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• Errata—vol. III.
• Defence of Usury; Showing the Impolicy of the Present Legal Restraints On the Terms of Pecuniary Bargains; In Letters to a Friend.
• Letter I.: Introduction.
• Letter II.: Reasons For Restraint—prevention of Usury.
• Letter III.: Reasons For Restraint—prevention of Prodigality.
• Letter IV.: Reasons For Restraint—protection of Indigence.
• Letter V.: Reasons For Restraint—protection of Simplicity.
• Letter VI.: Mischiefs of the Anti-usurious Laws.
• Letter VII.: Efficacy of Anti-usurious Laws.
• Letter VIII.: Virtual Usury Allowed.
• Letter IX.: Blackstone Considered.
• Letter X.: Grounds of the Prejudices Against Usury.
• Letter XI.: Compound Interest.
• Letter XII.: Maintenance and Champerty.
• Letter XIII.: To Dr. Smith, On Projects In Arts, &c.
• A Manual of Political Economy: Now First Edited From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham.
• Chapter I.: Introduction. *
• Chapter II.: Analytical Survey of the Field of Political Economy.
• Chapter III.: Of Wealth.
• Chapter IV.: Of Population.
• Chapter V.: Of Finance.
• Chapter VI.: Operation of a Sinking Fund On the Production of Wealth.
• Chapter VII.: Noscenda.
• Observations On the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial System; Especially With a Reference to the Decree of the Spanish Cortes of July 1820.
• Preface.: Observations, &c.
• Section I.: Nature of the Prohibitory System.
• Section II.: Mischiefs of the Prohibitory System.
• Section III.: Causes of the Prohibitory System.
• A Plan For Saving All Trouble and Expense In the Transfer of Stock, and For Enabling the Proprietors to Receive Their Dividends Without Powers of Attorney, Or Attendance At the Bank of England, By the Conversion of Stock Into Note Annuities.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Plan For the Creation, Emission, Payment, and Eventual Extension, of a Proposed New Species of Government Paper, Under the Name of Annuity Notes.
• Chapter II.: Form of an Annuity Note. (see Table II.)
• Chapter III.: Comparison of the Proposed, With the Existing Government Securities, &c.
• Chapter IV.: Grounds of Expectation, In Regard to the Proposed Measure.
• Chapter V.: Financial Advantages.
• Chapter VI.: Advantage By Addition to National Capital.
• Chapter VII.: Advantage By Addition to Commercial Security.
• Chapter VIII.: Particular Interests Concerned.
• Chapter IX.: Rise of Prices—how to Obviate.
• Chapter X.: Reduction of Interest—proposed Mode Compared With Mr. Pelham’s.
• Chapter XI.: Moral Advantages.
• Chapter XII.: Constitutional Advantages.
• Chapter XIII.: Recapitulation and Conclusion.
• Appendix A.: Government Ought to Have the Monopoly of Paper Money, As Well As of Metallic Money.
• Appendix B.: Paper Money—causes Why Not Circulated By Government Without Interest, As Well As By Individuals.
• General View of a Complete Code of Laws.
• Chapter I.: General Division.
• Chapter II.: Relations Between the Laws Concerning Offences, Rights, Obligations, and Services.
• Chapter III.: Relation Between the Penal and Civil Code.
• Chapter IV.: Of Method.
• Chapter V.: Plan of the Penal Code.
• Chapter VI.: Of the Division of Offences.
• Chapter VIII. Titles of the Penal Code.
• Chapter IX.: First General Title of the Civil Code, * of Things.
• Chapter X.: Second General Title of the Civil Code. of Places.
• Chapter XI.: Third General Title of the Civil Code. of Times.
• Chapter XII.: Fourth General Title of the Civil Code. of Services.
• Chapter XIII.: Fifth General Title of the Civil Code. of Obligations.
• Chapter XIV.: Sixth General Title of the Civil Code. of Rights.
• Chapter XV.: Seventh General Title of the Civil Code. of Collative and Ablative Events.
• Chapter XVI.: Eighth General Title of the Civil Code. of Contracts.
• Chapter XVII.: Ninth General Title of the Civil Code. of the Domestic and Civil States.
• Chapter XVIII.: Tenth General Title of the Civil Code. of Persons Capable of Acquiring and of Contracting.
• Chapter XIX.: Of the Particular Titles of the Civil Code.
• Chapter XX.: Of Elementary Political Powers.
• Chapter XXI.: Of Elementary Political Powers— Subject Continued.
• Chapter XXII.: Plan of the Political Code.
• Chapter XXIII.: Plan of the International Code.
• Chapter XXIV.: Plan of the Maritime Code.
• Chapter XXV.: Plan of the Military Code.
• Chapter XXVI.: Plan of the Ecclesiastical Code.
• Chapter XXVII.: Plan of Remuneratory Laws.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Of Political Economy.
• Chapter XXIX.: Plan of the Financial Code.
• Chapter XXX.: Plan of Procedure Code.
• Chapter XXXI.: Of the Integrality of the Code of Laws.
• Chapter XXXII.: Of Purity In the Composition of a Code of Laws.
• Chapter XXXIII.: Of the Style of the Laws.
• Chapter XXXIV.: Of the Interpretation, Conservation, and Improvement of a Code.
• Pannomial Fragments.
• Chapter I.: General Observations.
• Chapter II.: Consideranda.
• Chapter III.: Expositions.
• Chapter IV.: Axioms.
• Nomography; Or the Art of Inditing Laws: Now First Published From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham.
• Chapter I.: The Subject Stated.
• Chapter II.: Relations.
• Chapter III.: Proper End In View.
• Chapter IV.: Imperfections Primary.
• Chapter V.: Explanations Relative to the Imperfections of the Second Order.
• Chapter VI.: Of Remedies. *
• Chapter VII.: Of Language.
• Chapter VIII.: Of the Perfections of Which the Legislative Style Is Susceptible.
• Chapter IX.: Of Forms of Enactment.
• Appendix. Logical Arrangements, Or Instruments of Invention and Discovery
• Equity Dispatch Court Proposal; Containing a Plan For the Speedy and Unexpensive Termination of the Suits Now Depending In Equity Courts. With the Form of a Petition, and Some Account of a Proposed Bill For That Purpose
• Section I.: Purpose Explained. Jeremy Bentham to the Honest and Afflicted Among Equity Suitors.
• Section II.: Equity Suitors’ Petition For Dispatch Court. to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, —
• Section III.: Dispatch Court Bill—some Account of It.
• Section IV.: Information Requisite From Petitioning Suitors.
• Equity Dispatch Court Bill: Being a Bill For the Institution of an Experimental Judicatory Under the Name of the Court of Dispatch, For Exemplifying In Practice the Manner In Which the Proposed Summary May Be Substituted to the So Called Regular Sy
• Editor’s Note.
• Preface.
• Preamble.
• Part I.—: Judiciary.
• Section I.: Judge Located, How.
• Section II.: Remuneration.
• Section III.: Registrar, &c.
• Section IV.: Eleemosynary Advocate.
• Section V.: Judges’, &c. Deputes.
• Section VI.: Judge’s Powers—exemptions—checks.
• Section VII.: Prehensors and Messengers.
• Section VIII.: Consignees; * Or Say, In-trust-holders.
• Section IX.: Grounds of Decision For the Dispatch Court Judge.
• Section X. ‡: Suits’ Comparative Suitableness; and Order of Cognizance.
• Section XI.: Auxiliary Judges and Accountants.
• Section XII.: Sittings, Times Of.
• Part II.—: Procedure.
• Section XIII.: Definitions. *
• Section XIV.: Examination of Solicitors.
• Section XV.: Initiatory Examination of Parties, &c.
• Section XVI.: Appropriate Intercourse, Constant and Universal, Secured.
• Section XVII.: Mutual Security For Forthcomingness of Persons and Things. ‡
• Section XVIII.: Evidence-procuring Money, How Provided.
• Section XIX.: Subsequential Evidence, How Elicited.
• Section XX.: Execution, How Performed.
• Section XXI.: Equity Court Costs, How Disposed Of.
• Section XXII.: Dispatch Court Costs, How Disposed Of.
• Section XXIII.: Eventual Retrotransference of a Suit to the Equity Court.
• Section XXIV.: Expense of the Court, How Provided For.
• Supplemental Sections:—
• Section I. Or XXV.: Bankruptcy and Insolvency.
• Section II. Or XXVI.: Henceforward Dispatch Court.
• Schedules to the Bill.
• Plan of Parliamentary Reform, In the Form of a Catechism, With Reasons For Each Article: With an Introduction, Showing the Necessity of Radical, and the Inadequacy of Moderate, Reform.
• Introduction.
• Section I.: History of the Ensuing Tract—alarming State of the Country and the Constitution.
• Section II.: Most Prominent Present Grievance, Gareisoning France.
• Section III.: Causes of the Above and All Other Mischiefs:—particular Interests Monarchical and Aristocratical, Adverse to the Universal—their Ascendency.
• Section IV.: Sole Remedy In Principle—democratic Ascendency.
• Section V.: Remedy In Detail: Radical Parliamentary Reform: Elementary Arrangements In This Edition of It—their Necessity.
• Section VI.: Differences Between This and the Original Editions of Radical Reform.
• Section VII.: Virtual Universality of Suffrage Further Considered.
• Section VIII.: Virtual Universality of Suffrage—its Undangerousness.
• Section IX.: Freedom of Suffrage Further Explained—seductive Influence—its Forms, Instruments, &c.
• Section X.: Bribery and Terrorism Compared.
• Section XI.: Purchase of Seats—in What Cases Mischievous—in What Beneficial.
• Section XII.: Secresy of Suffrage—its Importance Further Developed.
• Section XIII.: Exclusion of Placemen, &c. From the Right of Voting—mischievousness and Profligacy of the Opposite Arrangement.
• Section XIV.: Universal Constancy of Attendance—its Importance.
• Section XV.: Representatives—impermanence of Their Situation—its Importance:—objections—their Groundlessness.
• Section XVI.: Moderate Reform—its Arrangements—their Inadequacy.
• Section XVII.: Trienniality Inadequate;—annuality Necessary.
• Section XVIII.: Interests Adverse to Adequate Reform—support Given By Them to Moderate, to the Exclusion of Radical: Tories—whigs—people’s Men.
• Catechism of Parliamentary Reform; Or, Outline of a Plan of Parliamentary Reform; In the Form of Question and Answer; With Reasons to Each Article.
• Section I.: Ends to Be Aimed At On the Occasion of Parliamentary Reform.
• Section II.: Means, Conducive Towards These Ends.
• Section III.: Means—their Uses, With Reference to Their Respective Ends.
• Section IV.: Means Conducive to Aptitude In Members: I. Placemen Not to Vote, Nor to Be Seated By Election.
• Section V.: Means, &c. Continued.—ii. Placemen Seated By the King, With Speech and Motion, Without Vote.
• Section VI.: Means, &c. Continued.—iii. Elections Frequent—annual.
• Section VII.: Means, &c. Continued.—iv. Speeches Authentically and Promptly Published.
• Section VIII.: Means, &c. Continued.—v. Attendance, Punctual and General, Secured.
• Section IX.: Inconveniences Incident to Elections, and Election Judicature.
• Section X.: Election Inconveniences—means For Their Removal.
• Section XI.: Collateral Advantages, Referable to the Situations of Electors, Placemen, Lords, &c.
• A Sketch of the Various Proposals For a Constitutional Reform In the Representation of the People, Introduced Into the Parliament of Great Britain, From 1770 to 1812.
• Radical Reform Bill, With Extracts From the Reasons.
• Preliminary Explanations.
• Title of the Proposed Act.
• Preamble.
• Section 1.—: Seats and Districts.
• Section 2.—: Electors, Who.
• Section 3.—: Eligible, Who.
• Section 4.—: Election Offices.
• Section 5.: Election Apparatus.
• Section 6.—: Promulgation of Recommendations In Favour of Proposed Members.
• Section 7.—: Voters’ Titles Pre-established.
• Section 8.—: Election, How.
• Section 9.: Election Districts and Polling Districts, How Marked Out.
• Section 10.—: Vote-making Habitations, How Defined.
• Section 11.—: Members’ Continuance.
• Section 12.—: Vacancies Supplied.
• Section 13.—: Security For the House Against Disturbance By Members. †
• Section 14.—: Indisposition of Speakers Obviated.
• Appendix, Including General Explanations.
• Radicalism Not Dangerous. Extracted From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham. *
• Part I.—: Introduction.
• Section I.: Radical Reform Bill Recapitulated.
• Section II.: Persuasion of the Dangerousness of Radicalism—cause of It, and of the Vituperative Expression Given to It.
• Section III.: Terms of the Accusation,—speeches From the Throne, 16 Th July and 21 St November 1819.
• Section IV.: The Accusation In General Terms—counter-averment.
• Section V.: Plan of This Defence.
• Part II.—: Deference From the General Nature of the Case.
• Section I.: Conditions Necessary to a Man’s Embarking In Such a Design.
• Section VII.: Concurrence In Any Other Extensive Plan of Spoliation Impossible.
• Section VIII.: Concurrence of Any Constituted Authorities Impossible.
• Section IX.: Accomplishment Impossible—design Impossible.
• Section X.: The Talked-of Spunge No Proof of the Design.
• Part III.—: Defence From Experience In the Case of the United States.
• Part IV.: Defence From Particular Experience In the Case of Ireland: Years 1777 Or 1778, to 1783.
• Section I.: Analogy Between This and the Previous Case.
• Section II.: Democratic Ascendency, How Produced.
• Section III.: Fruit of Democratic Ascendency a Golden Age.
• Section IV.: Coincidence of Its Characters With Those of Radicalism.
• Section VI.: Extinction of Democratic Ascendency and Reform—restoration of Monarchico-aristocratical Ascendency, and Its Consequences.
• Conclusion.

CHAPTER XI.

MORAL ADVANTAGES.

To the head of moral advantages may be referred two very distinct results:—prevention of improbity, and promotion of frugality: prevention of improbity, by furnishing (as we shall see) a new means or instrument of prevention; promotion of frugality, by the offer of a new species of property, which, by annexing an unprecedented remuneration to the exercise of that virtue, operates at once as an incentive and as a means.

I. As to prevention of improbity. The class of persons in whose instance it may operate to this effect, consists of trustees of every description, to whom it belongs to receive money on account of their principals—executors and administrators, guardians, stewards and receivers, assignees of bankrupts, prize-agents, factors, and the like.

To cause trust-monies, as often as a suitable case presents itself, to be laid out in the purchase of government annuities for the benefit of the principals, is, in the court of Chancery, matter of long-established practice—a practice which, by an act of very recent date, has received express support from parliament. The credit of the proposed new government annuities having been previously established by sufficient experience, let a similar investment of all trust-monies, as they come in, be rendered a matter of general obligation by an act of the legislature. A trust-receipt book to be kept with a trust-till. In the book, an entry to be made of each sum received, with the day on which it was received; the statement of the day to be indispensable. The money, if not received in the shape of annuity notes, to be sent to the office on that day or the next, to be changed into annuity notes; the notes received to be entered by their numbers; if the day be not entered, the first day of the year to be presumed, for the purpose of charging the trustee with the interest. The trust-paper, as received, to be deposited in the trust-till, to save it from being confounded with money of his own. This not to prevent the disposal of the amount to superior advantage (i. e. at a higher rate of interest than what is afforded by annuity notes) in as far as the nature of the trust admits of it.†

What is thus proposed to be rendered obligatory for the benefit of the principal, is no more than what a careful trustee would do spontaneously, either for the benefit of the principal or for his own, according to the texture of his conscience. Should a precaution thus simple and unexceptionable be neglected, the institution of annuity notes will be but too apt to operate as a premium for vice as well as virtue—a premium for improbity in the one situation, as well as for frugality in the other.

II. Lastly, as to promotion of frugality. We have seen the peculiar advantages which the proposed new species of property holds out to the acquirer. Within a trifling and unavoidable fraction, 2d. a-day: £3 for every £100 by the year—not for risk of lending, but for mere self-denial in not spending. Income, receivable without expense, and without stirring from his home. No attendance, no agency fees, no brokerage fees, no stamp-duty, either on purchase or on sale. No loss, on either occasion, by fluctuation of price. Not a day without its profit—profit by keeping, for the minutest as well as for the largest portions of time: conveyance obtainable for it by the post in the minutest portions as well as to the most distant parts of the island. Security afforded by division against misadventures of all sorts—against accidents and against crimes—in the house or on the road—by fire, water, or forgetfulness—from theft, robbery, burglary, or breach of trust. Compound interest brought within the reach of individuals for the first time.

In proportion to the degree in which it presents these several accommodations, in that same proportion does it act as an incentive to frugality:—in all classes in a certain degree, and in as far as current expenditure is concerned; but in a more especial degree, in those humble, and at the same time most numerous walks of life, in which it is of most importance to prudence, probity, and happiness.*

In the existing state of the money-market, the hoards of the opulent are prolific and accumulating: the hoards of the poor alone are dead and unproductive. By the proposed measure, the condition of the poor in this respect would be raised to a level—in the first instance not much below, and in process of time (as the price of stock annuities rose, and the rate of interest obtainable by the purchase of them diminished) altogether upon a par with, the condition of the rich.

A result not to be viewed without regret is, that in every period after the second, and in proportion as the rate of interest afforded by government annuities comes to be reduced, the encouragement thus given to frugality will thus be reduced likewise: for though, after the reduction, the remainder will be gain, as compared with the present period, yet the difference will be loss, in comparison of the period then last in experience. But in the meantime, the condition of the poor in this respect will, at any rate, have been raised to a level with that of the rich, and will so continue. The habit of frugality will have taken root, and having so done, may derive strength, rather than weakness, from the increased exertions it will be called upon to make.

[† ]Since the above was written, a passage has been discovered in Pinto, whereby it appears that at the date of his book (1771) a law to this effect existed in Holland, in respect of the interest-bearing paper of that country, termed obligations. [De la Circulation, et du Crédit, p. 81.] There is a great deal of good and a great deal of evil (he says) in the effects of this law: but the good appears to consist in the mode of employing the money as above—the evil, in the hands in which the management is reposed, or in some other such collateral circumstance as the forced sale of property, in whatever other shape it may be in, besides money, for the purpose of converting it into this.

[* ]Frugality, itself a virtue, is an auxiliary to all the other virtues: to none more than to generosity, to which, by the unthinking, it is so apt to be regarded as an adversary. The sacrifice of the present to the future, is the common basis of all the virtues: frugality is among the most difficult and persevering exemplifications of that sacrifice. Important in all classes, it is more particularly so in those which abound in uncultivated minds. In these, to promote frugality is to promote sobriety: to curb that raging vice which in peaceful times outstrips all other moral causes of unhappiness put together. In the prospects opened by frugality, the wife and children have a principal share: they derive nothing but vexation and distress from the money spent at the gin-shop or the ale-house. Compared with the prodigal, the hardest of misers is a man of virtue.

In the “Outline of a plan of provision for the poor,” as printed in Young’s Annals of Agriculture,a among the collateral uses there mentioned as derivable from the system of industry-houses there proposed, is that of their affording, each of them to its neighbourhood, a bank, for the reception and improvement of the produce of frugality on a small scale, under the name of a frugality bank. In the plan that was handed about of the then proposed Globe Insurance Company, since established by act of Parliament, among the uses mentioned as proposed to be made of the stock of such company, is that of carrying on the business of such a frugality bank, with a reference to the suggestions given in the above papers.

Were the proposed annuity-note paper to be emitted, “Every poor man might be his own banker:” every poor man might, by throwing his little hoards into this shape, make banker’s profit of his own money. Every country cottage—every little town tenement—might, with this degree of profit, and with a degree of security till now unknown, be a frugality bank.

[* ]Frugality, itself a virtue, is an auxiliary to all the other virtues: to none more than to generosity, to which, by the unthinking, it is so apt to be regarded as an adversary. The sacrifice of the present to the future, is the common basis of all the virtues: frugality is among the most difficult and persevering exemplifications of that sacrifice. Important in all classes, it is more particularly so in those which abound in uncultivated minds. In these, to promote frugality is to promote sobriety: to curb that raging vice which in peaceful times outstrips all other moral causes of unhappiness put together. In the prospects opened by frugality, the wife and children have a principal share: they derive nothing but vexation and distress from the money spent at the gin-shop or the ale-house. Compared with the prodigal, the hardest of misers is a man of virtue.

In the “Outline of a plan of provision for the poor,” as printed in Young’s Annals of Agriculture,a among the collateral uses there mentioned as derivable from the system of industry-houses there proposed, is that of their affording, each of them to its neighbourhood, a bank, for the reception and improvement of the produce of frugality on a small scale, under the name of a frugality bank. In the plan that was handed about of the then proposed Globe Insurance Company, since established by act of Parliament, among the uses mentioned as proposed to be made of the stock of such company, is that of carrying on the business of such a frugality bank, with a reference to the suggestions given in the above papers.

Were the proposed annuity-note paper to be emitted, “Every poor man might be his own banker:” every poor man might, by throwing his little hoards into this shape, make banker’s profit of his own money. Every country cottage—every little town tenement—might, with this degree of profit, and with a degree of security till now unknown, be a frugality bank.

[a]See that work as reprinted in the present collection.