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contractor may be inadequate and the contractor
may have to obtain further resources at short
notice and heavy expense, while if a quantity is
greatly reduced the payment received by the con
tractor may make uneconomic the use of the
plant and personnel engaged for the contract.
For example, where part of the works is the im
portation of stone and there is a limited amount
of stone available for purchase in the neighbour
hood of the works, how can the contractor fix
his price per ton for importation if the employer
(despite a long period of site investigation) can
not tell him whether or not the quantity of stone
to be imported will exceed the quantity available
in the neighbourhood?
How very foolish of contractors and engineers
to consider this a practical problem, when it can
be solved simply by sprinkling
the bill with
'provisional' items. How doubly foolish to wish
to hurry lawyers who have so much to offer,
making it necessary for the learned editor to
admonish them firmly:
".
.
.
even with punctilious, attention and
immediate
availability
of
all
concerned,
pleadings in a complicated building or engin
eering matter can rarely take less than twelve
to eighteen months, and frequently more than
that."
That the contractor may become bankrupt in
this period or the truth on which an employer may
rely to resist a false claim fade from mind is no
doubt immaterial—all problems can be solved by
words and the arguments of advocates.
The text of the book remains an invaluable aid
to the discerning practitioner who can separate
th wheat from the chaff. Any practitioner asked
to draft a construction contract
should
read
Chapter 15 especially, so as to be warned of the
traps which the House of Lords has recently laid
for the unwary.
MAX W. ABRAHAMSON.
Bankruptcy Law and Practice
by G. H. L.
Fridman, I. Hicks and E. C. Johnson, 8v., London,
Butterworth, 1970. £5.50.
In the preface to this work the authors state
that their chief aim is to provide a comprehensive
straightforward account of the law and practice
of bankruptcy. They have certainly succeeded.
The authors of course write for
the English
practitioner and their book states the law in that
country as it was on December 1st 1969. Bank
ruptcy law there, as here,
is
the creature of
statute and in England the effective bankruptcy
statute is the 1914 Act which has no application
in either jurisdiction in Ireland. The book is based
on this Act.
For the Irish bankruptcy practitioner who reads
the work with care and remembers the distinction
between the methods of Bankruptcy administra
tion in Ireland and England the book will be in
valuable. There is a vast mass of bankruptcy law
which is common to both countries and it is to
be found set out in this treatise in a cogent and
readable fashion. The authors in departing from
the traditional method of presentation of Bank
ruptcy
law used by
the
learned
authors of
Williams on Bankruptcy—the standard work—
and dealing with bankruptcy law in a logical form
rather than the method used
in Williams of
dealing with each section of the 1914 Act have
performed a useful service to the serious student
of this branch of the law.
They have also referred in detail to the findings
of the Blagden Committee which reported
in
1957. This was a Committee set up to enquire
into the law and administration of bankruptcy in
England and while its conclusions have not so
far been given legislative effect in that country
the findings of the Committee have been studied
with much interest by bankruptcy lawyers
in
Ireland.
There are few facets of bankruptcy law which
the Irish lawyer will not find dealt with by the
authors in a capable and thorough manner. Deal
ing with the auxiliary jurisdiction in bankruptcy
the Authors at page 304 state than an order of
an English Court with bankruptcy jurisdiction is
enforceable in Scotland and Northern Ireland in
Courts having bankruptcy jurisdiction there as if
made in such Courts. There is also, they state,
reciprocity with Orders of Courts of bankruptcy
in Scotland and Northern Ireland. While this is
of course true we trust that in future editions of
the work the Authors will note that the practice
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