Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/136

134 supposed mischiefs of forestalling. The statute "De Pistoribus" (attributed by some to the 51st year of Hen. III., by others to the 13th of Edw. I.) contains the following empassioned description and denouncement of this offence: "But specially be it commanded, on the behalf of our lord the king, that no forestaller be suffered to dwell in any town, which is an open oppressor of poor people, and of all the commonalty, and an enemy of the whole shire and country; which for greediness of his private gains doth prevent others in buying grain, fish, herring, or any other thing to be sold coming by land or water, oppressing the poor and deceiving the rich; which carrieth away such things, intending to sell them more dear; the which come to merchant strangers that bring merchandize, offering them to buy, and informing them that their goods might be dearer sold than they intended to sell, and an whole town or a country is deceived by such craft and subtlety." It might be supposed from all this that the forestaller bought the commodity for the purpose of throwing it into the sea or otherwise destroying it; it seems to have been forgotten that, like all other dealers, he bought it only that he might sell it again for more than it cost him, that is to say, that he might preserve it for a time of still higher demand and greater necessity. But for him, when that time of greater scarcity came, there would be no provision for it; if the people were pinched now, they would be starved then. The forestaller is merely the economical distributor, who, by preventing waste at one time, prevents absolute want at another; he destroys nothing; on the contrary, whatever he reserves from present consumption, is sure to be reproduced by him in full at a future day, when it will be still more needed. Were it otherwise, forestalling would be the most losing of all trades, and no law would be required to put it down. The English laws against forestalling, regrating, and engrossing, however, cannot well be made a reproach to the thirteenth century, seeing that they were formally renewed and extended in the sixteenth, and were not finally removed from the