Aus:
The Economist, 5. Oktober 1867. S. 1122/1123.
Schließen

Suggestion Introduction (by Mr. Hutton, at Belfast Social Congress) of Prussian Rentbanks into Ireland.  Zusatz von Marx.
Schließen (Interest Bearing Currency)

The Prussian Rent Banks seem to us a rudimentary and infantine financial device … Stein had to buy out, on behalf of the peasant cultivators, the manorial Lord. The Rentbanks – no banks at all – were simply a Gvt. department charged with this peculiar financial arrangement. The Govt. valued the interest of the „lord“ at such and at such a sum, and issued to him bonds with 4% interest – bonds in every sort of sum from 30s. to 150l. – payable at the option of the Gvt., but not at the holder’s option. The landlord was compelled to take them, and the idea of issuing them in various sums was that he might keep them or pay them away – in every mode that he thought fit. These bonds were secured on the estate, and the tenant was obliged to pay a certain rent-charge annually for their liquidation. There was an annual „drawing“ (Ziehn wie bei Losen), according to the continental fashion, and the bonds „then drawn“ were discharged out of the sums so paid by the peasants. If the peasants did not pay their annual quota, the State took and used very ample powers of entry and confiscation. Der Lord forced to take these bonds. It is plainly a severe act of despotic finance. … In fact, no interest-bearing security is really suitable to currency purposes, because its value changes from day to day. The interest accrues de die in diem. It is one thing on the 1st Oct. and a greater on the 2nd Oct. A sum, therefore, has to be done whenever the bond changes hands, and no population has ever borne, or will ever bear, a kind of currency requiring so much labour … |169 Prussia may have much to teach us in other departments; but, surely money is our own subject; we understand that if we understand anything. And so it is.  Kommentar von Marx.
Schließen (Herr Jesus!)