JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 209.175.73.10 on Thu, 31 Dec 2015 18:33:14 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions REVIEWS THE EFFECT OF WAR ON CONTRACTS. By George J. Webber. London: The Solicitors' Law Stationery Society, 1946. 2d ed. Pp. 802. ?3 17s 6d.THE first edition of this work was published in 1940. Within six years a new edition, "three times as large as the first," has been made desirable, partly by the developments caused by the recent war, partly by a number of decisions in the House of Lords reversing some views that had generally prevailed, and partly because of the author's desire to make a more thorough and critical review of the field. This edition well deserves a full review on its own merits.In a foreword by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, this work is described as "essentially a practitioner's book"; but there is no less reason for describing it as a book for law students, law professors, and judges. They will find here a thorough and critical review of great numbers of court decisions, with a full statement of the facts and a full and fair exposition of the reasoning of the judges; they will find also a presentation of the theories of legal scholars as well as the author's original analysis of problems and matured views on questions of policy.The book is especially useful to American lawyers because nowhere else is so complete a picture of English case law available and because to a very considerable extent American case law and theory are stated for comparison. The fact that British statutes and administrative orders are continually referred to is not a defect from the American standpoint; for the same problems are dealt with in our own statutes and orders, and comparison is profitable. Not many decisions of our state courts are cited.
The book is divided into four Parts. Of these, Part I contains chapters on the Duration and Termination of War, Emergency Powers, Who is an Enemy, Contracts with an Enemy, and Procedural Capacity of EnemyAliens. With all of these our courts have been and will continue to be frequently concerned. Part II deals with the effect of war on specific kinds of Commercial Contracts, including Agency, Corporate Shareholders, Sales, Negotiable Instruments, Insurance, Freight, and Service.Parts III and IV fill much more than half of the book and deal with the subject of Frustration of Contract. It is here that the greatest contribution of the author is found; and it is to this that the reviewer will direct his specific comment.When a court holds that a contractor's duty is discharged by impossibility of performance or by frustration of object, the explanation commonly made has been that the contractor's duty is impliedly conditioned on the...
