In straight and level flight the total lift is always equal to weight. This question asks about wing lift.
Although there are other bits of lift, here they are really looking at the effect of tailplane lift. With a fwd CG the wing/cg couple becomes increasingly nose down. To counter this the tail/CG couple goes increasingly nose up, downward tail forces increasing. Now the wing has to lift both the aircraft and the tail downward component, so wing lift has to be bigger.
Total lift, wing plus tail, remains the same.
For cruise economy you would prefer the other setup, with the tail adding to lift rather than subtracting.
To do this you have to have an aft, unstable, CG. Nevertheless, this is done, and it is called "reduced stability cruise"
CG position, for the same reasons, impacts on level flight stalling speed.