Conditions And Promises Aberfoyle Plantations Ltd. v. Cheng1
| Date | 01 July 1960 |
| Published date | 01 July 1960 |
| Author | J. L. Montrose |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1960.tb00620.x |
484
THE
MODERN
LAW
REVIEW
VOL
28
though they are called one conspiracy, than
it
is to include several
different charges, in one count.” There were various
other grounds
of
appeal which the court accepted relating to some
of the convictions
on
the substantive counts, but
on
these we make
no
comment.
What appears to have happened here is that, after an extremely
able argument, the court has leaned the opposite way to the way
it
leaned in
Hammersley,
and gave weight to considerations
which found little response in that case, but which had previously
been most ably expounded by Humphreys
J.
in
R.
v.
Cooper and
Compton.
The court got round
Meyrick and Ribufi
and
Ham-
mersley
by saying that in those cases
it
was held that there was
only one conspiracy; but surely that is the very point for decision.
In
those two cases
it
may not be without significance that the
con-
spiracies alleged were to defeat the ends of justice, and in both
corrupt police officers were involved.
As
Mr.
Durand said
on
behalf
of Bellson the bookmaker, in the Hammersley appeal, “in cases of
agreement to defeat the course of justice the law of criminal
con-
spiracy has gone somewhat beyond the bounds of the ordinary
criminal law because courts have been anxious to suppress the
slightest acts likely to affect the security of the administration of
justice.’’
lo
We must be grateful to the
Dawson
case for giving the
court an opportunity
to
weaken the authority of those cases which
prompted counsel’s remark;
it
remains for some other court to
elevate this argument of counsel to the status of a judicial pro-
nouncement.
So
the conspiracy charge was shot down.
J.
E.
U
WILLIAMS.
CONDITIONS
BND
PROMISES
ABERFOYLE
PLANTATIONS
Lm.
v.
CEENO
l
THE condemnation by Williston of the failure of English lawyers
su5ciently to recognise the difference between promises,
on
the one
hand, and provisions affecting the operation of promises,
on
the
other, has now appeared
in
an
English book,
viz.,
Smith and
Thomas,
Casebook
on
Contract,
p.
298.
So
important is
it,
and
so
little recognised, that
it
is worth restating. Williston in his
magnum
opus
on
Contracts
adopts a terminology whereby the distinction is
brought out by the use of the terms
“
promise
”
and
“
condition.”
He says
(8.
665):
‘‘
The difference between conditions and promises
is
so
radical in its consequences that there is
no
excuse for a nomen-
clature which fails to recognise the distinction.
In
the English
9
LOC.
cit.,
note
3,
supra,
at
p.
172.
1
[1959]
3
All
E.R.
910; [1969]
3
W.L.R.
1011.
A
later case dealing with the
distinction between condit.ions and covenants in leases is
Bashir
V.
Commis-
sioner
of
Lands
[1960]
A.C.
44.
10
LOG.
cit.,
note
2,
supra,
at
pp.
210-211.
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