The appellant, seeking the equitable interposition of the Court to destroy a contract on the ground of misrepresentation and, if necessary, of fraud, has the burden of making out a satisfactory case. That, in view of the specific allegations made, involves proof of (1) the representations charged, (2) their untruth, (3) reliance by the Government on the truth of the representations, and (4), if necessary, the fraud of the respondent. (See Hallows v. Fernie[3].) Even if it be assumed that the first and second conditions are fulfilled (though the representation secondly alleged in par. 3 of the information has not been shown to be inaccurate), the appellant's case fails to establish the third condition. The consequence is that, granting for the moment no obstacle from the standpoint either of restitution or illegality, the appellant is not entitled to a decree. The failure with regard to the third condition appears from the facts as to the circumstances in which the contract was made, and these are referred to in order to understand and appraise the competing arguments. The original contract of 1909 was a schedule of rates contract. In excavation, class 2, the estimated approximate quantity of excavation, namely, 50,000 cubic yards, was in fact greatly exceeded, and by 17th April 1918 reached 210,000 cubic yards. This unexpected development, according to the contractors, so changed the character of the work from their standpoint, notwithstanding all counterbalancing considerations, as to make a difference to them of £69,088 5s. 7d. by the date mentioned. The contractors therefore sought from the Government an increase of 16 per cent of schedule rates to operate as from the beginning to the end of the work, if they were to complete it, or alternatively that the Government should take over the work and make compensatory payments and allowances. The Government deputed certain engineers to investigate the position and interview the respondent. The alleged representations were made to the engineers, who reported to the Government and, it may be assumed, based their recommendations upon those representations among other circumstances. That is a considerable concession to the appellant, because as to the most important of the alleged representations, namely, an absolute loss of £60,000, the recommendations of the engineers not only did not expressly rest upon it, but were, on the contrary, expressly stated not to be based on any definite amount of loss. Passing that by, however, it appears that the Cabinet, after Ministers had individually received copies of the engineers' recommendations, appointed a sub-committee of its members to finally decide what should be done with respect to those recommendations. The sub-committee consisted of Mr. Hall, Attorney-General, Mr. Garland, Minister of Justice, and Mr. Grahame, Minister of Agriculture. These gentlemen decided to accept the recommendations, and deputed Mr. Grahame to sign the contract.