Page:Civil code of Japan compared with French (1902-06-01).pdf/10

412 extinguished, or by which rights are created, etc., are styled “” There seems to be no reason or necessity for the distinctions. In the Japanese Code the term “,” or contract, is employed to denote any agreement whose object is to produce a legal effect within the province of private, as opposed to public, law. Hence it includes all agreements by which rights as well as rights  are created, altered, transferred or extinguished.

The French law considers the existence of a “cause” as an essential element in the formation of a contract (Articles 1130, 1131). But the “cause” of the French law is not the same as the “consideration,” which is an essential element in forming a valid contract in contemplation of Anglo-American jurisprudence. What a consideration ought to be is very clearly settled in the latter; but to ascertain what a “cause” should be in the French law is a more difficult task. Besides in practice, no importance seems to be attached to the question of the “cause.” This is probably due to the provision of Article 1132, where it is declared that a contract is none the less valid, even though the cause is not expressed.

The Japanese Code has dispensed with these legal requirements and nothing like the rules which obtain in America and England concerning the consideration of a contract, or in France respecting “cause,” are found in it. It is difficult to conceive why the expression or the want of expression of an acknowledgment of the receipt of a nominal sum of money, for instance, should be considered so important as to make the validity of an obligation dependent upon such expression.

— In Article 529 and the three subsequent articles of the Japanese Code are laid down the rules to be applied in cases where proposals are made by advertisements. It is provided that a person who advertises that he will give a fixed remuneration to whoever performs a certain act, is bound to give such remuneration to any person who performs the act. The advertiser is permitted to cancel the advertisement so long as the act specified is not completed, following in this respect the same means that were used for advertising. Explicit rules for application in cases where there are several persons who perform the act in question are also laid down. At the time the French Code was elaborated, the organs for appealing to the public were not developed as they have been in recent years, and of course no provisions of this kind were then found necessary. But having in view the peculiar circumstances attendant upon proposals made in this manner and the frequency of cases in which this