Page:Earle, Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty, 1920, 041.jpg

Rh came to be recognized that the acts prohibited by the engrossing, forestalling, etc., statutes did not have the harmful tendency, * * *  but, on the contrary tended to fructify and develop trade," and had, therefore, been repealed.  "This would seem to manifest, either consciously or intuitively, ''a profound conception as to the inevitable operation of economic forces and the equipoise or balance in favor of the protection of the rights of individuals which resulted. * * * After all, this was but an instinctive recognition of the truisms that the course of trade could not be made free by obstructing it, and that an individual's right to trade would not be protected by destroying such right.''  From the review just made, it clearly results that  * * *  outside of the want of right to restrain the free course of trade by contracts or acts which implied a wrongful purpose, freedom to contract and to abstain from contradicting and to exercise every reasonable right incident thereto became the rule in the English law. The scope and effect of this freedom to trade and contract is clearly shown by the decision in (1892), A. C. 25. * * * here, as had been the case in England, practical common sense caused attention to be concentrated  * * *  to the result itself and to the remedying of the evils which it produced. * * * It is also true that  * * *  the principles concerning contracts in restraint of trade  * * *  came generally to be recognized in accordance with the English rule, it came moreover to pass that contracts or acts which it was considered had a monopolistic tendency, especially those which were thought to unduly diminish competition and hence to enhance prices  * * *  came also  * * *  to be spoken of and treated as they "had been in England.  * * *  very briefly