FO371-31667 — Page 12

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COPY With Mr. McCabe's Compliments.

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY BRANCH

(Treasury and Board of Trade)

;-HD AL¢={{པར་ཐམ

24, Kingsway, W.0.2.03

To:- J.C. Sterndale Bennett, Esq., M.C.,

Foreign Office, S.W.1.

Unter

St

February, 1942.

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Dear Mr. Swire,

Sterndale Bennett in his letter to you of the 12th February told you that the questions put in your letter to him of the 4th February fell outside the official orbit of the Foreign Office as indeed I must say at once they seem to me to fall outside my own. Nevertheless and subject always to the view of your own lawyers, these points do interest me personally and indirectly the answers to them have a bearing upon the view which I may be required to take of their impact upon matters which come before me officially, and I therefore venture to jot down some observations upon them, which you might include with all reserves in your instructions to your lawyers to advise you. These questions and their answers must be of considerable importance to a number of those who were engaged in business in these territories in the Far East which have fallen to the enemy and it may be though desirable in conjunction with others in the like case to seek an opinion from one or two Counsel of the highest standing, including, if I may make the suggestion and in his private capacity, Junior Counsel to the Treasury, Mr. Valentine Holmes.

ヒ

Subject to those reservations which a lawyer feels bound to make about the facts of the individual case and the terms of the contract in question, it is broadly correct to say that the fact that war has made it impossible to implement a contract automatically determines it. For example, a British company in 1914 had current with a number of other companies contracts for the supply of dyestuffs clearly identifiable as being of German manufacture: the contract provided that deliveries or orders off the contract might be suspended by either party in any contingency beyond the control of the parties, such as war. The contract covered a period unexpired at the outbreak of war and at that date

/quantities

G.V. Swire, Esq., 28, Cornhill, R.C.3.

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