"Why, the last work on theological morality, printed at
Paris this very year, speaks of the Mohatra, and learnedly, too. It is
called Epilogus Summarum, and is an abridgment of all the summaries of
divinity- extracted from Suarez, Sanchez, Lessius, Fagundez,
Hurtado, and other celebrated casuists, as the title bears. There
you will find it said, on p. 54, that 'the Mohatra bargain takes place
when a man who has occasion for twenty pistoles purchases from a
merchant goods to the amount of thirty pistoles, payable within a
year, and sells them back to him on the spot for twenty pistoles ready
money.' This shows you that the Mohatra is not such an unheard-of term
as you supposed."
"But, father, is that sort of bargain lawful?"
"Escobar," replied he, "tells us in the same place that there
are laws which prohibit it under very severe penalties."
"It is useless, then, I suppose?"
"Not at all; Escobar, in the same passage, suggests expedients for
making it lawful: 'It is so, even though the principal intention
both of the buyer and seller is to make money by the transaction,
provided the seller, in disposing of the goods, does not exceed
their highest price, and in re-purchasing them does not go below their
lowest price, and that no previous bargain has been made, expressly or
otherwise.' Lessius, however, maintains that 'even though the merchant
has sold his goods, with the intention of re-purchasing them at the
lowest price, he is not bound to make restitution of the profit thus
acquired, unless, perhaps, as an act of charity, in the case of the
person from whom it had been exacted being in poor circumstances,
and not even then, if he cannot do it without inconvenience- si
commode non potest.
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