On the same date the Banque replied:—"We beg to state that owing to present state of our bank, we very much regret we are not allowed to negotiate your bills at the present time." And they go} on to suggest that Arnhold Bros. should sell their bills to another bank at the day's rate and compensate, the Banque with the dif erence and the Banque would de-duet the amount of the bills from the contract, They conclude "we are reluctantly compelled to make such a proposal since we are ordered to suspend payment for the tire that tion to negotiate our bills against the above contracts we must con-'Sider them null and' void.
On December 28. the Banque write to Arnhold Bros. asked the "Banque de wnton, to take over outstanding' contracts with your firm. same acceptable creating a dangerous precedent if party to a contract can of his! own accord transfer the liability sto an 0 party—In your' favour of 28rd instant you informed us that you were not permitted to negotiate our bill. Consequently we do not see any other course Dut to consider the contracts cancelled.
'On' December 29, the Banque writes "and as you' cannot accept our proposal we beg to state that we are ready to accept and pay each documentary bills concerning contrasts, ete., ete." On December 29, Arnholds write "in reply would point out that since you had informed us you were not in a position to negotiate our Dill, we have had to make other arrangements and have nothing to offer you, The Rescinding of " Contract The manager of Arnholds states that ax soon as the Bungue refused to negotiate the bills, the firm had to mako other arrangements through another bank. Mr. MacDonald, on behalf of the Bunque, cites Halsbury Vol. 7 paragraph 805, "A contract eatinot de rescinded in the strictest legal nense of the term without the consent of both pax but Hals-bury continues: "A mere inti-motion by one party of his intention not to perform his promise does mot discharge the contract unless the other party elects.to treat it as as a breach of the con-
In Michael v, Hart & Ca, (1902) 1. K. B. 482. Collins M. "The veneral rule where there has party to the Conteest an option the repudiation of the contract)
'a definite breach of it." Where 4 contract consists of mutual promises which are dependent on one another so that the due performance of each party is a condition precedent to the liability of the other party to perform his promise the breach of one of those parties does release the other and terminate the contract.
"Where one party has disabled himself from performing the contact the other party. is entitled to treat the contract as at an end." Halsbury Vol. 7 paragraph 901.
The Power to Assign The case of Tolhurst v. Associated Cement Manufacturers L, R.
(1908) A. C, 414 is cited as an argument that the Banque Industrielle had power to assign their contract, with Arnhold Bros. to another bank, and it is argued that there was no breach by the Banque, that they did not refuse to carry out their contract, that all they did was to assign their contract to another bank where Arnhold Bros. could obtain all they wanted, namely to negotiate their bills. am not attracted by this argument, nor do I think the case could sap-port it. In the first place, the jecisfon of the learned Lords wa: Prot unanimous. Lord Halebury agreed with the majority "with!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.