SUPREME COURT—IN BANCO.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4292, 22 December 1874, Page 2

SUPREME COURT—IN BANCO.

Friday, 1 December 11. (Before His Honor Mr. Justice Johnston.) THOMSON V, HIGH. —JUDGMENT. The following is the judgment delivered by his Honor in this case : I have come to the conclusion in this case that the judgment must be in favor of the appellant. No doubt it is a proper argument upon the construction of a legislative provision that some meaning must be assigned, when possible, to all the language contained in it, and that if more meanings than one can be attached to it, that one should be adopted which seems to be most in accordance with the expressed or probable intention of the Legislature in making the enactment. Now the words “ vehicle belonging to Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs or successors, or employed in her or their service,” are capable of a construction which would not bring the carriages of a mail contractor within it, namely, that which would make it only affirmative of her Majesty’s common law prerogative right in her personal capacity to be free of all tolls, recognized in Westover v. Perkins (2 Ellis and Ellis, 57), and by Mr. Justice Richmond in Gough v. Cassidy. But it is said it is so improbable that the Legislature intended to restrict the exemption in that way, that some other construction must be put upon the words ; and that they must, at all events, be taken to extend to vehicles employed in the carriage of what are called her Majesty’s mails. I am of opinion that it would be putting a strained constfuction on the words to say that carriages not exclusively employed in the carriage of post letters, by a person who has entered into

a contract under an Act of the General Assembly of New Zealand, with her Majesty’s Postmaster-General on behalf of the Colonial Government—(see the Post-office Act, 1858) —in respect of the carriage of letters in mail bags are carnages employed in the sendee of her Majesty, within the meaning of the Provincial Act. But again it is said that the narrower sense of the words cannot be adopted, because the provision is quite unnecessary, it being incompetent for the Provincial Legislature to affect the Queen’s common law right. But the same observation may be made with regard to the other provisions of the section ; for the Provincial Ordinance could not restrain or affect the operation of any Act, either of the Imperial Parliament or of the General Assembly, creating exemptions from tolls. I think, therefore, that the language of the exempting clause is to be taken only as an affirmation—probably unnecessary—of tffe existing exemption, with which the Provincial Council did not profess to interfere. The MutinyAct of 1874, which contains a provision for making carriages carrying her Majesty’s troops exempt from tolls in all colonies,is an illustration of the class of enactment coming within the first set of exemptions. The Legislature of the colony itself has dealt with the subject of the administration of the Post-office, and has not thought fit to create such an exemption as is now contended for ; and although it would no doubt have been competent for the Provincial Legislature, by express enactment, to relieve persons and carnages employed in the Colonial Post-office service from payment of tolls, I do not think it can be taken to have done so. The notice given by the Postmaster to contractors that the mail carriages, when carrying passengers, would be liable to tolls, cannot, of course, affect the construction of the. Provincial Act, although it may affect the hona Jides of the claim for exemption. ' I am, therefore, of opinion that the appeal must be allowed, with costs, and the case remitted to the Resident Magistrate, with the opinion of the Court thereon.—Appeal allowed.