On the extent to which the principles advocated in ?Bentham's Letters on Usury? have still to be adopted in the laws of England and of foreign countries

Abstract

The abolition of the Usury Laws may, by many, be considered complete in England, and to have removed them and their demerits out of the class of subjects of practical importance which this Society is accustomed to discuss. If this were so, I am aware that any antiquarian interest which an examination of them might afford, would, at least in the eyes of this Society, be a poor equivalent for the absent element of utility. It may be remarked, however, that even if it were true that all trace of the Usury Laws had been swept away from our laws, and from the laws of the countries in whose progress we are interested, all questions connected with usury might still, in a certain view of the present tendencies of social ideas, form a subject of future, if not present, importance.