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At common law, then, these obnoxious acts may be analyzed into five definite heads: forestalling, regrating, and engrossing which have been thoroughly defined in an earlier chapter and the modern form of which in modern language might be called restraining production or fixing prices, the buying and selling of futures or gambling contracts, and cornering the market restraint of trade, and monopoly.
The Statute of York, giving free trade to merchants, is re-enacted, and it is specified that they may sell in gross or by retail "notwithstanding any Franchise, Grant or Custom," but they are forbidden to sell to each other for purposes of regrating and they must sell wines in the original package and "Spicery by whole Vessels and Bales."
And forestalling, regrating, and engrossing were things early recognized as criminal in England, and these statutes embody much of what is sound in the present legislation against trusts.
The famous Statute of Laborers forbade laboring men to ask or receive more than a prescribed low sum for their labor and also forbade their moving about seeking employment. The statutes against forestalling, regrating, and engrossing were not formally repealed until 1844.
He was always trying to remedy some evil which did not properly fall within his province: and the consequence was that he increased the evils which he attempted to remedy. He was so much shocked by the distress inseparable from scarcity that he made statutes against forestalling and regrating, and so turned the scarcity into a famine.
Nine years before this statute is the Assize of Bread and Beer, attempting to fix the price of bread according to the cost of wheat, but notable to us as containing both the first pure-food statute and the first statute against "forestalling." Now forestalling, regrating, and engrossing are the early English phrases for most of the unlawful or unmoral actions which we ascribe to the modern trust.
The regrating of wools and fish is again forbidden, and finally there is an act for the true making of Pynnes; that is to say, they are to be double headed and the heads "soudered fast to the Shanke."
After all, perhaps, the most effectual method for supplying Westminster with plenty of fish at reasonable rates, would be to execute with rigour the laws already enacted against forestalling and regrating, an expedient that would soon dissolve all monopolies and combinations among the traders; to increase the number of markets in London and Westminster, and to establish two general markets at the Nore, one on each side of the river, where the fishing vessels might unload their cargoes, and return to sea without delay.
We have legislation against speculation in theatre tickets, as well as in cotton or grain. "Engrossing" is really the result of a successful forestalling, with or without regrating; that is to say, it is a complete "corner of the market"; from it our word "grocer" is derived.
And the last statute we shall note, like the first, is concerned with regrating and engrossing; that is to say, it re-enacts the Statute of Edward VI prohibiting the engrossing of butter and cheese, and prohibiting middlemen. Thus restraint of trade and freedom of labor begin and end as the most usual subjects of English popular law-making.
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