Question IV: Whether exchange is lawful when the banker's agent answers for the banker with the banker's own money

UNDERSTAND that in Exchange by letter, four parties intervene, that the Exchange may be perfect. The first is the Banker: the second the Banker's correspondent: the third the Banker's Respondent: the fourth the Respondent of the correspondent. The Banker therefore gives money to the correspondent, and from him in turn receives a promise that it be paid elsewhere. He assigns this obligation to his Respondent, so that he may receive the money there; and likewise the correspondent writes to his respondent, that he pay it; the payment having been made, the Exchange is perfect; and about this there is no controversy, whether it be licit; for there is a true permutation, transfer, and payment of money. But often the correspondent has no respondent in the place of payment, and so he has recourse to a merchant, who writes to his agent dwelling in that city, say Rome, that he pay such money to the agent, or respondent, of the Banker who has advanced it in this city, say Brescia. This too is licit, provided three other conditions intervene. The same must be said if the payment there is made through a servant out of the moneys of that same servant.

THE CONTROVERSY is in the case in which the Banker has no respondent in that place, but a servant, and the Banker writes to him, that out of the Banker's own proper moneys he pay to himself on behalf of the correspondent that money which he received in another province.

THIS Exchange they proclaim to be usurarious: Sotus de Iust. lib. 6. quaest. 10. art. 1. and quaest. 13. art. 1. Comitol. lib. 3. quaest. 15. and 16. Molina tract. 2. disp. 404. Mercatus de contract. lib. 4. cap. 7. Tanner. 2. 2. disp. 4. quaest. 7. dub. 5. num. 149. and 150. Roderic. lib. 3. de annuis redditibus, quaest. 5. num. 27. Romoaldus Coli Tract. de Cambiis, cap. 22. Palacius lib. 3. de contract. cap. 3. Rebell. 2. lib. 11. quaest. 6 concl. 3. Iustinianus in tract. de Cambiis, Lupus in cap. ult. Naviganti, §. 2. sub num. 29. Tom. 7. Cavata tract. de Cambiis, tit. de Usura, V. quaero Campsores. fol. 242. and very many others, among whom Faber de restit. in 4. disp. 47. cap. 9. num. 292.

YET the opposite opinion he judges probable: Azor part. 3. lib. 10. cap. 9. quaestio 2. Megala 1. 2. lib. 2. cap. 16. quaest. 3. Naldus verb. Cambium, Author consil. 31. among the consilia, Navar. tract. 2. lib. 5. tit. de usuris, Salas Tract. de Cambiis, disp. 17. Lessius de iustitia, lib. 2. cap. 23. dub. 7. num. 71. Sà verb. Cambium, Homobonus de exam. part. 2. Tract. 9. cap. 17. quaest. 56. Salvatorius de Cambiis, part. 3. num. 5. Filliucius Tom. 2. tract. 35. part. 2. cap. 8. num. 436. Batthol. a S. Fausto in speculo, disp. 16. quaest. 22. num. 2. Tanner. disp. 4. quaest. 8. dub. 5. Salon de iustitia, Tom. 2. quaest. 4. de Cambiis, art. 2. controv. 12. Thomas Boninsignus cap. 7. de Cambiis, num. 7. and 9. Scortia in constit. Pontif. epitome 107. Theorem. 291. and an anonymous Theologian in a tract de Cambiis, published at Milan, apud Bidellum in the year 1623. where he cites Marinus Fornarius, and Cosmas Stella of the Society of Jesus. Diana p. p. Tract. 8. resol. 2. who asserts that very many of his own Religion, and of the Society of Jesus, hold this; Caspensis tract. 19. sect. 5. who says it does not seem damnable, since it is practiced by all the Merchants in Spain, France, Italy, and the Low Countries, with the supreme Pontiffs knowing, or at least the Ordinaries of the places, who would not permit it if the contract were usurarious.

IN St. Bonaventure I find nothing, except sermon 4. on several holy martyrs; where he says the office of money-changers is to test gold, or silver, or whatever metal struck into denarii.

THEREFORE this Exchange is proved licit by them first from the letter of Pius V. to the Bolognese, where he speaks thus: Che ogni persona possa dar danari a Cambio, e che le lettere syno recapitate sopra essi datari, e cosi tener li suoi Cambii sino che saranno imborsati da chi havera preso i danari. There the Pontiff speaks absolutely, without distinction of a proper or another correspondent; of one's own, or another's money.

THIS same was thus declared by the Sacred Congregation of the Most Eminent Cardinals to the Archbishop of Palermo, in the year 1574. the matter having been referred to the Most Holy Gregory XIII.

THEY also strive to prove this Exchange by reasons, because it suffices for a real Exchange that in the place where the exchange is made the correspondent have money in very truth, actually or in credit: but the correspondent, in this second manner, there has money, because there the Banker lends it: Therefore. It is confirmed, for if the servant were to lend his credit, which he has with the Banker, he could pay him, and so forth.

I CONFESS that these, or other reasons, do not move me; for in that place the correspondent has not real money, but fictitious money from the Banker. For what credit does he have with the Banker? Nay rather it seems express simulation; for an Exchange requires a diversity of moneys, a diversity of persons; but here there is one true person, that is, the Banker, who feigns that he is also the correspondent, and pays to himself. It is also one money, the Banker's. It is confirmed: Contracts of permutation require real permutations; but permutation is of several, and of one with another, that it may be proved whether commutative equality be present; and therefore the holy Doctor says that the money-changer, by his office, if he be a true money-changer, is to test the variety, and diversity of money, and to examine whether a true permutation intervene in the price, etc.; otherwise what comparison of the same with itself?

NOR let them say, with Diana loco cit. Caspensis num. 28. Lessius num. 63. Scauia de commerciis, et Cambio, §. 6. that the Banker's servant represents two persons, namely the Banker's and the correspondent's; such Metaphysical subtleties often vanish in moral matters; for Persons are multiplied insofar as they contract, and are dealers in moneys; not, however, as they run about, as they are men; for in this they are too much materially constituted. Thus formally they are several, inasmuch as they are contracting; but there is no commutative contract, unless there is a real permutation. Let them tell me, where indeed is the permutation of the Banker's money with the Banker's money? Granted that it were carried even by many beasts of burden, promised by a herd of menservants and maidservants, etc.

I REVERE the decree of the supreme Pontiff, if it existed; but this which they adduce does not concede this manner of Exchange, but only a real Exchange, che possano dar danari a Cambio, but where indeed is the exchange of denarii in this case? See Iustinianus.

AS TO the Sacred Congregation, I say that it declared only that this Exchange is not contained in the things forbidden by Pius V. in the Extravagant, in which three kinds of Exchange are condemned. The first, in which the letters are not sent. The second, in which they are sent, but return empty. The third, when payments are made in the same place: whether it be licit is not declared by the Sacred Congregation.

THIS opinion therefore I judge dangerous, as even Diana confesses, and therefore this Exchange is not to be praised, or recommended, whether by counsel, or by persuasion. The same confess Filliucius num. 438. Caspensis num. 29. and others with Tanner num. 147.

I urge this, however, by the argument of St. Bonaventure in the speculum animae, cap. 2. §. tertius principalis fructus iniustitiae.

LET US DEAL, my money-changers, sincerely, and in friendship, and let us doff the cloak, and search the naked exchange down to the Anatomy. You surely do not pursue this most frequent contract out of CHARITY, but for gain: Therefore you give most frequently, and of set purpose, for gain, so that it be restored in the same place, and thus you intend to take gain from the delayed payment. This you seriously intend; the rest are childish rattles, and comic, as when a servant plays the parts of the correspondent and the Banker too, distinct by merely Scotist formalities. I exhort you therefore earnestly that you come to your senses, and seriously weigh the salvation of your souls; for God cannot be deceived.

This then is that Exchange called cum La Ricorsa, which almost coincides with the Exchange of continuation, in which the re-exchange is multiplied; it smells ill.