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alter some of its conditions without agreement, so long as this

overriding-provision was within the terms of-the-main contract

which he entered. With hesitation, we conclude that that

principle is applicable also when any term is capable of unilateral variation, and that such a clause does not destroy the contractual relationship between the Crown and public officers,

however vulnerable the latter may be as a result. At least

!

public officers can enforce the terms of the contract, so long

as they are in force.

We must recognize also the practical difficulties of

as we have found, there

reaching any other conclusion,

If

is a contract between the Crown and its servants, and the

overriding provision for unilateral variation were held to be

inoperative, the Crown would be obliged to secure the agreement

of each public officer to every change to G.Rs., however minute.

This is unrealistic and unworkable, at least until the Crown

has separated, as discussed above, G.Rs. into those which are

genuinely referable to a public officer's general contract of

service and those which are not.

It is perhaps worth noting what the result would have

been had we come to the conclusion that the clause for the

unilateral variation by the Crown of the contract of service

so strikes at the root of the contractual relationship as to

destroy it. We should have had to conclude either that the

clause prevented there being any contract at all, or that the

remainder of the contract stood but that this-clause was nugatory.

Had we concluded that there was no contract which binds

the Crown, this would have left the Crown free, in the exercise

of the power inferred by the Letters Patent to regulate and

control the public service, to make G.Rs. from time to time,

as it thought fit and without any agreement from the public

officers' concerned. C.S.R. 11 would therefore have been

valid and effective for all purposes,

C