board, may, when the
circumstances permit, be allowed to continue her voyage if the master
is willing to hand over the contraband to the belligerent warship.
The delivery of the contraband must be entered by the captor on the
log-book of the vessel stopped, and the master must give the captor
duly certified copies of all relevant papers. The captor is at
liberty to destroy the contraband that has been handed over to him
under these conditions.

See Hautefeuille, _Des droits et devoirs des nations neutres_ (2nd
ed., 1858); Perels, _Droit maritime international_, traduit par
Arendt (Paris, 1884); Moore, _Digest of International Law_ (1906); L.
Oppenheim, _International Law_ (1907); Barclay, _Problems of
International Practice and Diplomacy_ (1907). See also Hall,
_International Law on Analogues of Contraband_; Smith and Sibley,
_International Law as interpreted during the Russo-Japanese War,
1905_, on "Malacca" and "Prinz Heinrich" cases (mails). (T. BA.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See Springbok case, 1866, 5 Wallace I.; on _Doelwijk_ case see
Brusa, _Rev. gen. de droit international public_ (1897); Fauchille
_id._ (1897), p. 291, also _The Times_, April 15, May 25, June 1,
1897.

CONTRACT (Lat. _contractus_, from _contrahere_, to draw together, to
bind), the legal term for a bargain or agreement; some writers,
following the Indian Contract Act, confine the term to agreements
enforceable by law: this, though not yet universally adopted, seems an
improvement. Enforcement of good faith in matters of bargain and promise
is among the most important functions of legal justice. It might not be
too much to say that, next after keeping the peace and securing property
against violence and fraud so that business may be possible, it is the
most important. Yet we shall find that the importance of contract is
developed comparatively late in the history of law. The commonwealth
needs elaborate rules about contracts only when it is advanced enough in
civilization and trade to have an elaborate system of credit. The Roman
law of the empire dealt with contract, indeed, in a fairly adequate
manner, though it never had a complete or uniform theory; and the Roman
law, as settled by Justinian, appears to have satisfied the Eastern
empire long after the Western nations had begun to recast their
institutions, and the traders of the Mediterranean had struck out a
cosmopolitan body of r