers foreign countries.
Then, again, credit is internal as well as external, is inevitably
developed between the members of a community as well as
between members of different communities from very early times.
In our own experience, the liquidation of what are called ready-
money transactions is constantly based on credit. If we buy goods
and pay for them over the counter with notes, the trader accepts
the exchange, because he is confident of the solvency of the
issuing banker ; if we pay for them by our cheques, the transaction
is theoretically completed, because he can rely on the solvency of
the drawer, though, of course, it is not practically completed as
far as purchasers are concerned till the cheque is honoured.
Even then, nine cases out of ten, or ninety-nine out of a hundred,
the recipient of the cheque makes it the means of developing
another form of credit, in the form of a balance at his own
bankers.
As human societies have been educated in functions of credit,
and see daily how ail-pervading and significant they are, it has
been natural to assign to credit qualities and powers which it is
far from universally possessing, to say nothing of others which it
does not possess at all. It is really part of the mechanism by
which wealth is mobilized, even in its most stationary forms.
Take, for example, the old forms of obligation conveyed under a
statute merchant or a statute staple, and the recognition of such
pledges as exceptional, by the law of Edward I. A landowner
sought to procure funds for the prosecution of a commercial
venture. The law allowed him for this end to pledge his land and
his personal liberty, before the chief officer of a trading or a staple
town. He raised a loan on this security and traded. It is plain
that he was transmuting during the period of the loan, the passive
wealth which he possessed in his estate into the active wealth of
another person. He was creating no new wealth, though the fact
that he was about to do so lies at the bottom of his transaction.