Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/137

Rh Statute Book till towards the end of the eighteenth. And even yet forestalling is considered to be a misdemeanour at common law, and punishable by fine and imprisonment.

A still more direct attempt to derange the natural balance of supply and demand was made by parliament in 1315, when, with the view of relieving the people from the pressure of a severe famine, it was enacted that all articles of food should be sold at certain prescribed prices. It was strangely forgotten that the evil did not lie in the high prices, but the scarcity, of which they were the necessary consequence. That scarcity, of course, the act of parliament could not cure. In fact, food became more difficult to procure than ever; for even those who had any to sell, and would have brought it to market if they could have had a fair price for it, withheld it rather than dispose of it below its value. What was sold was for the most part sold at a price which violated the law, and which was made still higher than it would otherwise have been by the trouble and risk which the illegality of the transaction involved. Butcher-meat disappeared altogether; poultry, an article of large consumption in those times, became nearly as scarce; grain was only to be had at enormous prices. The result was, that the king and the parliament, after a few months, becoming convinced of their mistake, hastened to repeal the act.

The same thing in principle and effect, however, was repeated not many years after, by acts passed to fix the wages of labourers,—in other words, the price of the commodity called labour. In 1349 (the 23rd of Edw. III.), immediately after what is called the Great pestilence, there was issued (apparently by the authority of the king, although it is printed as a statute) "An Ordinance concerning Labourers and Servants;" which directed, first, that persons of the class of servants should be bound to serve when required; and secondly, that they should serve for the same wages that were