about those rates................

 

In truth, Child's advocacy for lower rates was intensely self-interested.  Like a modern buyout baron's, his control of the East India Company, where he was shortly to become Governor, was maintained through the extensive use of debt: the greater the gap between the company's profits and the cost of borrowing, the greater his personal gains. . . .

There was a sense that higher interest rates improved the quality of lending.  The author of 'Usury at Six percent Examined' (1669) claimed that a reasonable lending charge ensured that money got into the best hands:  "Tis much better for the publick,' . . . Thomas Manley added that lowering the rate of interest would involve robbing Peter (the creditor) to pay Paul (the borrower).

-Edward Chancellor, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest