The Scanctity of Contracts in English Law

THE HAMLYN LECTURES
TENTH SERIES
THE SANCTITY OF CONTRACTS

IN
ENGLISH LAW
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THE SANCTITY OF
CONTRACTS
IN
ENGLISH LAW
BY
SIR DAVID HUGHES PARRY,

Q.C., M.A., LL.D., D.C.L.
An Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple,
Professor of English Law in the University of London
Published under the auspices of

THE HAMLYN TRUST
LONDON
STEVENS & SONS LIMITED

1959
First published in 1959 by

Stevens & Sons Limited of
119 & 120 Chancery Lane
London Law Publishers
and printed in Great Britain
by the Eastern Press Ltd.
of London and Reading
Stevens A Sons, Limited

1959
CONTENTS
The Hamlyn
1.
Trust
page vii
G R O W T H O F SANCTITY O F CONTRACTS
The Moral Basis of ContractThe Influence of

the Ecclesiastical CourtsContracts in the Court
of ChanceryEnforceability of Contracts at
Common LawThe Influence of Benthamism
Nineteenth Century Views of Contracts: The
Historical SchoolThe "Will Theory" of ContractsConclusion
2. ENCROACHMENTS ON SANCTITY OF CONTRACTS
Contracts which Equity Declined to Enforce
Curtailment of Freedom of Contract by the
LegislatureContracts entered into on Sunday
Wagering ContractsInfants' ContractsTruck
ActsMoneylenders ActsHire-Purchase Acts
Labour LegislationTrade Union Legislation
3.
19
CURTAILMENT OF F R E E D O M OF CONTRACT BY
THE
COMMON L A W C O U R T S
39
Implied TermsImpossibility of Performance

Contracts Contrary to Law or MoralityContracts in Restraint of TradeMonopolies and
Restrictive PracticesExecutive Arrangements
4.
A COMPARISON AND CONCLUSIONS .
The Obligation of Contracts Clause in the

American ConstitutionConclusions
67
HAMLYN LECTURERS
1949 The Right Hon. Lord Denning
1950 Richard O'Sullivan, Q.c.
1951 F . H. Lawson
1952
A. L. Goodhart, K.B.E., Q . C , F.B.A.
1953 Sir Carleton Kemp Allen, Q.c,

1954
F.B.A.
C. J. Hamson
1955 Glanville Williams, LL.D.

1956 The Hon. Sir Patrick Devlin
1957 The Right Hon. Lord MacDermott
1958 Sir David Hughes Parry, Q . C , M.A.,
D.C.L.
VI
LL.D.,
THE HAMLYN TRUST

THE Hamlyn Trust came into existence under the
will of the late Miss Emma Warburton Hamlyn, of
Torquay, who died in 1941, aged 80. She came of
an old and well-known Devon family. Her father,
William Bussell Hamlyn, practised in Torquay as a
solicitor for many years. She was a woman of
dominant character, intelligent and cultured, well
versed in literature, music and art, and a lover of her
country. She inherited a taste for law, and studied
the subject. She travelled frequently on the Continent
and about the Mediterranean and gathered impressions
of comparative jurisprudence and ethnology.
Miss Hamlyn bequeathed the residue of her estate
in terms which were thought vague. The matter was
taken to the Chancery Division of the High Court,
which on November 29, 1948, approved a scheme for
the administration of the Trust. Paragraph 3 of the
Scheme is as follows:
" The object of this charity is the furtherance
by lectures or otherwise among the Common
People of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland of the knowledge of the
Comparative Jurisprudence and the Ethnology of
the chief European countries, including the United
Kingdom, and the circumstances of the growth
of such jurisprudence to the intent that the
Common People of the United Kingdom may
realise the privileges which in law and custom
they enjoy in comparison with other European
vii
viii
The Hamlyn Trust
Peoples and realising and appreciating such

privileges may recognise the responsibilities and
obligations attaching to them."
The Trustees under the Scheme number nine, viz.:
/ \ * r. T7- /-.
( Executors of
(a) Mr. S. K. COLERIDGE
-r T . TIT
Mr. J . R. WARBURTON
.
, ,
TT
( Miss Hamlyn S
(b) Representatives of the Universities of

London, Wales, Leeds, Glasgow and
Belfast, viz.:
Professor G. W. KEETON,
Professor D. J . LI. DAVIES,
Professor P . S. JAMES,
Professor D. M. WALKER,
Professor J . L. MONTROSE.
(c) The Vice-Chancellor of the University of

Exeter, ex officio ( D R . J . W. COOK).
(d) D R . JOHN MURRAY
(co-opted).
The Trustees decided to organise courses of lectures

of high interest and quality by persons of eminence
under the auspices of co-operating Universities with
a view to the lectures being made available in book
form to a wide public.
The tenth series of lectures was delivered by Sir
David Hughes Parry, at the University of Exeter in
February and March, 1959.
JOHN MURRAY,
Chairman of the Trustees.
March, 1959
CHAPTEK 1
GROWTH OF SANCTITY OF CONTRACTS

INTRODUCTION
WHEN we read the arguments of counsel and the
opinions of judges in actions for breaches of contract during the last three or four centuries we find
fundamental changes in the views held with respect
to the nature of contracts, the purpose of enforcing
contracts and the relation of breaches of contract to
morality generally. In other words, even in modern
times, the juristic conceptions of the nature of a
contract and of the place of a law of contract in the
scheme of things have varied to a remarkable degree.
It will be my aim in these lectures to make a
general study of these changing conceptions: changes
which are to be seen and felt in the field of legislation
as well as in that of judge-made law. But I shall
limit my study, for the most part, to the reports of
cases during these last four hundred years and shall
make only a brief review of relevant legislation and
the works of text writers. My object is to draw
attention to the different changes and to try and
outline their causes and general effects.
THE MORAL BASIS OF CONTRACT
In the 1953 Hamlyn Lectures, English Laiv and the

Moral Law,1 Professor Goodhart stated that " the
1
p. 10.
Growth of Sanctity of Contracts
moral basis of contract is that the promisor has by

his promise created a reasonable expectation that it
will be kept." He could have found support for this
view in the words of a former Oxford professor, Sir
Thomas Erskine Holland; for Holland (writing in
1916) in his book on Jurisprudence2 declared that
" when the law enforces contracts it does so to
prevent disappointment of well-founded expectations,
which, though they usually arise from expressions
truly representing intention, yet may occasionally
arise otherwise." In fact, however, Professor Goodhart, not unnaturally, sought confirmation of his view
on the American continent and found it in the
following quotation from an American legal classic,
namely, Professor Corbin's eight-volume work on the
Lavo of Contracts 3 : " That portion of the field of law
that is classified and described as the law of contracts
attempts the realisation of reasonable expectations
that have been induced by the making of a promise.
Doubtless, this is not the only purpose by which men
have been motivated in creating the law of contracts;
but it is believed to be the main underlying purpose,
and it is believed that an understanding of many
of the existing rules, and a determination of their
effectiveness require a lively consciousness of their
underlying purpose."
There are at least three good reasons which can be
advanced in support of Professor Goodhart's view of
the moral basis of contract in English law. One is
2
12th ed. (1916) at p. 262.
3
Law of Contracts, 1950, Vol. 1, p. 2.
The Moral Basis of Contract
historical, another commercial or economic and the

third equitable.
Our early common law had no general theory of
contract in the sense that, provided they satisfied
certain legal tests, promises or agreements generally
should be enforceable by the courts. All that it had
was a system of writs designed to protect rights
deriving from a few transactions giving rise to what
we would now describe as contractual, but which were
then regarded as proprietary, interests. When in
the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the
King's courts of common law were evolving new and
more general remedies for breaches of contracts, an
all-important new departure consisted in the extension
of an " action on the case " 4 to cover instances of
non-feasancein less technical language, when a writ
became available against a promisor who had made
a binding promise and never performed it. The
promisor had by his deceit in undertaking to do
something for another and then failing to carry out
his promise caused injury to that other (generally
known to lawyers as the " promisee"), for which
injury the promisee was entitled to recover damages.
This form of action on the case, which ultimately
became the normal remedy for breaches of contract
generally, was evolved as a method of redressing the
damage suffered by a promisee who had been disappointed by the failure of his promisor to redeem
his promise.
4
See on this generally, Pluoknett, Concise History

Common Law, 5th ed., pp. 372-373, 637 et seq.
of the
The second reason, as I have said, is commercial

or economic. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
trade and commerce, national and international, were
fast becoming important in the economic life of the
country and they have remained of the greatest
importance to us ever since. Credit has always played
a vital part in trade and commerce. Merchants and
tradesmen do not give credit unless they can rely
upon their debtors to fulfil their promises and pay
their debts; or failing payment, can enforce those
promises in the courts of the land. As Sir George
Paton has so well put it,5 " Credit depends essentially
on ability to rely on the promises of others and thus
can flourish only where there is a fully developed
law of contract." Economic self-interest cannot
afford the general disappointment of creditors'
expectations.
The fact that all persons whose interests are affected
by an arrangement have freely and with full knowledge agreed on that arrangement is, in general,
cogent evidence in favour of its justice. When all
persons interested in a particular transaction have
given their consent to it and are satisfied, the law
may safely step in with its sanctions to guarantee that
right be done by the fulfilment of reasonable expectations. This constitutes a third clear reason why the
law should enforce agreements or promises.
But reasons other than that advanced by Professor
Goodhart have at different times been put forward to
5
Jurisprudence, 2nd ed., p. 350, citing Cairna, Law and the

Social Sciences, p. 82.
The Moral Basis of Contract
justify the legal enforcement of promises; and some of

those reasons have in their day had wide currency
and considerable influence. Indeed traces of these
influences may be discerned even into modern times.
As a distinguished American scholar has observed,6
" Even when a new generation of judges no longer
holds the same philosophic and economic views, it is
hard to escape the authority of previous decisions,
and previous grounds of decision. The change takes
place more slowly."
Before entering upon a consideration of other
reasons put forward in their day, it may not be without interest to mention a fact noted by Holland 7 : " I t
has been paradoxically maintained," he writes, " by
more than one writer of eminence that no assistance
should be given by law to the enforcement of agreements on the ground that they should be entered into
only with those whose honour can be trusted; and the
laws of Charondas and the ancient Indians are stated
to have proceeded on this principle."
THE INFLUENCE OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS
Before the common law courts had evolved a

general remedy for breaches of simple contracts, both
the ecclesiastical courts and the Court of Chancery
had, in some measure, tried to fill the wide gap in the
law left open by the common law writ system. Where
a promisor had pledged his faith to perform his
promisethat is to say, had made a promise or
Williston, 6 Cornell L.Q. 365.
Holland's Jurisprudence, 12th ed., p. 260.
entered into an agreement ratified by an oathand

then failed to fulfil that promise or agreement, his
failure constituted an ecclesiastical offence for which
he was answerable in the Church courts as a sinner
in need of correction. The King's courts, however,
seem to have steadfastly refused to enforce contracts
made or ratified only under such a pledge of faith:
and the Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164,8 discouraged
the ecclesiastical courts from attempting to enforce
them. Nevertheless these latter courts, in spite of
many prohibitions, continued from time to time to
exercise jurisdiction over persons who had pledged
their faith to perform contractual obligations and
then failed to honour their word.9 Professor Plucknett sums up the situation in these words: " The
Church very early took a strong view of the sanctity
of contractual relationships, insisting that in conscience the obligation of a contract was completely
independent of writings, forms and ceremonies, and
tried so far as she could to translate this moral theory
into terms of law." 10
The point I want to make is that although "sin,"
on the one hand, and " crime" and " breach of
contract " on the other are to us today quite distinct
conceptions, this was not always so; for the obligations of religion and of law in the field of promises
were in medieval times almost indistinguishable.
Throughout the medieval period, a pre-eminently
8
9
10
See generally Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common

Law, 5th ed., p. 17.
See generally on this Holds. H.E.L. Vol. Ill, pp. 414-415.
Plucknett, op. cit. at p. 627.
The Influence of the Ecclesiastical Courts
formative period in English law, there was an insistence

by canon lawyers that it was a religious duty to keep
faith, and notwithstanding the discouragements of the
Constitutions of Clarendon the influence of the
ecclesiastical conception of breaches of contracts must
have been considerable at a time when the foundations
of contract law were being discussed.
CONTKACTS IN THE COURT OF CHANCERY
During this same medieval interregnum, in the

absence of an adequate common law remedy for
breach of contract, the Court of Chancery, as well
as the ecclesiastical courts, was approached by
petitioners seeking redress for breaches of contract;
and as the great majority of the medieval chancellors
were ecclesiastics it was only natural for them to
follow much the same lines as the Church courts.11
Accordingly they offered remedies in cases where good
faith and honest dealing demanded enforcement of
promises. Sir William Holdsworth observes 12 that
this might well have brought the whole of the law of
contract under the jurisdiction of the Court of
Chancery, had not the common law courts awakened
11
See Plnoknett, op. cit. at p. 627. For a contrary view, see

Ames, Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Vol.
Ill, p. 309, where it is stated that there seema to be no
reason to suppose that the chancellors, in giving relief, were
influenced, even unconsciously, by any recollection of ecclesiastical traditions in regard to fidei laesio. " It was so
obviously just that one who had intentionally misled another
to his detriment should make good the loss, that we need
not go further afield for an explanation of the chancellor's
readiness to give a remedy upon such parol agreements."
Op. cit.
12 History of English Law, Vol. 1 (7th ed.), p. 456.
in time to the necessity of providing a remedy for

the breach of simple contracts.
There is no doubt but that the association of a
breach of contract with the sin of breach of faith in
the ecclesiastical courts and the readiness of the
Court of Chancery to regard failure to perform one's
promises as tantamount to bad faith and dishonest
dealing, combined to give to contracts a measure of
religious blessedness and to breaches of contract a
mark of sinful or unethical aberration.
ENFORCEABILITY OF CONTRACTS AT COMMON LAW
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the writ of assumpsit had opened the door
wider to provide a general remedy for the breach of
an agreement and before the doctrine of consideration had been fully defined as a workable criterion
for determining what agreements should be legally
enforceable, there was much discussion among the
judges of the duty to enforce moral obligations. Thus
in Button v. Poole 13 a promise, made by a son to his
father, to pay 1,000 to his sister, was held enforceable
by the sister. Chief Justice Scroggs expressed the
view that " there was such apparent consideration of
affection from the father to his children, for whom
nature obliges him to provide, that the consideration
and promise to the father may well extend to the
children." 13 Mr. Fifoot's apt commentary on the
case is that " the warmth of natural affection and the
recollection of paternal care sufficed to generate legal
13
(1677) 2 Lev. 210, 211-212.
Enforceability
of Contracts at Common Law
obligations between the members of a family." 1 4

Conveyancers had already recognised that such
" good" family consideration (as opposed to what
later became known as " valuable" consideration)
was sufficient for their purposes.
In Dutton v. Poole 14a and similar cases the judges,
while feeling their way, in manner characteristic of
the development of judge-made law, towards a
satisfactory test of enforceability of promises, edged
towards the establishment of morality as that test.
As Mr. Fifoot has observed,15 " the pressure of
morality had long been felt upon the practice of the
courts, and it needed only courage to transform its
maxims into a general principle of liability." 16 And
so it was not surprising that Lord Mansfield " with
his flair for rationalisation" should launch the
principle of moral obligation " upon a career which
promised to be triumphant." 15 Thus in Atkins v.
Hill,17 a successful action in assumpsit by a legatee
upon a promise by an executor with sufficient assets
to pay a legacy, the learned Chief Justice observed:
" . . . in the present case there is not only an assent
to the legacy, but an actual promise and an undertaking to pay it: and that promise founded on a
good consideration in law; . . . it is the case of a
14
Lord Mansfield at p. 135.

a (1677) 2 Lev. 210.
Op. cit. at pp. 136, 137.
16
Compare the position in the U.S.A. as regards liability to
a beneficiary on a third-party promise made for his benefit.
" I t is just and practical to permit the person for whose
benefit the contract is made to enforce it against one whose
diitv it is to pay " : Pound .T. in Seavey v. Ransom, 224 N.Y.
233. 237.
'
1' (1775) 1 Cowp 284. 288.
H.L.
2
u
15
10
promise made upon a good and valuable consideration,

which in all cases is a sufficient ground to support an
action. It is so in cases of obligations which would
otherwise only bind a man's conscience, and which
without such promise, he could not be compelled to
pay." 18
In a similar action brought seventeen years later
in Hawkes v. Saunders,19 Lord Mansfield restated his
view even more forcibly in these words 20 : " Where
a man is under a moral obligation, which no court of
law or equity can inforce, and promises, the honesty
and rectitude of the thing is a consideration. As if a
man promise to pay a just debt, the recovery of
which is barred by the Statute of Limitations: or if
a man, after he comes of age, promises to pay a
meritorious debt contracted during his minority . . .
or if a bankrupt, in affluent circumstances after his
certificate, promises to pay the whole of his debts;
or if a man promises to perform a secret trust, or a
trust void for want of writing, by the Statute of
Frauds."
Lord Mansfield's advocacy of the doctrine of moral
obligation was so constant and pressing that we are
in some danger today of regarding him as almost its
18
Compare Lord Coleridge C.J.'s observation in a case of manslaughter by neglect to provide food or medical attendance
for an aunt helplessly ill in the same house : " I t would
not be correct to say that every moral obligation involves a
legal duty; but every legal duty is founded on a moral
obligation. A legal common law duty is nothing else than
the enforcing by law of that which is a moral obligation
without legal enforcement " : The Queen v. Instan, [1893]
1 Q.B. 450, 453.
i (1782) 1 Cowp. 289.
2" At p. 290.
Enforceability of Contracts at Common Law 11

sole protagonist.21 That would be quite wrong, for
the reports show that many of the other judges of his
time shared his partiality for it; thus, to give only
one example, Buller J., also in Hawlces v. Saunders,
observed22: " I agree with my Lord, that the rule
laid down at the Bar, as to what is or is not a good
consideration, is much too narrow. The true rule is,
that wherever a defendant is under a moral obligation,
or is liable in conscience and equity to pay, that is
a sufficient consideration."
But the tide of judicial opinion had already begun
to flow against this general doctrine. In Rann v.
Hughes23 Skynner L.C.B. had already declared his
attitude in the following unmistakable terms :
" It is undoubtedly true that every man is by
the law of nature bound to fulfil his engagements.
It is equally true that the law of this country
supplies no means, nor affords any remedy, to
compel the performance of an agreement made
without sufficient consideration."
And as the technical doctrine of consideration was
more closely denned the more general test of morality
became less and less acceptable to the judges and the
profession. Thus in Littlefield v. SheeZi Lord Tenterden C.J. observed that " the doctrine that a moral
obligation is a sufficient consideration for a subsequent
21
Sir W i l l i a m H o l d s w o r t h describes h i m as h a v i n g " wrested

the m e a n i n g of the cases to justify his view t h a t a moral
obligation w a s a sufficient c o n s i d e r a t i o n " : H o l d s w o r t h , Some
Makers of English Law, p . 152.
2
2 At p . 294. See also Trueman
v . Fenton (1777) 2 Cowp. 544.
23
(1765) 4 B r o w n , P . G . 2 7 ; 7 T . E . 350, n.
2* (1831) 2 B. & Ad. 811, 813.
12
promise, is one which should be received with some

limitation."
But that it did not completely disappear before
nearly the middle of the nineteenth century is obvious
from the cases of Lee v. Muggeridge 25 and Eastwood
v. Kenyon. In the former case, the Chief Justice "
of Common Pleas observed 28 : " . . . it has been long
established, that where a person is bound morally
and conscientiously to pay a debt, though not legally
bound, a subsequent promise to pay will give a right
of action. The only question, therefore, is whether
upon this declaration there appears a good moral
obligation."
It was in the well-known case of Eastwood v.
Kenyan 29 that the doctrine received its death blow,
for it was in that case that Lord Denman declared
that " the doctrine would annihilate the necessity
for any consideration at all, in as much as the mere
act of giving a promise creates a moral obligation to
perform it. The enforcement of such promises by
law, however plausibly reconciled by the desire to
effect all conscientious engagements, might be attended
with mischievous consequence to Society; one of
which would be the frequent preference of voluntary
undertakings to claims for just debts."
Mr. Fifoot sums up 30 the influence and ultimate
25 (1813) 5 Taunt. 36.
26
(1840) 11 Ad. & E . 438.
27
I t is not without interest that the Chief Justice's name was
Mansfield (but not of course, Lord Mansfield).
28 5 Taunt, at p. 46.
29
(1840) 11 Ad. & E . 438, 450.
3
Op. cit. at pp. 140-141.
Enforceability of Contracts at Common Law 13

fate of the conception of morality as a general test
of actionability in these words :
" The invocation of morality had the virtue of
presenting a definition, which, if comprehensive,
was without a coherent competitor and which
could be used to discipline a quantity of refractory precedent. It escaped serious challenge for
a generation and was not expelled from the law
until the middle of the nineteenth century."
THE INFLUENCE OF BENTHAMISM
Long before Lord Mansfield and the judges of his

time had made their effort to press the claims of
morality upon the courts, political philosophers such
as Bodin and Hobbes had publicised their rationalistic
speculations on government, sovereignty and the
nature of law. The new gospel of reason moved
forward hand in hand with varying conceptions of
natural law, many of them based upon a clear
distinction between law and morality. The general
trend of the movement proved in due course to be in
the direction of recognising utility rather than morality
as the justification for the enforcement of obligations.
David Hume provided the philosophical background
by his teaching that everything which contributes to
the happiness of society " recommends itself directly
to our approbation and goodwill."
Jeremy Bentham propagated and elaborated this
new philosophy of utilitarianism, concentrating in
particular on its application to government and constitutional and legal reforms. Nature, he proclaimed,
14
has placed mankind under the governance of two

sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. They govern
us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think.
John Austin worked out the juristic implications of
this new school, starting with his emphasis on
sovereignty, which he proceeded to analyse at some
length, and his treatment of law as a command of
the sovereign. For our immediate purposes we can
safely generalise that he separated jurisprudence from
morals and specialised in the scientific and philosophical study of established legal institutions and
leading legal concepts such as rights, duties, property.
The purpose of the school of Analytical Jurisprudence
founded by Austin is well and succinctly described in
the current edition of Salmond on Jurisprudence 31 as
" to analyse without reference either to their ethical
origin or development or to their ethical significance
or validity, the first principles of the law."
Austin's followers,32 for example, Holland, Salmond
and Gray, followed suit; and their conclusion is that
contracts should be enforced so as to prevent disappointment of well-founded expectations.
NINETEENTH CENTUEY VIEWS OF CONTRACTS :
THE HISTORICAL SCHOOL
Side by side with the analytical school's conception

of contract there flourished from time to time other
philosophical and economic doctrines which had their
influence on contemporary ideas of the nature and
31
32
11th ed. at p. 4.
For a full list of his followers and their works, see Salmond
on Jurisprudence, 11th ed., p. 13, note (r).
Nineteenth Century Views of Contracts
15
purpose of the law of contract. There was for

example the historical school with its emphasis
on the gradual evolution of legal institutions, its
appreciation of the social and economic background
of those institutions and its great respect for the
national and individual characteristics in which legal
systems developed. Thus Maine declared that " the
jurist, properly so called, has nothing to do with any
ideal standard of law or morals." 33 Its outlook was
markedly traditionalist and it was on the whole
passive in its general attitude to law. Nevertheless
for this school the law of contract was specially
important; for it was at the same time a medium
whereby different communities and individuals gave
natural spontaneous expression to their convictions
and aspirations, and part of a process inevitable in
the general march of the spirit in history, evolving
liberation from the bonds of status. To use the words
of Sir George Paton in a somewhat different context,
since contract was the legal category which gave the
greatest means of self-expression its sphere was not
only increasing, but ought to be increased. The dictum
"status to contract" became not merely a convenient
generalisation of certain aspects of legal history but
an external principle the onward march of which
could not be stayed.34
THE " WILL. THEORY " OF CONTRACTS
Another theory that had considerable influence

during the latter part of the nineteenth century was
33 Early History of Institutions, 360-370.
Jurisprudence, 1st ed., p. 293.
34
16
" the will theory." This was founded on the view

that a contract was the result of a real agreement
between two or more parties and that such a union
of wills was inherently worthy of respect; for it
extended the reach of an individual's personality and
thereby tended to increase his freedom and worth in
the community.
The view that the essence of contract is agreement,
and the essence of agreement is a union of wills, was
not a new nineteenth-century conception. For as
Sir William Holdsworth has pointed out,36 it was
clearly recognised by the lawyers of the sixteenth
century. Thus in Broivning v. Bestonse (a case which
was much argued in 1552 and 1553) Counsel (Serjeant
Catline by name) contended in his argument that " in
contracts it is not material which of the parties speak
the words, if the other agrees to them, for the agreement of the minds of the parties is the only thing
the law respects in contracts, and such words as
express the assent of the parties, and have substance
in them, is sufficient."
But it was throughout the nineteenth century that
the doctrine bloomed in all its glory. Unfortunately
its protagonists were divided over one fundamental
aspect of it. Some argued that the wills of the parties
had to be in reality at one, others that it was
sufficient that the parties could be taken objectively
to have expressed their agreement without having
been really ad idem. Sir William Anson writing in
35 See H . B . L . , Vol. V I I I , p. 1.
(15S5) 1 Plowden 131, 140-141.
36
The " Will Theory " of Contracts
17
1882 stated his position in the controversy as

follows 37:
" While the consensus ad idem or agreement is
the ideal basis of contract, the court will assume
the existence as a necessary sequence of certain
overt acts of the parties. Their minds must
needs be out of reach of a court of law, but where
they exhibit all the phenomena of agreement the
existence of agreement will be taken for granted."
In the latest edition of Cheshire and Fifoot on the
Law of Contract3S the matter is put in this way :
" A contracting party . . . is bound because
he has agreed to be bound. Agreement, however,
is not a mental state but an act, and, as an act,
is a matter of inference from conduct. The
parties are to be judged not by what is in their
minds, but by what they have said or written or
done."
While the positive school drew a sharp line between
positive law on the one hand and morals and ethics
on the other, the advocates of the will theory saw in
law a rational means of attaining a spiritual end
through the freedom of the will. So they threw into
some confusion once more the place of the moral and
the ethical elements in legal conceptions.
CONCLUSION
The conclusion at which I have arrived during my

study of the development of the general law of
37
38
Principles of the English, Law of Contract, 2nd ed., p. 13.

4th ed. at pp. 21 22.
18
contract in England and of the remedies provided

by English law for the- redress of breaches of contract
is that throughout the greater part of that development the giving of a promise or the conclusion of an
agreement involved a solemn undertaking the breach
of which amounted in the eyes of the Church to a sin
and in the eyes of the general body of contemporary
lawyers to an immoral or unethical act. With the
special emphasis placed by the nineteenth-century
philosophers and jurists on the importance of freedom
and the manifestation and extension of an individual's
freedom through contract, it was not surprising that
contracts developed a juristic blessedness or halo and
were so often regarded as sacred. Their sanctity is
directly traceable to their early religious and ecclesiastical associations, their protection by the Court of
Chancery as a court of conscience, their importance
to international merchants as the foundation of
credit, and the prominent place that the individual
freedom which they fostered held in the eyes of
nineteenth-century jurists and political philosophers.
CHAPTER 2
ENCROACHMENTS ON SANCTITY
OF CONTRACTS
CONTRACTS WHICH EQUITY DECLINED TO ENFORCE
NOTWITHSTANDING the rejection by the courts of the
moral obligation test of actionability of contracts and
the evolution and adoption by them, in preference,
of the indifferent or neutral technical test of consideration, ethical or moral as well as social and
economic problems have kept intruding into the field
of enforceability of contracts. The intrusions have
come from courts of equity, from the legislature and
from the common law courts. We are so used to the
operation of the Court of Chancery as a Court of
Conscience that its refusal in certain instances
positively to assist a promisee by making an order
directing a promisor to fulfil a positive undertaking,
or by an injunction to restrain the breach of a
negative stipulation, seems natural. And even where
Equity gives its aid to cancel a formal agreement or
to rescind a parol one, the intrusion on moral or
ethical grounds for the purpose of treating a contract
as voidable or invalid which would otherwise seem
valid, causes no juristic qualms.
From what I have already said in my first lecture,
one would be ready to assume that even though the
Court of Chancery was during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries ready to assist in the enforcement of contractual undertakings, it could not very
19
20
Encroachments on Sanctity of Contracts
well be expected to do so where the petitioner who

sought its aid had not acted honestly or fairly. The
relief or aid which that court has extended in practice
to a petitioner has at all times been of a discretionary
character; and so it has been natural for it to refuse
its discretionary remedy in any case where the
conduct of the petitioner is shown to be the result of
dishonesty or sharp practice. A note in Equity
Cases Abridged J (an Abridgment of Cases in Equity
argued and adjudged in the Court of Chancery between
1667 and 1744), sums up the position as follows:
" But now the power of Chancery and other courts
of equity, in enforcing the execution of articles and
agreements, is so well established, that in many
cases, money agreed to be laid out in lands shall be
considered as lands and lands as money; Vide. 1
Chan.Ca. 39, and though a losing bargain will sometimes be decreed, as well as a beneficial one 2 Vern.
b%3, yet it must ever be observed that articles or
agreements, out of which an equity can be raised
in specie, ought to be obtained with all imaginable
fairness, and without any mixture tending to surprise
or circumvention; and that they be not extremely
unreasonable in any respect; or otherwise a court of
equity will according to the circumstance of the case,
either set the agreement quite aside, send the party
to law, or direct a trial in a quantum damnificat." 2
1 Eq.Ca.Abr. 17.
It is interesting to compare this statement with that in the
last edition (6th) of Fry on Specific Performance. " If the
defendant can show any circumstances dehors, independent
of the writing, making it inequitable to interpose for the
purpose of a specific performance, a Court of Equity, having
Contracts which Equity Declined to Enforce 21

Three eases are cited in illustration of the statement
which I have quoted from Equity Cases Abridged.
In all three, Equity refused to decree specific performance of the contract. In one,3 A had contracted
to purchase B's estate, pretending that he was buying
it " for one whom B was willing to oblige," and
thereby got it " somewhat the cheaper, when in
truth he bought it for another." " There had not
been fair and open dealing " in the matter. In the
second case,4 before Lord Chancellor Thurlow, there
was an agreement to purchase an estate. Afterwards
it transpired that the vendor had concealed a
substantial annual outgoing on an obligation to
repair a wall to protect the estate from the river
Thames. The third case5 was concerned with an
agreement by an attorney to buy property from an
old lady of ninety years of age and there were several
suspicious circumstances appearing. In this last case
the Lord Chancellor would neither decree specific
performance of the agreement against the heir, nor,
in a cross suit, order it to be delivered up.
A later case illustrative of the same attitude is
Webster v. Cecil.'' There a plaintiff claimed specific
performance of a contract to sell property to him for
1,250. The defendant had in the first instance
refused to sell certain property to the plaintiff for
2,000, and then had by mistake written offering the
satisfactory information upon that subject, will not interpose."
See also Holliday v. Lockwood [1917] 2 Ch. 50.
3 Phillips v. Duke of Bucks (1682) 1 Vern. 227.
* Shirley v. Stratton (1785) 1 Bro.Chan.Cas 440.
* Green v. Wood (1708) 2 Vern. 632.
6
(1861) 30 Beav. 62.
22
same property for 1,250. So the plaintiff was well

aware of the error. Nevertheless he purported to accept
the written offer; and when the defendant had without
delay drawn his attention to the mistake, the plaintiff
sued for specific performance. Sir John Romilly
M.R. in refusing this remedy observed that the court
could not compel a person to sell property for much
less than its real value and for 1,000 less than he
intended. The plaintiff, he added, might, however,
bring such action at law as he might be advised.
The development of the equitable doctrine of Part
Performance offers a curious example of an apparent
conflict between the common law, legislation and
equity. The Statute of Frauds, 1677, s. 4, provided
that, among others, a contract for the sale of
land should not be enforceable by action unless it
was in writing or evidenced by a note or memorandum in writing. That is to say, even though the
existence of a promise or agreement could in fact be
proved by oral evidence and the contract would
accordingly have been enforceable at common law,
the Statute forbade its enforcement by action if there
was no written evidence of it. But the judges of the
Court of Chancery made it clear 7 that they would not
allow the Statute " to be made a cloak for fraud,"
and it would be something very much like fraud on
the part of a promisor not to carry out his contract.
* Halfpenny v. Botlet (1699) 2 Vern. 373; cited in Bawdes v.
Amhurst (1715) Prec. in Ch. 402, aa Mollett v. Halfpenny.
See also Butcher v. Stapely (1685) 1 Vern 363; Lester v.
Foxcroft (1700) Collis 108.
Contracts which Equity Declined to Enforce 23

So they would order specific performance of an oral
agreement and this notwithstanding the absence of
written evidence, provided that suitable acts of part
performance of the agreement were proved.
I have drawn attention to this treatment of
contracts by the Court of Chancery because it
illustrates two general trends. In the first place, it
shows that although good faith and honest dealing
demanded the observance of promises and agreements
in general, circumstances might occur in individual
cases where a plaintiff had obtained a promise or
assent from another by unfair, dishonest or fraudulent means thereby disentitling him to the assistance
of equity to force the promisor to fulfil this promise.
Secondly, notwithstanding the prescription by the
legislature of a minimum requirement to prove certain
contracts, fraud on the defendant's part might, again
in individual cases, and in the interests of fair and
honest dealing, drive the courts to compel the
promisor to carry out his promise or agreement in spite
of the absence of the statutory, requisite, written
evidence.
I have dwelt on these perhaps rather obvious points
simply to show how in certain circumstances although
a promise had been given, the law would not give
its aid to compel its performance, and how in other
cases although the legislature might prescribe a
minimum of proof for a promise, yet the Chancery
judges might by-pass the prescription in order to
prevent the promisor from getting away with his fraud.
24

CURTAILMENT OF FREEDOM OF CONTRACT
BY THE LEGISLATURE
The circumstances in which the legislature has declared that agreements or promises however solemnly
made shall be treated as void are by now numerous;
and the reasons for such declarations vary greatly.
CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO ON SUNDAY
In the first place religious, ethical or moral considerations have prompted legislative action in some
instances. One example of that is the Sunday Observance Act, 1677. A promise made on a Sunday appears
to have had the like validity at common law as a
promise made on any other day. But under the
Sunday Observance Act, 1677, no tradesman, artificer,
workman, labourer or other person whatsoever shall
do or exercise any worldly labour, business or work
of their ordinary calling8 on Sunday. Works of
necessity and charity are, however, excepted. Any
person over the age of thirteen years offending against
the prohibition is liable to forfeit the sum of 5s. in
respect of each offence and a contract which involves
a contravention of the Statute is illegal and so cannot
be enforced.
The Act applies to transactions in private as well
as in public 9 ; but it has been narrowly construed in
s Thus in' Drury v. Defontaine (1808) 1 Taunt. 131, a private
sale of a horse on a Sunday by an auctioneer who exercised
his calling as an auctioneer at public sales wag held not
to be void as not having been made by him in exercise of
his ordinary calling; while twenty years kkter a sale of
nutmegs through a broker on a Sunday was held not to be
actionable: Smith v. Sparrow (1827) 4 Bing. 84.
Fennell v. Ridler (1826) 5 B. & C. 406.
Contracts Entered into on Sunday
25
the sense that only those persons falling strictly

within the categories of tradesman (a person not
carrying on the business of buying and selling things
is not a tradesman), artificer (a person who does not
actually make things is not an artificer), workman,
labourer (a person who is not employed to work for
. another is not a workman or labourer 10) or other
person ejusdeni generis and so he is not within the
statute.
Whatever may be the true reasons for the continued
retention of this enactment in the Statute-book, and,
however technical and haphazard its modern application may appear, I think it must be agreed that its
enactment was prompted by the puritan influences
which were still potent in the early days of Charles
IPs reign.
WAGERING CONTRACTS
Another field in which considerations of religious

or moral welfare have been similarly operative is that
of betting or wagering.
Neither the legislature nor the judiciary in this
country have ever been able to make up their minds
definitely to what extent, if any, gambling or betting
as such is immoral or contrary to the public interest.
This is well borne out by the attitude of the courts
and Parliament towards wagering contracts. The
comments of two outstanding jurists on this matter
are somewhat caustic. Sir William Holdsworth's is
10
See Palmer v. Snow [1900] 1 Q.B. 725.

H.L.
26
Encroachments
on Sanctity of Contracts
as follows: " In 1664 the struggle of the legislature

with the gambler began." "
And this is what Sir Frederick Pollock wrote with
reference to legislative action: " The tale begins as
early as the Restoration. . . . it is a tale of some
permanent value as an example of blundering good
intentions and a warning (if such people could take
a warning) to hasty, piecemeal reformers." 12 With
reference to the judiciary Sir Frederick observed:
" If our judges had taken a larger and more courageous view in the eighteenth-century they would have
held as a matter of principle that the concern of the
law is to protect and uphold men's honest dealings
in matters of serious business and not to let the
decision of such matters be delayed and hampered
by the hearing of suits brought on merely sporting
promises; not to mention the ill-effects of excessive
and systematic gambling on the general welfare of
the realm. The courts could not prevent men from
gambling or from regarding payment of gaming debts
as a ' debt of honour 'taking precedence of much
more important commercial liabilities; but that was
no reason for allowing such debts to be sued on. But
the judges lacked courage to break the shackles of
mere form . . . " 13
Wagering contracts were not as such illegal or
void or even unenforceable at common law; but in
view of a tendency for the parties to bring frivolous
and sometimes indecent matters connected therewith
u Holdsworth, H.B.L., Vol. VI, p. 404.
12 Pollock on Contracts, 13th ed., p. 282.
13
Pollock, op. cit. at p. 279.
Wagering Contracts
27
before the courts when wagers were sought to be

enforced, the rule became established that it was
against public policy to enforce such as were provable
only by evidence which was indecent, painful to third
parties or against public policy.14
By a statute passed in the reign of Charles II, in
the year 1664, a limit of 100 was placed on the
amount recoverable on a gaming or wagering contract.
And by a statute 15 passed in 1845 all contracts or
agreements by way of gaming or wagering were
declared null and void. It was further declared that
no action was to be entertained in any court to
recover money won on any wager or deposited as a
stake except where it was a contribution towards a
lawful prize.16 This did not make such agreements
illegal in the strict sense of that word; it only deprived
them of legal effect. Henceforth they could subsist
only as " gentlemen's agreements " 17 or " contracts
of honour."
To complete the picture with respect to wagering
debts, it should be added that the Gaming Act, 1892,
made void any promise to pay any person money paid
by that person under the Gaming Act, 1845, or any
14
See per Hawking J. in Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co.

[1892] 2 Q.B. 484, 491-492.
!5 Gaming Act, 1845, s. 18.
is
On which see Ellesmere v. Wallace [1929] 2 Ch. 1.
17
A gentlemen's agreement is reported to have been defined
recently in a lecture at the University of Edinburgh by a
learned Chancery judge (Mr. Justice Vaisey) as " a n arrangement which is not an agreement, between two persons,
neither of whom is a gentleman, with each expecting the
other to be strictly bound, while he himself has no intention
of being bound at all."
28
Encroachments
agreement to pay a sum of money by way of fee or

reward in respect of any services relating to such
contract. 18
The statute of 1664 which I have already mentioned,
as well as making all wagering debts over 100 on
players irrecoverable, declared all securities given
for such debts void. The statute 9 Anne, c. 14, was
more sweeping: it declared void all securities given
for money lost in playing at games or pastimes or
in betting upon players or knowingly advanced for
such purposes. The Gaming Act, 1835, s. 1, modified
that sweeping provision and introduced the modern
rule whereby securities caught by the Act of Anne
are deemed to have been made or accepted on an
illegal consideration.
The net effect of the betting legislation in the field
of contracts was to make bets as such and securities
given for lost bets unenforceable (as between the
immediate parties) in the courts, leaving them to be
treated as debts of honour or gentlemen's agreements.
INFANTS' CONTRACTS
Yet another line of country in which the legislature

has from time to time declared contracts void is
where, owing to the presumably inferior bargaining
position of one of the parties, the other party might
take advantage of this weakness. The obvious example is that of the infant. At common law the
contracts of an infant other than those for goods
18
Thua reversing the rule in Read v. Anderson (1884) 13 Q.B.D.

779, which requires a principal to indemnify his agent.
Infants'
Contracts
29
which were necessaries or those for the infant's benefit

were voidable at the infant's option. He could
exercise his option to avoid them either before
attaining his majority or within a reasonable time
afterwards. He could, however, himself enforce them.
The Infants Relief Act, 1874, declared three classes
of contracts entered into by an infant " absolutely
void." These were contracts to repay money loans,
contracts for goods supplied or to be supplied (other
than necessaries) and all accounts stated. Moreover,
the same Act forbade an action being brought on any
promise or ratification of a contract made during
infancy. In the words of Anson's Law of Contract19:
" The Infants Relief Act of 1874 appears to have
been designed to guard not merely against the results
of youthful inexperience, but against the consequences
of honourable scruples as to the disclaimer of contracts
upon the attainment of majority."
TRUCK ACTS
At one time no doubt a master paid his servant's

wages in kind; but the trend away from the truck
system in the direction of a free money economy
and the payment of wages in money became general.
Even in the early nineteenth century, payment for
services continued in many instances to be made
partly by money and partly by the supply of goods
and services. Such a system of payment was liable
to abuse; and in fact was not infrequently, directly
or indirectly, abused by the employer. Thus wages
18
19th ed. at p. 126.
30
Encroachments
might be paid partly in cash and partly in food or

clothes of inferior quality and at prices above their
proper value; or part of the wages might take the
form of vouchers exchangeable for food, clothes or
household goods at the employer's shop at the
employer's price. To remedy these abuses there was
passed the Truck Act, 1831, which made it an offence
for an employer to contract that wages payable to
his servant should be paid otherwise than in current
coin of the realm and declared a contract to that
effect to be illegal and void.20 Nor must a contract
of service contain a provision indicating how or where
the wages are to be spent. 21 The entire amount of
the wages must be paid to the worker in current coin.22
Where in contravention of the Truck Act wages have
not been paid in current coin of the realm, the workman is entitled to recover the whole or such part of
the wages as have not been so paid. Thus, a plaintiff
employed as a draper's packer, at 53s. a week, and
supplied in addition with dinner and tea of the value
of 10s. weekly, was held entitled to recover the value
of such meals because they represented a deduction
from his wages.23
MONEYLENDERS ACTS
In the present century the legislature has adopted

somewhat different techniques in dealing with cases
20
21
22
23
Truck Act, 1831, s. 1. Certain exceptions were allowed; see

ibid., s. 23.
Ibid., s. 2.
Ibid., s. 3.
Pratt v. Cook, Son & Co. (St. Paul's), Ltd. [1940] A.C. 437.
For extensions and amendments of the Truck Act, 1831, see
Truck Acts, 1887 and 1896.
Moneylenders Acts
31
of economic inequality in the contracting parties;

but in both instances the net effect may be to interfere
with promises or agreements intended by the parties
to have full legal effect. Under the Moneylenders
Acts, 1900 and 1927, no contract for the repayment
of a moneylender's 24 loan or the payment of interest
thereon and no security given in respect of it can
be enforced unless there is a note or memorandum
in writing of the contract signed personally by the
borrower,25 and unless a copy thereof was delivered
or sent to the borrower within seven days of the
making of the contract. Furthermore, no such
contract or security is enforceable if it is proved
that the note or memorandum was not signed by the
borrower before the money was lent or the security
given.26
HIKE-PURCHASE ACTS
Again the Hire-Purchase Acts, 1938 and 1954,

provide that hire-purchase and credit-sale agreements,
to which the Acts apply, guarantees relating thereto
and the right to recover the hired goods shall not be
enforceable by the vendor or owner of the goods
comprised therein unless the requirements of the Acts
have been observed. The Acts now apply to agreements relating to livestock the total price of which
does not exceed 1,000, and to any other agreement
24
F o r definition of " m o n e y l e n d e r " for t h e purposes of t h e

Act, see t h e Money-lenders Act, 1900, s. 6, a s a m e n d e d by
Moneylenders Act, 1927, s. 19 (3).
25
Where the borrower is a company the memorandum may be
signed by any person acting under its authority: Be British
Games [1938] Ch. 240.
2 Moneylenders Act, 1927, s. 6 (1).
32
where the price does not exceed 300. The main

requirements are (a) a pre-contract statement to the
hirer of the price at which the goods could be
purchased by him for cash, (b) a note or memorandum
containing a statement of the hire-purchase price and
the cash price of the goods, the amount of each
instalment payable and the date for payment of it,
a list of the goods, and (c) the delivery of a copy of
the note or memorandum to the hirer within seven
days of the making of the agreement.
Obviously the legislature's objective was the protection of hire-purchasers in the lower income groups.
Instead of declaring certain types of such agreements
" absolutely void," it sought to provide for such
disclosure of certain vital terms of the contract as
directly to influence the terms of hire-purchase agreements generally and to open the eyes of the hirer
to see the full implications of his bargain. Restrictions were imposed by these two sets of modern
statutes on the freedom of contract in the interests
of fair dealing between parties and to protect persons
whose acquisitive instincts may be greater than their
economic resources.
LABOUR LEGISLATION
Even in the eighteenth century, Acts of Parliament regulating the conduct of sundry trades and
occupations were strangely multiplied; but most of
these restrictive regulations were swept away during
the Benthamite campaign for freedom of contract.
Largely, however, as the result of the Industrial
Labour Legislation
33
Revolution and of the social and economic changes

following two World Wars, the legislature has remodelled much of the framework and contents of our
industrial law. In no part of it has this been more
pronounced than in the law of contracts. Examples
can be given from the fields of Factory and similar
legislation and of Trade Union law.
Speaking generally English law secures to an
employed person the freedom to work and use his
skill and to decide for whom he shall work; and
it secures to an employer formal freedom to determine
whom he shall employ.27 This is the freedom to which
particular regard is had when reference is made to
the movement from status to contract. But even
throughout the nineteenth century the legislature
introduced many and varied restrictions on this freedom. Thus, for social and humanitarian reasons,
women were prohibited from working underground
in mines; boys and girls (now up to the school-leaving
age of 15) were debarred from employment in factories,
mines, quarries and other industrial undertakings.
Prohibitions or limitations have been imposed on the
employment of young persons (male and female
employees between school-leaving age and 18 years)
in connection with dangerous machinery and the
lifting and moving of heavy weights.
Furthermore, during the last century and the
present one, the legislature has imposed numerous
27
The legislature has now created an important exception to

this right. Under the Disabled Persona (Employment) Act,
1944, an employer of 20 or more persons must give employment to a quota of registered disabled persons or at least
be ready to allocate vacancies for that purpose.
34
restrictions as part of the terms on which a person

can be employed. For example, agricultural workers
and catering staffs have their minimum wages determined by boards or councils and those wages are
given legal force in a wages regulation order. The
minimum rate so fixed becomes binding on employer
and employee as a term implied by statute in each
individual contract of employment. The Merchant
Shipping Acts have established what has been
described as " an almost comprehensive statutory
code" prescribing the terms of employment by
shipowners of the merchant seamen who man their
ships.
The general result is that agreements made between
employers and employed persons which would otherwise be upheld in the courts will not be legally
enforced if they contravene the provisions of such
regulatory enactments.
TRADE UNION LEGISLATION
There is one field in particular where legislative

interference with contracts has been most noteworthy
and that is the field of Trade Union law. The
association of workmen to defend and advance their
interests was treated by the courts of common law
as contrary to public policy. So also was the
association of employers for similar objects, in particular where it was for the regulation and maintenance
of prices. With the growth of trade unions following
the Industrial Revolution the legislature (no doubt
by way of reaction to the excesses of the French
Trade Union Legislation
35
Revolution) sought at first to repress them generally.

The Combination Act, 1800, made illegal and void
all contracts and agreements between journeymen,
manufacturers or other persons for obtaining advances
of wages, or altering hours of work, or preventing
employers from employing whom they liked, or for
controlling the management of other persons' business.
It also established machinery for the summary settling
of disputes between masters and workmen. When
the feared perils of the French Revolution appeared
to have receded and the influence of Benthamism
had grown, a new and more tolerant set of combination laws replaced the older repressive measures.
The Combination Act, 1824, declared that combinations of workmen to advance or fix wages should no
longer be subject to prosecution for conspiracy or to
any punishment, and that combinations of masters
should enjoy a similar freedom. In the Combination
Act, 1825, the legislature, caught in a reactionary
mood, redefined and restricted the freedom of
association granted in 1824. It in effect tolerated
collective bargaining over wages and hours of work
but left such bargains without sanctions for their
enforcement. The Trade Union Act, 1871, provided
that the purposes of a trade union should not, by
reason only that they were in restraint of trade, be
treated as unlawful either (a) so as to make members
of the association criminally liable for conspiracy or
(b) so as to render void or voidable any agreement
entered into by them. The same Act2S declared
8. 4.
36
unenforceable as many as five types of contracts,

namely:
1. Agreements between trade union members concerning conditions on which they should sell
or not sell their goods, transact business or
employ or be employed;
2. any agreement for the payment to a trade union
of any subscription or penalty;
3. any agreement to apply the funds of a trade
union to provide benefits to members, or to
furnish contributions to any person not a
member for acting in conformity with the rules
or resolutions of the union, or to discharge any
fine imposed upon a person by a court of justice;
4. agreements between one trade union and another;
and
5. any bond to secure performance of any of the
four foregoing types of contracts.
The general effect of this enactment was described
by Fletcher Moulton L.J. in the celebrated Osborne
case29 as follows: " . . . if the trade union . . .
chooses to refuse to make any of the stipulated
payments, neither the aggrieved party nor any other
person can compel it to do so. The law refuses its
assistance in the matter, and thus in effect leaves it
entirely at the option of the trade union whether it
will or will not fulfil its engagement. The only
disability therefore under which a trade union or its
29
Osborne v. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants [1911]
1 Ch. 540.
Trade Union Legislation
37
members lie relates to the enforcement of contracts

and not to their validity."
Although the courts cannot entertain proceedings
to enforce, or recover damages for breach of, the
agreements which I have enumerated they are not
debarred from granting some other kind of relief or
assistance, such, for example, as a declaration on the
interpretation of the rules of a union, or on the
validity or invalidity of an expulsion from membership of a union; and in the recent case of Bonsor v.
Musicians' Union 30 the House of Lords decided that
a registered trade union could be sued for breach of
contract by the wrongful expulsion of a member and
that the union was liable in damages for such breach.
The expulsion was wrongful because the power to
expel given by the union membership rules had not
been exercised in accordance with those rules.
I am not concerned to explain in detail the position
of trade unions and their members with respect to
their contractual liability. Nor am I concerned to
express a view as to whether industrial relations and
industrial progress would be better served if group
or association regulations and agreements were given
the full force, effect and sanctions associated with
enforceable contracts. This is obviously a matter
on which there can be differences of opinion. That
question is discussed at some length by my colleague
Professor Kahn Freund in an article in the British
Journal of Sociology.31 In that article 32 he points
30
[1956] A.C. 104.

Vol. V, No. 3, pp. 193 et seq.
32 At p. 203.
38
Encroachments on Sanctity oj Contracts
out that " the most highly developed form of intergroup relations in Great Britain might be described
as collective administration rather than as collective
contracting. . . . The collective agreement appears
as a 'resolution' or 'decision' of a joint institution . . .
and loses its outward resemblance with a contract
. . . [The] obligations and liabilities defy verbal
definition. They are as manifold as they are subtle,
and they do not lend themselves to enforcement by
state-created legal machinery. They presuppose a
spirit of co-operation which cannot be engendered by
the application of legal sanctions. There is thus . . .
a close connection between the largely ' dynamic'
character of collective bargaining in Britain and its
praeter legem character, i.e., the insignificance of the
law in the regulation of inter-group relations which
have developed into a higher community. Legal
norms and sanctions are blunt instruments for the
shaping of inter-group relations which have developed
into a higher community." 33
What I have had in mind in my reference to the
treatment by the legislature of trade union contracts
is to draw attention to the fact that for political and
industrial reasons certain classes of contracts, not by
any means small in numbers, have been made by the
legislature by express statutory provisions directly
unenforceable by the courts.
33
See also " Comparative Observations on Legal Effects of

Collective Agreements " by Jean de Givry, 21 M.L.E., pp.
601-509.
CHAPTEE 3
CURTAILMENT OF FREEDOM OF CONTRACT

BY THE COMMON LAW COURTS
IMPLIED TERMS
THE emphasis during the nineteenth century on

individual freedom and the role of agreements in
extending that freedom would seem to have required
that no obligation in the nature of a contract should
be enforced unless willed by the parties; yet the
judges were ready to import terms into contracts and
develop and enlarge restrictions in the public interest
although the parties themselves had not expressed
those terms or established those restrictions. There
is no doubt but that the early common law rules
whereby a man was held strictly to his promise, no
more and no less, might operate harshly and unfairly
in many instances. In consequence the lot of a
person who, for some good reason, found himself
unable to secure all that he thought he had bargained
for, or to discharge his contractual obligation as he
had conceived it, might be a hard one. The somewhat
exaggerated endeavours of the courts to find a fair
solution to such cases is most interesting. One of the
most popular techniques utilised by the courts for
this purpose was " the implied term."
As Sir Frederick Pollock has written, our courts
formerly " were averse to going beyond the strict
39
40
Curtailment of Freedom by the Courts
letter of instruments, and would only in extreme

cases imply terms that were not expressed or at least
imported by some generally understood custom."*
Parties, however, often enter into many well
established types of contracts, such as contracts for
the sale of goods, or for the sale or lease of land, or
for the hire of goods, against a background of previous
dealings between them, and of common trade usage,
or of local custom, or of conveyancing practice. They
take that background for granted and do not trouble
to provide expressly for it in their contract. If disputes
arise between them as to the exact nature or extent
of their commitments under the contract, the courts
have been ready to respond to counsels' invitations
to imply terms giving effect to the understood, but
unexpressed, intention of the parties.
One example will, I think, suffice to make the point
clear. The owner of a horse might agree to sell it to
a person at a particular price and a dispute might arise
between the parties as to the full rights and obligations
of the parties. The courts, having regard to previous
dealings between the parties, local usages in the horse
trade, and possible other factors in the case, would
imply terms for giving full commercial efficacy to the
contract. " In business transactions such as this,
what the law desires to effect by the implication is to
give such business efficacy to the transaction as must
have been intended at all events by both parties who
are business men; not to impose on one side all the
1
Pollock on Contracts, 13th ed., p. 227, citing Paradine v.

Jane (1647) Aleyn 26.
Implied Terms
41
perils of the transaction, or to emancipate one side

from all the chances of failure, but to make each
party promise in law as much, at all events, as it
must have been in the contemplation of both parties
that he should be responsible for in respect of those
perils or chances." 2
In due course these implied terms contained in contracts for the sale of goods, introduced and developed
in the common law courts, were codified in the Sale of
Goods Act, 1893. Their evolution and exact definition
was a slow process; and it is important to realise that
this kind of implied term is not a recent development.
Indeed Baron Parke referred to it in these words as
far back as 1836 3 : " I t has long been settled that in
commercial transactions extrinsic evidence of custom
and usage is admissible to annex incidents to written
contracts in matters with respect to which they are
silent. The same rule has also been applied to contracts
in other transactions of life in which known usages
have been established and prevailed; and this has
been done upon the principle of presumption that, in
such transactions, the parties did not mean to express
in writing the whole of the contract by which they
intended to be bound, but to contract with reference
to those known usages."
I must make it quite clear that the courts in their
evolution of implied terms and, of course, the legislature when it codified those relating to the sale of
2
Per Bowen L.J. in The Moorcock (1889) 14 P.O. 64, 68.

See also Set.hia, f,td. v. Partabmull Ramenhtrar F19511 2 All
B.B. 352.
' In Hutton v. Warre.n (1836) 1 M. & W. 466. 475.
s.i.
&
42
goods in the Sale of Goods Act, were endeavouring

to give effect to the intention or will of the parties.
So long as there was a background of trade usage,
or past professional dealings between the parties
the implication of unexpressed but understood intentions was reasonable and not too difficult. But
in the absence of such background the position was
not so simple. Indeed in ascertaining the implied
intention or will in those latter circumstances the
courts often went far beyond " the regular process of
judicial construction." 4 In effect they proceeded to
estimate what provision the parties would have made,
as reasonable people, if they had contemplated facts
which had proved to be beyond their prevision. The
process was described by Lord Watson in these
words 5 : " I have always understood that, when the
parties to a mercantile contract such as that of
affreightment have not expressed their intentions in
a particular event, but have left these to implication,
a court of law, in order to ascertain the implied
meaning of the contract, must assume that the parties
intended to stipulate for that which is fair and reasonable, having regard to their mutual interests and to
the main objects of the contract. In some cases that
assumption is the only test by which the meaning of
the contract can be ascertained. There may be many
possibilities within the contemplation of the contract
of charterparty which were not actually present to the
minds of the parties at the time of making it, and,
when one or other of these possibilities becomes a
4
See Pollock on Contracts, 13th ed., at p. 224.

* Dohl v. Nelson, DonVin <f. Go. (1881) 6 App.Cas. 38. 59.
Implied Terms
43
fact, the meaning of the contract must be taken to be,

not what the parties did intend (for they had neither
thought nor intention regarding it), but that which
the parties, as fair and reasonable men, would presumably have agreed upon if, having such possibility
in view, they had made express provision as to their
several rights and liabilities in the event of its
occurrence."
A long catalogue could be compiled of cases in
which the legislature, as well as the courts, has in
different circumstances and in many and various
types of agreements added to the list of implied
terms. Examples of statutory implied terms are
found in the Bills of Exchange Act, 1882, Sale of
Goods Act, 1893, Merchant Shipping Act, 1894,
Marine Insurance Act, 1906, Landlord and Tenant Act,
1927, Housing Act, 1936, Hire-Purchase Act, 1938,
to name only a few of the better known enactments.
And the common law courts continue to add to the
list as new circumstances and facts demand.
So long as the courts adhered to the view that the
object of implying a term was to give effect to the
parties' intention, they had of necessity to recognise
that they could not imply a term which would contradict or vary the express terms of a contract. In
other words, positively, a term could only be implied
if it was necessary in the business sense to give
efficacy to the contract as intended by the parties and
it could confidently be said that the term left to be
implied, though unexpressed, was so clear and
44
obvious that it went without saying.6 And, negatively,

no term could be implied if it would conflict or be
inconsistent with the intention of the parties as
expressed in their agreement.7
The doctrine of implied terms has not been uniformly
popular; yet in recent times the circumstances in which
terms will be judicially implied seem to have been extended and the justification for their imputation in those
circumstances has been stated somewhat differently.
In a recent note in the Law Quarterly Review 8 it
is observed that: " It is obvious that no contract
can ever be drawn in so complete a form that it
may not become necessary, if unforeseen circumstances
arise, for the court to imply terms which were never
contemplated by the parties when the contract was
made." Denning L.J. went a good deal further in
his famous judgment in the Movietonews case 9 when
he declared that " the day is gone when we can excuse
an unforeseen injustice by saying to the sufferer ' It
is your folly. You ought not to have passed that
form of words. You ought to have put in a clause
to protect yourself.' We no longer credit a party
with the foresight of a prophet or his lawyer with
the draftmanship of a Chalmers."
In recent cases a tendency has appeared to make
wider use of the doctrine so as to enable the courts
6
7
8
9
See per Scrutton L.J. in Reigate v. Union Manufacturing Co.

[1918] 1 K.B. 592, 605; and per MacKinnon L.J. in Shirlaw
v. Southern Foundries, Ltd. [1939] 2 K.B. 206.
See per Lord Parker in Tamplin SS. Co. v. Anglo-Mexican
Petroleum Products Co., Ltd. [1916] 2 A.C. 397, 423.
Vol. 71, p. 457.
British Movietonews v. London & District Cinemas, Ltd.
[1951] 1 K.B. 190, 202.
Implied Terms
45
to adjust the rights and obligations of the parties

having regard to circumstances not provided for by
their contract. Thus a company engaged in the
manufacture of valves to be used in the construction
of " aids for the deaf " discovered that some of its
workmen were secretly working in their spare time
for another company engaged in the production of
similar appliances. It successfully sued for an injunction to restrain the workmen from so working.
The court considered that there should be implied
into the contract of employment a term that the
servant undertakes to serve his master with good
faith and fidelity.10 In another case lx there was
implied into a contract of manufacturing agency
which contained no provision for its determination
a term to the effect that the contract could be determined on the serving of a reasonable notice of twelve
months' duration. Perhaps the most far-reaching
implication was made in Romford Ice and Cold Storage
Co., Ltd. v. Lister,12 where the House of Lords
(affirming a majority decision of the Court of Appeal)
held that a term could be implied into a lorry driver's
contract of service that he would carry out his duties
with reasonable skill and care, and so would be liable
for damages for negligence in the performance of his
duties. The defendant in that case was employed to
drive a lorry and he had backed it in a private yard
10
Hivac, Ltd. v. Park Royal Scientific Instruments, Ltd. [1946]

Ch. 169.
Martin-Baker Aircraft Co., Ltd. v. Canadian Flight Equipment, Ltd. [1955] 2 Q.B. 556.
12 [1957] A.C. 555.
11
46
into his father, another employee of the same employers, and injured him.
Despite quite a number of cases in which the
doctrine of implied terms has been applied by the
courts, it can be stated that the prevailing judicial
attitude towards it is still one of some caution.13
For example, MacKinnon L.J. in 193913 observed as
follows: " I recognise that the right or duty of a
court to find the existence of an implied term or
implied terms in a written contract is a matter to be
exercised with care; and a court is too often invited
to do so upon vague and uncertain grounds." The
attempt to make use of it to enable the courts to
review generally and entirely readjust the rights or
obligations of the parties to a bargain when they have
run into some unexpected difficulties has met with a
rebuff.14 Had it been so extended, the consequence
described by Denning L.J. would have ensued, i.e.,
the courts would have "seriously damaged the sanctity
of contracts." 15
IMPOSSIBILITY OF PERFORMANCE
The implied term doctrine proved a most useful

instrument in the hands of the judges in developing
measures of relief in cases of supervening impossibility of performance or the frustration of contracts.
At common law if a person bound himself by contract,
13
14
16
Shirlaw v. Southern Foundries, Ltd. [1939] 2 "K.B. 206, 227.

See British Movietonews, Ltd. v. London District Cinemas,
Ltd. [1952] A.C. 166; Davis Contractors, Ltd. v. Fareham
U. D. C. [1956] 1 Q.B. 302.
[1956] 1 Q.B. 302, at p. 308.
Impossibility of Performance
47
without any qualification, to perform an act, he could

not excuse himself from the obligation to pay damages
for failing to carry out his promise merely by proving
that his failure was due to physical or legal impossibility of performance.16 Where there is a positive
contract to do a thing the contractor must perform
it or pay damages for not doing so, although in
consequence of unforeseen accident the performance
of his contract has become unexpectedly burdensome,
or even impossible. But during the last one hundred
years the courts have been evolving a doctrine to
the general effect that if there should occur some
intervening event or change of circumstances so
fundamental as to strike at the root of the agreement,
the contract should be treated as brought to an end
forthwith, quite apart from the expressed volition of
the parties themselves.18
Whatever may be the correct way of expressing
the justification for the doctrine today, I believe that
its theoretical basis in its early stages was the implied
term. A term was implied by the courts discharging
a contract in the events which had happened on the
ground that the court found itself able to " infer
from the nature of the contract and the surrounding
circumstances that a condition which was not expressed was the foundation upon which the parties
contracted." 19
16
See, for example, Paradine v. Jane (1647) Aleyn 26.
is Taylor v. Caldwell (1863) 3 B. & S. 826; Krell v. Henry

[1903] 3 K.B. 740; Joseph Constantine SS. Line, Ltd. v.
Imperial Smelting Corporation [1942] A.C. 154.
19
Per Lord Loreburn in Tamplin SS. Co., Ltd. v. Anglo-Mexican
Petroleum Products Co., Ltd. [1916] 2 A.G. 397, 404.
48
The following passage from Lord Russell of

Kil'owen's speech in Re Badische Co.20 contains a
clear exposition of the doctrine: " T h e doctrine of
dissolution of a contract by the frustration of its
commercial object rests on an implication arising from
the presumed common intention of the parties. If
the supervening events or circumstances are such that
it is impossible to hold that reasonable men could
have contemplated that event or those circumstances
and yet have entered into the bargain expressed in
the document, a term should be implied dissolving the
contract upon the happening of the event or circumstances. The dissolution lies not in the choice of
one or other of the parties, but results automatically
from a term of the contract. The term to be implied
must not be inconsistent with any express term of
the contract."
In at least two types of cases the implied term
doctrine seemed inadequate and restrictive. If the
contracting parties had adverted to the possible
happening of the frustrating event and had nevertheless decided to do nothing about it, the implication
of a term was not easily justified. This was made
clear by Lord Wright when delivering the opinion of
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in
Maritime National Fish, Ltd. v. Ocean Trawlers,
Ltd.,21 when he said: " T h e authority [of Krell v.
Henry22]
is certainly not to be extended; it is
2
21
[1921] 2 Ch. 331, 379.

[1935] A.C. 524, 529.
22 [1903] 2 K.B. 740. I n the case of Krell v. Henry the

contract wag for the hire of a window on a particular day.
It was not expressly stated in the contract, but was mutually
49
particularly difficult to apply where, as in the present

case, the possibility of the event relied on as constituting a frustration of the adventure . . . was
known to both parties when the contract was made,
but the contract entered into was absolute in terms
so far as concerned that known possibility." Again,
in Tatem v. Gamboa 23 Goddard J. (as he then was)
expressed the view that the cases " show in effect
that, although the parties may have had or must be
deemed to have had the matter in contemplation,
the doctrine of frustration is not prevented from
applying."
Similarly, where the parties to a contract had
provided in general terms what was to happen if the
frustrating event did occur, a term could not be
implied if it would conflict or be inconsistent with the
parties' express provision. Yet the House of Lords
in Bank Line, Ltd. v. Capel24 actually decided that
the doctrine of frustration was not rendered inapplicable by the express terms of a charterparty and
that the contract was discharged notwithstanding
that the parties had provided generally what was to
happen on the occurrence of the contemplated event.
In those cases, therefore, the implied term theory
was not easy to apply; and so it must now be taken
to be the law that the contract is frustrated by the
occurrence of the frustrative event immediately and
understood, that the window was required to view King
Edward VII's coronation procession. When the coronation
was postponed by reason of the King's illness, the contract
was he!d to be avoided.
23 [1939] 1 K.B. 132, 140.
' [1919] A.C. 435.
50
irrespective of the volition or the intention of the

parties or their knowledge as to that particular event.25
"Their own belief and their own intention is evidence,
and evidence only, upon which the court can form its
own view whether the changed circumstances were
so fundamental as to strike at the root of the contract
and not to have been contemplated by the parties." 2S
Consequently, other juristic justifications for the
dissolution of certain contracts by impossibility have
had to be explored. The conclusion I have reached
is that the doctrine of the implied term has served
a useful purpose: it has enabled the courts, as it
were by a legal fiction, to assume the jurisdiction, to
modify or dissolve contractual obligations so as to
dispense justice to the parties having regard to
fundamental changes in circumstances outside their
control. The doctrine of frustration is now so well
recognised and established that it no longer needs the
fiction of an implied term to support it. So it is
generally, but gradually, being displaced by the
theory that a change of circumstances that fundamentally strikes at the root of a contract justifies the
imposition by the court of a solution that is just and
reasonable in the new circumstances.26 The truth is,
as Lord Wright has written in one of his Essays,27
" that the court or jury as a judge of fact decides
the question in accordance with what seems to be
26
27
See per Streatfeild J . in Morgan v. Manner [1948] 1 K . B . 184,

191.
See Joseph Constantine
SS. Line, Ltd. v . Imperial
Smelting
Corporation [1942] A.C. 154, 183.
Legal Essays and Addresses, p . 259.
51
just and reasonable in its eyes. The judge finds

himself the criterion of what is reasonable. The
court is in this sense making a contract for the parties,
though it is almost blasphemy to say so."
CONTRACTS CONTRARY TO LAW OR MORALITY
ALMOST contemporaneously with the evolution by
the courts of common law by means of decided cases
of the doctrine of general enforceability of promises
or agreements, limits to this enforceability were, as
we have seen, being established by the Courts of
Chancery and by the legislature and, as we shall now
see, by the common law courts themselves. Those
were the days when moral obligation was regarded
as the primary factor making promises enforceable;
and the general climatesocial, economic and legal
favoured freedom of contract and the enforcement of
all contracts freely entered into. Yet bounds were
beginning to appear beyond which the freedom would
not be legally recognised. Mr. Fifoot has described
the position in this way:
" The intention of the parties, while it was
the basis of the law of contract, was not conclusive. The judges could not be expected to
sanction an agreement opposed to the interests
of the State,1 and they were already reconciled
1
It is a noteworthy fact that when the doctrine of public

policy or State interest was being developed in the courts
the judges had already ceased to be appointed during the
King's pleasure. They had, by the Act of Settlement, been
given statutory independence through security of tenure in
their office and so there was no longer any pressure on them
to support government measures or policy. " They were no
52

without evident reluctance, to the necessity of
choosing the obligation which they were prepared to enforce." la
It seems almost paradoxical that whilst emphasis

was laid in the courts on the sanctity and freedom of
contracts, a doctrine was introduced in the same
courts and as a corollary of contractual freedom
which could well be used to its destruction.
This implication was obviously in the mind of
Lord Mansfield in the celebrated case of Holman v.
Johnson,2 when he observed that:
" The objection, that a contract is immoral or
illegal as between plaintiff and defendant, sounds at
all times very ill in the mouth of the defendant. It
is not for his sake, however, that the objection is
ever allowed; but it is founded in general principles
of policy, which the defendant has the advantage of,
contrary to the real justice, as between him and the
plaintiff, by accident, if I may so say. The principle
of public policy is this: ex dolo malo non oritur actio.
No court will lend its aid to a man who founds his
cause of action upon an immoral or an illegal act.
If, from the plaintiff's own stating or otherwise, the
cause of action appears to arise ex turpi causa, or
the transgression of a positive law of this country,
there the court says he has no right to be assisted.
It is upon that ground the court goes; not for the
longer jackals of government, but independent umpires between
the Crown and the subject": Trevelyan, English Social
History, p. 350.
la C. H.' S. Pifoot, Lord Mansfield, at p. 122.
2
(1775) 1 Cowp. 341.
Contracts Contrary to Law or Morality
53
sake of the defendant, but because they will not lend

their aid to such a plaintiff. So if the plaintiff and
defendant were to change sides, and the defendant
was to bring his action against the plaintiff, the latter
would then have the advantage of it; for where both
are equally in fault, potior est conditio defendentis."
Three things are implied in this general exposition
of the attitude of the common law courts. In the
first place, it is more often than not distasteful for the
judge to have to listen to a person who has promised
to do something and then finds it inexpedient to fulfil
that promise, plead that what he promised to do was
illegal or immoral and so he need not perform it. This
was made clear in a recent case in these words 2a :
" We are all familiar with the many cases which arose
when building work was found to have been done
without a building licence under the defence regulations having been obtained. Although it was not
always other than distasteful, it enabled a defendant,
who had had work done and who had enjoyed the
benefit of it, to say that he was not bound to pay for
it; because he and the builder had been party to
what was in effect an illegal contract."
In the second place Lord Mansfield only contemplated contracts that were " immoral or illegal as
between plaintiff and defendant." The immorality or
unlawfulness of the contract itself weighed more
heavily against the plaintiff in the scales of justice
than the lack of faith shown by the defendant by his
2
Per Lord Evershed M.E. in Town-iend (Builders), Ltd. v.

Cinema News, etc., Ltd. [1957] 1 W.L..E. 119, 124; and see
Strongman v. Sincock [1955] 2 Q.B. 525.
54
failure to discharge his obligation. In the third place

it was the principle of public policy that justified the
court in refusing its aid. The interests of the State
in agreements involving crimes, immorality and
breaches of positive law are obvious. For as Mr.
Justice Cardozo observed in an American case 3 : " I f
the moral and physical fibre of its manhood and
womanhood is not a State concern, the question is
what is ? "
Moreover it was not (particularly during the
eighteenth or nineteenth centuries) imposing an unusual, or perhaps a very difficult, duty upon a judge
to decide what was or was not contrary to positive
law or morality. But when account had to be taken
of the advantages and disadvantages to the community
of competing social and economic policies in arriving
at legal decisions the task of the judge was more
complex and difficult. Though this is seen most
clearly in the field of contracts in restraint of trade
where economic interests are affected, it is also
manifest in cases such as Fender v. Mildmay i and
Beresford v. Royal Insurance Co.,5 where the implications are predominantly domestic or social.
In Fender v. Mildmay 6 a promise by a married man,
after a decree nisi of divorce had been pronounced
in his case, to marry a spinster after the decree had
been made absolute, was enforced by a majority of
three to two in the House of Lords, as not being
3
4
5
6
Adler v. Deegan 251 N.Y. 467, 484.

[1938] A.C. 1.
[1938] A.C. 586.
[1938] A.C. 1.
Contracts Contrary to Law or Morality
55
contrary to public policy. A promise of marriage

made by a man to a woman who knows him to be
married to another woman is contrary to public
policy as conducing to immorality or crime,7 but in
Fender v. Mildmay6 the distinction was taken by
the majority of the members of the court that the
consortium of the spouses had already been broken,
their matrimonial obligations had ceased to be effective
and so the promise to marry could not be taken
manifestly to affect injuriously the public interest.
It was in this case that Lord Atkin emphasised that
" the doctrine should only be invoked in clear cases
in which the harm to the public is substantially
incontestable, and does not depend upon the idiosyncratic inferences of a few judicial minds " 8 ; and
that in the particular case " the contract should be
given the benefit of the doubt." 8
In Beresford's case 9 a person had entered into a
contract of insurance on his life for the sum of
50,000. A few minutes before the policy was due to
expire he shot himself. An action by his executors
to recover on the policy failed, because it would be
contrary to public policy for the court to assist the
suicide's personal representatives to recover the
fruits of the insured person's crime, notwithstanding
that the insurers had (as the court found) issued the
policy and taken the premium covering suicide. The
position is well summed up in Lord Wright's judgment in the Court of Appeal10:
7
8
Wilson v. Carnley [1908] 1 K.B. 720.
[1938] A.C. 1, 12.
Beresford v. Royal insurance Co. Lid. [19381 A.O. S8fi.
' [1937] 2 K.B. 197, 219.
9
56
" Opinions may differ whether the suicide of a man

while sane should be deemed to be a crime, but it is
so regarded by our law. . . . While the law remains
unchanged the court must, we think, apply the
general principle that it will not allow a criminal or
his representative to reap by the judgment of the
court the fruits of his crime."
CONTRACTS IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE
A contract is said to be in restraint of trade when its

performance would limit competition in any trade or
business or profession or would restrict one of the
parties in the exercise of his trade or occupation. It
appears from a case " decided in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I, that all such restraints were even then
regarded as void having regard to their tendency to
create monopolies. This has throughout remained
the general reaction of the courts. The justification
for this attitude was expressed in modern terms
by Lord Macnaghten in the celebrated Norde.nfelt
case 12 in these words: " The public have an interest
in every person's carrying on his trade freely: so has
the individual. All interference with individual liberty
of action in trading, and all restraints of trade of
themselves, if there is nothing more, are contrary to
public policy, and therefore void. That is the general
rule."
" Colgate v. Batchelor (1596) Cro.Eliz. 872.
12 Nordenfelt v. Maxim NordenfeH, etc., Co. [1894] A.C. 535,
565.
Contracts in Restraint of Trade
57
But the justification advanced in the Tailors of

Ipsivich case 13 is in more picturesque, seventeenthcentury terms: " A t the common law no man could
be prohibited from working in any lawful trade, for
the law abhors idleness the mother of all evil . . .
and especially in young men who ought in their
youth . . . to learn sciences and trades which are
profitable to the Commonwealth, and whereof they
might reap the fruit in their old age . . . ; and
therefore the common law abhors monopolies which
prohibit any from working in any lawful trade."
The court if it is satisfied that the restraint was
reasonably necessary to protect the interest of the
promisee and was not inimical to the interests of the
State, will treat it as valid. Section 21 of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956, is in line with the
common law tradition. It enacts that all registrable,
restrictive agreements within the Act are presumed to
be contrary to the public interest unless and until
they are justified in manner described by the Act.
In giving effect to the foregoing principles governing
contracts on restraint of trade the courts have had
to surmount many difficulties. The first and obvious
one is the difficulty of defining what is meant by
public policy. As is so often the case, it is much
easier to say what it is not than what it is. "Certain
specific classes of contracts," observed Asquith L.J.
in 1951,ll "have been ruled out by authority to be
contrary to the policy of the law, which is, of course,
13
(1615) 11 Co.Eep. 53b.
" In Monklands v. Jack Barclay, Ltd. [1951] 2 K.B. 252, 265.

H.I.
5
58
not the same thing as the policy of the government,

whatever its complexion."
On the whole one must agree with Kekewich J. that
the expression does not admit of precise definition 15:
" All authorities," remarked the learned judge,
" from first to last, concur in one thingviz., that
the doctrine on this subject is founded on ' public
policy '; and I cannot but regard the jarring opinions
as exemplifying the well-known dictum of Mr. Justice
Burrough in Richardson v. Mellish16 that public
policy is a very unruly horse, and when you once
get astride it you never know where it will carry
you. Public policy does not admit of definition and
is not easily explained." One must, in the circumstances, be satisfied with a general description rather
than a definition. Sir Percy WinfieM described public
policy as " a principle of judicial legislation or
interpretation founded on the current needs of the
community."17 Lord Truro in Egerton v. Brownlow1*
described it as: " that principle of law which holds
that no subject can lawfully do that which has a
tendency to be injurious to the public, or against the
public goodwhich may be termed the policy of the
law, or public policy in relation to the law."
In its application to the field of contract Lord
Wright has described it as " considerations of public
interest which require the courts to depart from
Davies v. Davies (1887) 36 Ch.D. at p. 364.
16
(1824) 2 Bing. 229, 252.
" 42 Harv.Law Bev. 76, 92.
18
(1853) 4 H.L.C. 1 at p. 196.
Contracts in Restraint of Trade
59
their primary function of enforcing contracts and

exceptionally refuse to enforce them." 19
The unsatisfactory nature of such a vague, indefinable test of invalidity of contracts has often been
critically commented upon.20 Lord Lindley once
described 21 it as: " a very unstable and dangerous
foundation on which to build, until made safe by
decision." 22
Another criticism of it is that it must inevitably
be a variable quantity 23influenced by the judge's
training, outlook and philosophy,24 varying with the
prevailing fashions in moral, economic or social
principles,25 or even with changing economic or social
practices. As Lord Wright observed in Fender v.
Mildmay26 " certain rules of public policy have to
be moulded to suit new conditions of a changing
world."
Public policy in its application to legal situations
generally has in its effects been disabling and prohibitive. This is most clearly illustrated in the field
19 See Fender v. Mildmay [1938] A.C. 1, 38; Legal
pp. 66-96.
2 See Cheshire and Fifoot, 4th ed., p. 277.
21
In Janson v. Driefontein Consolidated Mines, Ltd
A.C. 484, 507.
And see per B u r r o u g h J . in Richardson
v . Mellish
B i n g . 229, 252. See also E . E . M e g a r r y , Miscellany
p p . 270 et seq.
See Davies v . Davies (1887) 36 C h . D . at p . 364.
22
Essays,
[1902]
(1824) 2
at Law,
See Fender v. Mildmay [1938] A.C. 1; Hill v. Wm. Hill

(Park Lane), Ltd. [1949] A.C. 530.
See Art., "Economic Theories and English Case L a w , " 47
L.Q.B. 183-202; and see Friedmann Legal Theory, 3rd ed.,
pp. 335-342.
[1938] A.C. 1.
25
60
of contracts as is brought out strikingly in the quotation which I have already made from Lord Mansfield's
judgment in Ilolman v. Johnson.27 Where a contract
is invalidated by considerations of public policy the
result is simply to disable a plaintiff from enforcing
it. There are very few circumstances (though the
number now tends to increase) where the court
assumes to adjust the rights of the parties having
regard to the respective degrees of blameworthiness.
The loss and gains generally remain where they
happened to be at the time when the defendant
refused to carry out his promise.
The negative, prohibitive character of public policy
tends to have a cumulative effect since a contract as
an institution is necessarily a static and not a dynamic
piece of machinery for the government and guidance
of complex, fast-moving and ever-changing modern
business, industrial and human relations. That no
doubt accounts in large measure for the practice of
Trade Unions and Trade Associations in relying upon
their own arrangements and not to seek legal sanctions
for them.
It is interesting, therefore, to consider the new
machinery set up in recent years to protect the public
from restrictive and monopolistic practices.
MONOPOLIES AND RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES
The Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Act, 1948,

provided for the setting up of an independent Monopolies Commission to investigate and report on such
" (1775) 1 Cowp. 341.
Monopolies and Restrictive Practices
61
restrictive trading agreements as were expressly

referred to it by the Board of Trade. After examining
the agreements or arrangements factually and objectively the Commission was to say whether or not in
its opinion they were against the public interest. If
they were, Orders could be made by Ministers to
terminate them. This machinery was found to be
slow in operation in the main because it had to
ascertain the facts for itself without any specially
provided assistance, and had to break new ground in
wide and complex fields.
So after a trial period of some eight years provision
was made by the Restrictive Trade Practices Act,
1956, for setting up a new piece of machinery. The
machinery consists of two main parts. The first is
a Registrar of Restrictive Trade Practices whose
functions are twofold, namely, (a) to compile and
maintain a Register of agreements registrable under
the Act, and (b) to take proceedings before the
Restrictive Practices Court in respect of agreements
entered or filed in the Register. The other part of
the machinery consists of a new kind of court, the
Restrictive Practices Court, consisting of five judges
and not more than ten other persons appointed by
the Queen, on the recommendation of the Lord
Chancellor, and qualified by virtue of their " knowledge of or experience in industry, commerce or
public affairs."
The agreements to be registered are those between
persons carrying on business in the United Kingdom
in the production or supply or manufacture of goods
62
under which restrictions are accepted in respect of

such matters as prices and control of supplies or
manufactures. Jurisdiction is conferred on the Restrictive Practices Court to declare whether or not
any restrictions contained in any registered agreement
are contrary to the public interest. Where any such
restrictions are found to be contrary to the public
interest the agreement is by the Act made void in
respect of such restrictions.
An article in the Financial Times recently 28 drew
attention to the fact that the Restrictive Practices
Court (which had then delivered judgment in only one
case) has assumed an importance to British industry
out of proportion to the work that it has so far done.
" It has caused a re-examination amounting to a
major shake-up in almost every section of industry."
The result has been that since the Register was
compiled a total of 146 agreements have been terminated or varied so as to remove them from the scope
of the Act. Even before the Register was compiled
quite a number of firms decided as a matter of policy
to withdraw from registrable agreements; and agreements " that might not look well in public " 2 8 were
not proceeded with; and then, as I have mentioned,
146 (out of about 2,000 in all) were abandoned.
All this goes to show that the new machinery has
begun its operations effectively. Whether it will
continue to do so time and events will show. From
the point of view of my special study three things are
of special importance in this experiment in the control
28
Wednesday, January 7, 1959.
Monopolies and Restrictive Practices
63
of agreements. The first is the underlying assumption

by the legislature when establishing the machinery
that all restrictive trade practices were not necessarily
economically undesirable29 or that the agreements
combining them were necessarily void on the ground
of illegality or immorality. The second is the nature
of the machinery, the Register and the court consisting
of High Court judges and men of knowledge or
experience in industry, commerce or public affairs.
And the third is the power given by the legislature to
this mixed court to declare agreements freely entered
into void in whole or in part on the ground that they
are contrary to the public interest.
The newly reported decision30 of the Restrictive
Practices Court in Re Yarn Spinners' Agreement is
of very great general interest. It shows how the
court of seven persons, three High Court judges and
four laymen of varied experience, sought to discharge
the complex and difficult problems prescribed for it
by the Act. One judgment was delivered by the
President of the Court, Devlin J. The registered
agreement under consideration provided for minimum
prices to be charged for various kinds of cotton yarn
manufactured and supplied by members of the association. Under the provisions of section 21 of the Act
the agreement was prima facie contrary to the public
interest, and it was for the association to satisfy the
court that it was justifiable on some of the statutory
grounds. This the association failed to do. The
court decided that although the removal of the
29
30
Contrast in this respect the U.S.A. Sherman Act, 1890.

The Times, January 27, 1959.
64
restrictions imposed by the agreement would have a

serious effect on the general level of employment in
the manufacturing area, that did not outweigh the
detriment to the public generally by the preservation
of excess capacity in the industry resulting in waste
of national resources. " The court was required to
act without certainty and on the balance of probabilities and to arrive at a general conclusion in the
terms used by the Act " ; but having on that balance
reached a conclusion it declared the agreement to be
contrary to the public interest and, therefore, it
could no longer be enforced.
EXECUTIVE ARRANGEMENTS
A substantial number of agreements or arrangements

in the nature of contracts are regarded by the courts
as falling rather within the category of executive acts
or governmental directives than within the field of
enforceable contracts. The attitude of the judiciary
is that neither the Crown nor any other public
authority can be held to an agreement that purports
to bargain away its fundamental discretionary powers.
" The principle is simply that in the last resort the
law permits a governmental agency to fulfil the
fundamental purposes for which it was created, even
though so doing may involve interference with vested
contractual rights which an individual may have
against that agency." 27a
27a Per Professor J. D. B. Mitchell in Contract of Public
Authorities, at p. 17.
Executive Arrangements
65
To illustrate this proposition I would like to refer to

the case of The Arnphitrite.2" In that case the
owners of a Swedish ship of that name had, before
sending her to England in March, 1918 (i.e., during
the First World War), obtained from the British
Legation in Stockholm an undertaking that the ship
would " earn her own release " if she carried a cargo
of at least 60 per cent, approved goods. As it
happened, this undertaking was contrary to the then
usual practice of the British Government; but without
it the ship would not have sailed to England. On the
ship's first voyage to England the undertaking was
honoured; but on the second voyage the British
Government refused clearance from a British port
and the ship was detained and eventually sold. The
owners of the ship thereupon petitioned for damages
for breach of the undertaking given by the Legation.
Their claim was rejected on the main ground that an
intention to act in a particular way in a certain event
could never be made binding on the government.2811
The field of conflict between the concept of the
sanctity of contractual obligations and the general
powers of the State, whether they be legislative or
administrative, is fully and authoritatively discussed
by my former colleague, Professor J. D. B. Mitchell
of Edinburgh, in his study of The Contracts of Public
Authorities.2* The type of case falling within the
field studied by Professor Mitchell is liable to occur
28 [1921] 3 K . B . 500.
28a p o r a criticism of some of t h e wide expressions used in t h a t
case, see Mitchell, op. cit., at p . 55.
29
Published by t h e L o n d o n School of E c o n o m i c s , 1954.
66
much more often in the political and economic

climate of today than it was when the doctrine of
laisser-faire prevailed. The State through its manifold agencies and with its many and increasing
activities touches the citizen, whether as an individual
or as a member of some association or group, at so
many points. It seems almost inevitable that it
should be so if the functions of government are to
be adequately performed in a highly organised
modern society. What I am drawing attention to is
the fact that there are these arrangements which were
meant by the parties to be legally enforceable, which
may appear to the layman as agreements or promises
indistinguishable from enforceable contracts, but
which, as one of the contracting parties is a governmental agency in the service of the community, are
not treated as enforceable by the courts.
One of the conclusions which Professor Mitchell
reaches after a detailed survey is that in the case of
public authorities generally the obligatory force of
contract may be weaker than in the case of private
contracts. " The special purpose for which governmental agencies exist, the service of the community,
requires that on occasions those agencies must be
released from, or may be able to override, their
obligations. . . . This limitation of the obligation
of contract depends not upon the acceptance of any
particular theory of political philosophy but upon
practical necessity." 30
30
Mitchell, op. tit., at p. 222.
CHAPTER 4
A COMPARISON AND CONCLUSIONS

THE OBLIGATION OF CONTRACTS CLAUSE IN THE
AMERICAN CONSTITUTION
THE rise and decline of general respect for contracts

in the United Kingdom make an interesting comparison
with the movements in the judicial interpretation by
the United States Supreme Court of the " Obligation
of Contracts " clause in the American Constitution
and the " Due Process " Amendments to that Constitution. The " Obligation of Contracts " clause
provides (among other things) that " no State shall
. . . pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts." It appears that the clause was framed
originally for the purpose of preventing the States
from passing laws to relieve debtors of their legal
obligation to pay their debts and this restricted view
of its object was at first taken by the Supreme Court.
But, particularly under the influence of Chief Justice
Marshall, this narrow view of the objects of the clause
was afterwards rejected and a broad application was
given to it, at least for some time. A plea for this
broader application is contained in a dissenting
opinion 1 delivered in 1827 by Chief Justice Marshall:
" The power," he observed, " of changing the relative
situations of debtor and creditor, of interfering with
1
Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheaton, at p. 213.

67
68
A Comparison and Conclusions
contracts, a power which comes home to every man,

touches the interest of all and controls the conduct
of every individual in those things which he supposes
to be proper for his own exclusive management, had
been used to such an excess by the State legislatures
as to break in upon the ordinary intercourse of society
and destroy all confidence between man and man.
The mischief had become so great, so alarming as not
only to impair commercial intercourse, and threaten
the existence of credit, but to sap the morals of the
people, and destroy the sanctity of private faith."
Too much was unquestionably made of the clause
by describing its effect as being to enshrine the freedom of contract in the Constitution. Its context and
immediate surroundings were ignored as was also
its original express purpose as stated by Chief Justice
Marshall. It was intended to restrict State activities
in absolving debtors from paying their debts, not to
proclaim for future guidance a general principle of
freedom of contracts.
Similarly the Supreme Court in 19052 seems to
have deduced from the " Due Process " clauses of the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution
a prohibition against State legislative interference
with freedom of contract. The point in issue was
whether a State-enacted maximum-hours law was
unconstitutional. There is no express provision in
the Constitution saying that a State shall not have
power to regulate hours of labour. The Fifth and
Fourteenth amendments, however, provide that no
2 In Lockner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
The Obligation of Contracts Clause
69
person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property

without due process of law.. In the Supreme Court
opinion in the case3 it was declared that: " The
Statute necessarily interfered with the right of contract between employer and employee, concerning
the number of hours in which the latter may labour
in the bakery of the employer. The general right
to make a contract in relation to his business is part
of the liberty of the individual protected by the
Fourteenth Amendment. . . . The right to purchase
or to sell labour is part of the liberty protected by
this amendment." For this reason the Statute in
question was declared unconstitutional.
The emphasis in the common law countries on the
beneficent economic effects of freedom of contract
and the consequent belief in contract as an institution
making for general economic welfare brought in their
train an enhanced respect for contractual obligations
as an extension of individual liberty. This prompted
over-statements of the degree of protection given to
freedom of contract in the Constitution.
A distinguished American author i has recently
declared that " generally speaking, the protection
afforded by clause 1 does not today go much, if at
all, beyond that afforded by Section 1 of the Fourteenth. Amendment." The learned author cites in
support of his opinion the words of the Supreme
Court 5 : " It is settled that neither the ' contract'
a Lockner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
4
Edward S. Corwin: The Constitution and What it Means

Today, 11th ed., at pp. 82-83.
s Atlantic Coast Line Co. v. Goldsboro, 252 U.S., at p. 558.
70
clause nor the ' due process' clause has the effect of
overriding the power of the state to establish all
regulations that are reasonably necessary to secure
the health, safety, good order, comfort, or general
welfare of the community."
It is true that taken together these provisions did
and still do provide a considerable safeguard to
the contractual rights of individuals. Nevertheless,
as we have already seen, their influence has not been
strong enough to counteract the tendency to weaken
obligations in the field of contracts with public
authorities so that their force is not so great as that
of private contracts.
CONCLUSIONS
I SHALL now proceed to summarise the developments

which I have tried to trace in my first three lectures
drawing attention to some contemporary trends in
the treatment of contracts; and in conclusion I will
venture to make some general observations on those
developments and trends.
We are so familiar with the broad definitions of a
legally enforceable contract framed during the nineteenth century and with the statement in general
terms of the governing principles of the law of contract
that we are inclined to lose sight of the fact that this
broad definition and these governing general principles
have been assembled from masses of separate rules
applied by the courts from time to time in the decision
of issues between individual litigants. It is a corollary
of that generalisation that just as an edifice of broad
principles can be erected by decision after decision so
Conclusions
71
sections of the edifice can be pulled down by one

decision after another, until whole sections have to be
discarded and the whole edifice may appear to become
obsolete or threatened with destruction.
Morris L.J. in his recent address to the Holdsworth
Club on " Law and Public Opinion " 6 has strikingly
and most aptly described an aspect of the same feature
from a different angle. " The practising lawyer," he
observes, " and the judge in office must . . . at all
times remember that though the history of the law
fascinates and though the theories and the principles
of legal philosophy are rich in interest, the interest
of the litigant is in his own case."
All this leads me to the view that we must at all
times keep in mind the question whether the time is
not fast approaching when the whole structure of
contract law, with its preconceived ideas and nineteenth-century doctrines, has not become so rigid and
static that it cannot be expected to bear on all fronts
the strains and stresses of modern economic and social
pressures.
As I have already indicated, there is a considerable
measure of stability and fixity about legal machinery
when it operates to determine human relationships.
Indeed this has in the past been one of the great
assets of the common law. It has served, among
other purposes, to create security and calculability
in the life of the community. As Judge Cardozo has
emphasised,7 " What has once been settled by a
At p. 3.
7
In Paradoxes of Legal Science, pp. 29-30.
72
precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty

and uniformity are gains not lightly to be sacrificed.
Above all is this true when honest men have shaped
their conduct upon the faith of the pronouncement."
But as social and economic changes tend now to
take place with much greater rapidity than formerly,
the comparatively static machinery of law does not
seem to be so apt for the adjustment of the rights of
citizens. It is not only the ever-changing needs and
circumstances of our society but also the complex
situations which it provides that call here and there
for some modifications of the older machinery. I
have seen no better observation on this complexity
than one recently made by Professor C. F. Carter,8
of Manchester: " The purposes of economic policy are
contradictory, so that only in rare cases is it possible
to make one thing better without making another
worse. The main instruments of economic management turn out to be weak or to have undesirable
side-effects."
One suggested explanation of the restrictions on the
freedom of contract apparent in the last hundred
years is that collectivism curtails, as surely as individualism extends, the area of contractual freedom.9
This is seen more clearly perhaps in the field of
legislation than in the decisions of the courts. For
example, much of the law governing the relation of
landlords and tenants is now statutory and the parties
are expressly forbidden to contract out of these
8
9
In an article entitled " Can We Control the Economy? "

District Bank Review, Dec, 1958, at p. 17.
Koscoe Pound, Interpretation of Legal History, p. 264.
Conclusions
73
statutory regulations. Many other examples could

be given from the law governing masters and servants
and overseas trade.
But the foregoing " explanation" is really no
explanation at all: it is a simple description of a
general political trend. The root causes lie deeper.
One commentator has observed that we are today
confronted with the paradox that man is at once a
social being, and therefore co-operative, and an
individual personality, and therefore competitive.
More and more, it is becoming apparent in the field
of economics and political science that one of the
great contentious issues of modern times is whether
the State should intervene to regulate certain aspects
of our daily lives; and if it should, to what extent
such intervention should be carried. In other words
the line between the provinces of State activity
and individual enterprise is indistinct. It would be
generally agreed that it is for the legislature rather
than the courts to draw that line. Indeed, as Professor
Friedmann has pointed out,10 the English judiciary
accept for practical purposes the doctrine of separation
of powers and are consequently reluctant to compete
with the legislator in the application of legal policy.
In this respect their attitude can be contrasted with
that of the American Supreme Court, which, through
its role as guardian of the Constitution, has decisively
influenced American social policy for almost a century.
The English Statute-book in recent years is full of
enactments reflecting prevalent political, economic and
i Legal Theory, 3rd ed., at p. 334.
74
social theories. But in its interpretation of social

legislation, as well as in applying and advancing wellestablished legal principles, the judiciary is inevitably
called upon " to reconcile the freedom which is
necessary if the individual is to give of his best to
mankind, with the compulsion which is necessary if
the community is to exist in which alone he can enjoy
his freedom."X1 When in the past the courts have been
engaged in this task, they have often shown a special
virtue in moulding and adapting time-old principles
to fit new situations. And this they must at all
cost continue to do; for the common law is " a living
organism constantly readjusting itself to its environment, and it is in that power of constant readjustment
that its supreme merit resides." 12 Yet when all this
is taken into consideration the role of the courts in
reshaping and readjusting and guiding the affairs of
the community must from the very nature of modern
government be secondary.
I think we would be deceiving ourselves if we were
to believe that the respect of the ordinary citizen for
his formal contractual obligations is as great today as
it was, say, a hundred years ago. Evidence to support
this view is forthcoming from the developments within
the law of contract itself during the present century.
As we have seen, a whole area of excuse for nonperformance of obligations has been opened up and
developed under the title of frustration. This is the
outcome of pressure by litigants for release from
promises which they find onerous having regard to
11
12
Lord Macmillan, Law and Other Things, at p. 18.

Ibid., at p. 54.
Conclusions
75
fundamental changes of circumstances. Similarly a

good deal of pressure is continually exercised for the
importation of terms to relieve situations of hardship
if performance is insisted upon according to the strict
letter of the contract. And there is a whole host of
recent cases in which a promisor, after he himself has
performed his promise, finds the other contracting
party ready to take the benefit of the performance
while declining to discharge his own obligation and,
distastefully so far as the judges are concerned,
relying on the defence of illegality or immorality or
public policy.
Considerable significance must also, I think, be
attached to the fact that so many arrangements,
indistinguishable almost from enforceable contracts,
are today made with the clear intention that they are
not to be justiciable as contracts in the ordinary courts.
As a background there are a number of other
considerations that may be influencing the public in
their attitude to the fulfilment of their contracts. In
the first place there are more circumstances now than
formerly in which the legislature and the courts have
for reasons of government or public policy imposed
restrictions on the parties' freedom to contract. There
is not the same measure of faith in the beneficence of
contracts or of fervour for freedom of contract as
there was during the nineteenth century. The environment has changed; and the climate in which contracts
have been entered into is not so favourable.
Secondly, an increasing number of contracts is now
entered into by the acceptance of standard forms
76
containing many terms which the acceptor often never

reads and often also which, if he did read, he could
not fully comprehend. The printed or typed form
of contract is presented to the customer, whose
alternatives are, either to do business on its terms,
or to decline to do business at all and do without the
service or commodity. It may well be that a person
who concluded the bargain in such circumstances cannot have the respect for his obligations that he ought to
have, and when he finds his position difficult may press
for relief from what he regards as a " technical "
obligation of which he was not fully aware or which
he only imperfectly understands or which he only
unwillingly accepted.
A third influence may well be the complexity of
modern activities and the consequent difficulty of
providing for every eventuality. I have already
quoted from Denning L.J.'s judgment in the Movietonews case that " we cannot any longer credit a party
with the foresight of a prophet or his lawyer with the
draftsmanship of a Chalmers." Here again a party
may regard the matter in issue as a " technicality "
the import of which he did not comprehend.
All these circumstances in my view tend to diminish
the regard of the promisor for his promise or contractual obligation. And it is not without interest that in
the United States also the nineteenth century faith
in the freedom of contract is neither so universally
nor so potently felt.
One never appreciates more fully the truth of a
profound observation by that great American judge
Conclusions
77
Mr. Justice Holmes than when studying developments

and trends in the law of contracts during the last
three or four hundred years. "The law," he observed,
" is always approaching, and never reaching, consistency. It is forever adopting new principles from life
at one end, and it always retains old ones from history
at the other. . . . It will become entirely consistent
only when it ceases to grow."

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THE HAMLYN LECTURES

THE SANCTITY OF CONTRACTS

SIR DAVID HUGHES PARRY,

Published under the auspices of

STEVENS & SONS LIMITED

First published in 1959 by

Stevens A Sons, Limited

The Moral Basis of ContractThe Influence of

Implied TermsImpossibility of Performance

A COMPARISON AND CONCLUSIONS .

The Obligation of Contracts Clause in the

A. L. Goodhart, K.B.E., Q . C , F.B.A.

1953 Sir Carleton Kemp Allen, Q.c,

1955 Glanville Williams, LL.D.

THE HAMLYN TRUST

The Hamlyn Trust

Peoples and realising and appreciating such

(b) Representatives of the Universities of

(c) The Vice-Chancellor of the University of

The Trustees decided to organise courses of lectures

GROWTH OF SANCTITY OF CONTRACTS

In the 1953 Hamlyn Lectures, English Laiv and the

Growth of Sanctity of Contracts

moral basis of contract is that the promisor has by

The Moral Basis of Contract

historical, another commercial or economic and the

See on this generally, Pluoknett, Concise History

Growth of Sanctity of Contracts

The second reason, as I have said, is commercial

Jurisprudence, 2nd ed., p. 350, citing Cairna, Law and the

The Moral Basis of Contract

justify the legal enforcement of promises; and some of

Before the common law courts had evolved a

Growth of Sanctity of Contracts

entered into an agreement ratified by an oathand

See generally Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common

The Influence of the Ecclesiastical Courts

formative period in English law, there was an insistence

During this same medieval interregnum, in the

See Plnoknett, op. cit. at p. 627. For a contrary view, see

Growth of Sanctity of Contracts

in time to the necessity of providing a remedy for

(1677) 2 Lev. 210, 211-212.

of Contracts at Common Law

obligations between the members of a family." 1 4

Lord Mansfield at p. 135.

Growth of Sanctity of Contracts

promise made upon a good and valuable consideration,

Enforceability of Contracts at Common Law 11

Sir W i l l i a m H o l d s w o r t h describes h i m as h a v i n g " wrested

2* (1831) 2 B. & Ad. 811, 813.

Growth of Sanctity of Contracts

promise, is one which should be received with some

Enforceability of Contracts at Common Law 13

Long before Lord Mansfield and the judges of his

Growth of Sanctity of Contracts

has placed mankind under the governance of two

Side by side with the analytical school's conception

Nineteenth Century Views of Contracts

purpose of the law of contract. There was for