Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/832

796 796 HARVARD LAW REVIEW the case is one, in the words of an English judge, "where British (American) administrative intervention has so directly operated upon the fulfilment of a contract for a specific work as to transform the contemplated conditions of performance." ^^ Whether or not a different result should be reached in case of an unqualified contract made subsequent to the passage of that act will be considered later in connection with the discussion of priority certificates. Non-Binding Regulations Enforceable Indirectly — Priorities Thus far we have dealt only with requisitions under authority of law and with orders and regulations which it would have been illegal for the contractor or for the persons deahng with him to have disregarded. It is beUeved, however, that a similar effect should be given, at least in some cases, to orders of another sort where disobedience would not have been a criminal or even a prohibited act, but where the administration had been granted by Congress a power of compulsion amply sufficient as a prac- tical matter to necessitate compliance with the order in question. The recent English case of Hulton 6* Co. v. Chadwick & Taylor, ^^ is an example of this sort of order. The defendant in that case was granted a Hcense to import pulp on condition that he would agree to use the pulp imported for the purpose of supplying two- thirds of the pre-war requirements of each customer. The plain- tiff had a contract for paper which would necessarily be made from imported pulp. The defendant refused to perform on the ground that he was prevented by the government from performing the contract according to its terms, and was under no obligation to perform a wholly different contract. The Court of Appeal ac- cepted this argument, saying that, although his use of the amount of pulp actually imported by him in violation of the agreement on which he had obtained his import license would not have been illegal, such a violation would undoubtedly have caused the gov- » McCardie, J., in Blackburn Bobbin Co. v. T. W. Allen & Sons, Ltd., [1918] i K. B. 540, 548. " 34 T. L. R. 230 (1918).