such case it was said that the offer had been accepted by “silence; but it seems better to say that it was accepted by conduct and that the landlord had waived notice of acceptance. Similarly an offer made to a landowner to occupy land under a licence containing specified terms may be accepted by the landowner’s permitting the offer or to occupy the land. The possibility of acceptance by conduct is, yet again, illustrated by the arbitration cases already mentioned, in which an agreement to abandon the proceedings was alleged to have arisen from delay in prosecuting them. As already noted, legislation has now dealt with the practical problems which used to arise from delay in the pursuit of arbitration claims, but the reasoning of the arbitration cases could still apply where the legislative provisions have been excluded by agreement or where it was alleged that some other type of claim or remedy had been abandoned by tacit agreement. According to those cases, an offer of abandonment can be accepted by reacting to it, not merely by inactivity, but also by some further conduct: e.g. by closing, or disposing of, the relevant files.”
