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The proportion which the usual market rate of interest ought to

bear to the ordinary rate of clear profit, necessarily varies as

profit rises or falls. Double interest is in Great Britain

reckoned what the merchants call a good, moderate, reasonable

profit; terms which, I apprehend, mean no more than a common and

usual profit. In a country where the ordinary rate of clear

profit is eight or ten per cent. it may be reasonable that one

half of it should go to interest, wherever business is carried on

with borrowed money. The stock is at the risk of the borrower,

who, as it were, insures it to the lender; and four or five per

cent. may, in the greater part of trades, be both a sufficient

profit upon the risk of this insurance, and a sufficient

recompence for the trouble of employing the stock. But the

proportion between interest and clear profit might not be the

same in countries where the ordinary rate of profit was either a

good deal lower, or a good deal higher.