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

Conclusions 75fundamental changes of circumstances. Similarly agood deal of pressure is continually exercised for theimportation of terms to relieve situations of hardshipif performance is insisted upon according to the strictletter of the contract. And there is a whole host ofrecent cases in which a promisor, after he himself hasperformed his promise, finds the other contractingparty ready to take the benefit of the performancewhile declining to discharge his own obligation and,distastefully so far as the judges are concerned,relying on the defence of illegality or immorality orpublic policy.Considerable significance must also, I think, beattached to the fact that so many arrangements,indistinguishable almost from enforceable contracts,are today made with the clear intention that they arenot to be justiciable as contracts in the ordinary courts.As a background there are a number of otherconsiderations that may be influencing the public intheir attitude to the fulfilment of their contracts. Inthe first place there are more circumstances now thanformerly in which the legislature and the courts havefor reasons of government or public policy imposedrestrictions on the parties' freedom to contract. Thereis not the same measure of faith in the beneficence ofcontracts or of fervour for freedom of contract asthere was during the nineteenth century. The environmenthas changed; and the climate in which contractshave been entered into is not so favourable.Secondly, an increasing number of contracts is nowentered into by the acceptance of standard forms