ENGINEEKING CONTRACTS DEALT WITH 79 



24. At what time the contract price may be recovered. A 

 contract to complete certain work may involve the proposition 

 that there shall be no remuneration until the work is com- 

 pleted. But if there is nothing in the case amounting to a 

 contract to complete the work before any remuneration shall 

 be due as in the case of a shipwright undertaking, in the 

 same way that shipwrights ordinarily do, to put a vessel in 

 repair the workman may, after he has proceeded with a 

 portion of the work, refuse to continue it, unless he is paid 

 for the work he has performed ; and may recover to that 

 extent (Roberts v. Havelock, 1832, 3 B. & Ad. 404). In general 

 if the contract is not entire (i.e. to do the whole work for a 

 lump sum), and can be divided, the Court will give relief to 

 the contractor who has done part of what he undertook to do. 

 The law was thus expressed by Phillimore, J., in The Tergeste, 

 1902, P., at p. 34 : "A man who contracts to do a long costly 

 piece of work does not contract, unless he expressly says so, 

 that he will do all the work, standing out of pocket until he 

 is paid at the end. He is entitled to say : ' That is not my 

 contract ; it is quite true that I had contracted to do the work, 

 and I am bound to do it ; but there is an understanding all 

 along that you are to give me, from time to time at reasonable 

 times, payments for work done ' ; and if the contract here was 

 to do certain work, it always included that term to do it if we 

 are paid reasonable sums in part payment as we go along, not 

 an advance, but in part payment for work already done before 

 we proceed to do the next thing." (For the discussion of 

 cases in which a certificate is made a condition precedent to 

 payment, see Chap. XIV., 16, post.) 



25. Price where the contract is severable. As has already 

 been indicated, if a contract is severable, the contractor may 

 sue in respect of the amount of work which he has done. For 

 instance, in Newfoundland Government v. Newfoundland Ry. 

 Co., 1888, 13 A. C. 200 (supra), by a contract in 1881 embodied 

 in a statute, the plaintiff company covenanted to complete a 

 railway in five years and thereafter to maintain and con- 

 tinuously operate it. In consideration of this the Government 

 covenanted to pay the company upon the construction an 

 annual subsidy. It appeared that the company completed a 

 portion of the line and received from the Government on the 

 completion of each five-mile section the proportionate part of 



