FORESTALLING, in Law, is, by statute 5th and 6th Edw. VI., c. 14, described to be the buying or contracting for any merchandise or victual coming in the way to market; or dissuading persons from bringing their goods or provisions there; or persuading them to enhance the price when there. This, as well as engrossing, which is the buying up of large quantities of corn, or other dead victuals, with intent to sell them again, and regrating, the buying up of such commodities in any market, and selling them again in the same market, or within four miles of it, was looked upon as injurious to the public, by unnecessarily tending to raise the price of provisions; and accordingly several statutes were passed prohibiting forestalling under severe penalties. Statute 31st Edw. I. enacted that "no forestaller shall be suffered to dwell in any town who manifestly is an oppressor of the poor, a public enemy of the whole comminialtie and countree, who meeting grain, fish, herring, and other things coming by land or by water to bee solde, doeth make haste to buy them before other, thirsting after wicked gaine, oppressing the poor, and deceiving the rich." By the statute of Edw. VI. already referred to, it was enacted that whoever should buy any corn or grain with intent to sell it again, should for the first offence suffer two months' imprisonment, for the second, six months' imprisonment, and forfeit double its value, and for the third, be set in the pillory, suffer imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and forfeit all his
goods and chattels. This statute further enacted that no one could transport corn from one part to another without a licence, ascertaining his qualifications as a man of probity and fair dealing.
The very imperfect knowledge of political economy that then prevailed led to the belief that the intervention of a third party between the producer and consumer tended to raise the price of provisions, and that corn would be bought from the farmer cheaper than from the corn-merchant. It may seem somewhat strange that though the law thus compelled the farmer to deal directly with the consumer, yet it in many cases prohibited the manufacturer from selling his own wares by retail, in order that the shopkeepers might not be undersold. The farmer was thus forced to carry on two trades; and part of the capital which should have been employed in the improvement and cultivation of land was obliged to be kept in his granaries and stockyard: whereas the corn-merchant, by affording a ready market for the farmer's produce, enables him to employ his whole capital in cultivation; and the existence of a free competition obliges the corn-merchant to sell his corn as cheap as the farmer could afford to do. The principle here is the same as in manual labour. The workman who is wholly employed in one operation accomplishes a greater quantity of work, and can afford to do it at a cheaper rate, than one who has to carry on several operations; and, in the same way, the dealer whose whole stock is employed in a single branch of business acquires so easy and ready a method of transacting business that, with the same capital, he can carry on a much larger business, and so dispose of his goods cheaper than if his capital and attention were employed in a greater variety of objects. "If," says Adam Smith, "a merchant ever buys up corn, either going to a particular market, or in a particular market, in order to sell it again soon after in the same market, it must be because he judges that the market cannot be so liberally supplied through the whole season as upon that particular occasion, and that the price therefore must soon rise."
The rigour of the statute of Edward VI. was very much softened by subsequent statutes, which successively permitted the engrossing of corn when the price of wheat should not exceed 20s., 24s., 32s., and 48s. the quarter; and statute 12th Geo. III., cap. 71, repealed the restrictions and penalties imposed by previous statutes, which by preventing a free trade in corn and other victuals, had a tendency to discourage the growth and enhance the price of the same. This statute, however, did not declare that these offences should no longer be indictable at common law; and hence we find that when, in 1800, the price of corn rose to an unusual height, the clamour against the corn-dealers was so loud that one of the name of Rusby was indicted for the offence of regrating, though he was not brought up for judgment. It was not till the passing of the act 7th and 8th Vict., cap. 24, that the several offences of badgering, engrossing, forestalling, and regrating, were utterly taken away and abolished. It declares "that no information, indictment, suit, or prosecution, shall lie either at common law, or by virtue of any statute, or be commenced or prosecuted against any person for or by reason of any of the said offences or supposed offences."