100 THE LAW AFFECTING ENGINEERS 



certain buildings. It was decided that the judge was right, 

 having regard to the evidence before him, in concluding that, 

 according to the custom in the trade, the plaintiff's, being the 

 lowest tender, had been accepted, although their agent had no 

 absolute authority to accept the lowest. 



Contractors who are anxious to secure a job at all costs 

 sometimes adopt the following course. They write to the 

 employer saying : " We shall do the work for 200 less than 

 the amount specified in the lowest tender received by you." 



In a case tried some years ago (South Helton Coal Co. v. 

 Haswell, etc., Co., 1898, 1 Ch. 465) the question arose whether 

 this form of tender was legal. 



There a company agreed to accept the highest net money 

 tender they should receive (other things being equal) from one 

 of two rival purchasers, for the royalties accruing in respect 

 of certain collieries. One of the parties offered 31,000, while 

 his rival offered " such a sum as will exceed by 200 the 

 amount to-day offered by my opponent." This was, of course, 

 made without reference to the sum offered by the opponent. 

 The offer of 31,000 having been accepted, the gentleman who 

 made the second offer brought an action for specific perform- 

 ance on the ground that his was the highest tender. The then 

 Master of the Rolls said : " The plaintiff's offer was illusory. 

 It does not answer to the description of the highest money- 

 tender either in the business or in the legal sense of the words. 

 To hold that the plaintiff's offer answered that description 

 would be to encourage trickery and chicanery. It would be 

 opening the door to the grossest fraud not only towards 

 purchasers, but towards the vendors also." From this state- 

 ment of the law it may be safely inferred that a man who 

 offers to do a piece of work for a price lower than that 

 demanded by any of his rivals would find his object defeated. 

 In dealing with local authorities, contractors are prone to 

 imagine that these bodies will always accept the lowest tender. 

 Moreover, it has often been assumed that a local authority 

 must accept the lowest tender. That this is not so was made 

 plain in the recent case of Rex v. Roberts (Ex p. Bailey), 1908, 

 24 T. L. R. 226. There the facts were that a district auditor 

 acting under Sec. 247 of the Public Health Act, 1875, made 

 certain surcharges against the Highways Committee in respect 

 of a contract for the supply of goods, upon the ground 

 that the tender accepted was not the lowest tender, and he 



