The Sanctity of Contracts in English Law - College of Social ...

70 A Comparison and Conclusionsclause nor the ' due process' clause has the effect ofoverriding the power of the state to establish allregulations that are reasonably necessary to securethe health, safety, good order, comfort, or generalwelfare of the community."It is true that taken together these provisions didand still do provide a considerable safeguard tothe contractual rights of individuals. Nevertheless,as we have already seen, their influence has not beenstrong enough to counteract the tendency to weakenobligations in the field of contracts with publicauthorities so that their force is not so great as thatof private contracts.CONCLUSIONSI SHALL now proceed to summarise the developmentswhich I have tried to trace in my first three lecturesdrawing attention to some contemporary trends inthe treatment of contracts; and in conclusion I willventure to make some general observations on thosedevelopments and trends.We are so familiar with the broad definitions of alegally enforceable contract framed during the nineteenthcentury and with the statement in generalterms of the governing principles of the law of contractthat we are inclined to lose sight of the fact that thisbroad definition and these governing general principleshave been assembled from masses of separate rulesapplied by the courts from time to time in the decisionof issues between individual litigants. It is a corollaryof that generalisation that just as an edifice of broadprinciples can be erected by decision after decision so