Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/431

403 LOTTERY BONpS. 403 The most elementary principles of political economy formally condemn lotteries. Are lottery bonds, then, to be condemned on the same footing with lotteries? Such is the question. The sys- tem of lottery bonds has its obstinate partisans. It counts also unyielding adversaries, and it is among the latter that we take our place. The partisans of lottery bonds, at the head of whom in France are the celebrated economist, Michel Chevalier, and M. Paul Leroy- Beaulieu,^ have several times pleaded the cause of lottery bonds. They claim that there is a great difference between lotteries and lottery loans. I. In the lottery there are a few winning tickets only, while most of the holders of tickets lose their investment entirely. In lottery loans, however, those who do not gain a prize may always rely on the return of their investment. 2. The lottery ticket brings no interest. The lottery bond is a deed of investment, to which a reasonable interest is attached. 3. The fascination of the lottery chances which are attached to the bonds permits the borrower to obtain a diminution in the demands of the investors for the rate of annual interest. The lottery bond, they continue, far from being detrimental, is sovereignly useful to society, for it renders saving attractive. Far from destroying the practice, which lotteries do, the lottery loan stimulates it. Many small fortunes have for an origin the charm exercised by a prize. Wh^n a man has once conceived a liking for transferable securities in this form, he quickly becomes used to all. He has taken a first step in the way of saving, and soon makes other investments. The lottery bond is no more reprehensible, no more immoral, than a hundred other ways of becoming rich which are considered lawful and legitimate. The lottery bond is for our city population what the bit of ground is for the peasant, — saving rendered attractive not only to the reason, but also to the imagination.^ Economists do not always advocate lottery bonds without reservation in their approval of the system. They blame it spe- cially for paying a low interest, sensibly inferior to that of other steady securities; for charming small capitals too easily, which could find equally sure investment with higher interest elsewhere for the same capital, and for favoring speculation. Hence they 1 Leroy-Beaulieu, Traite de la Science des Finances, 5th ed., Paris, 1891, Book II. pp. 34r et seq. a Ibid.