Where a lawful continuous act is made unlawful by statute a reasonable time is allowed for its discontinuance.

"Before a continuous act or proceeding, not originally unlawful, can be treated as unlawful by reason of the passing of an Act of Parliament by which it is in terms made so, a reasonable time must be allowed for its discontinuance; and though ignorance of the law may of itself be no excuse for the master of a vessel who may act in contravention of it, such ignorance may nevertheless be taken into account when it becomes necessary to consider the circumstances under which the act or proceeding alleged to be unlawful was continued and when and how it was discontinued, with a view to determine whether a reasonable time had elapsed without its being discontinued."-Burns v. Nowell (1880), 5 Q. B. D. 444, at p. 454; 49 L. J. Q. B. 468, at p. 473, Baggallay, L. J., delivering the judgment of the Court (Bramwell, Baggallay and Thesiger, L. JJ.).

Notice of Clauses to Private Persons.

"I am further of opinion, and, if need was, I should be prepared to hold, that, where a company is created by Act of Parliament, having privileges and rights granted to them, and liabilities and duties imposed upon them in respect of their incorporation, parties dealing with them must be taken to be cognizant of the provisions of the Act of Parliament granting those privileges and rights and imposing those duties and liabilities, although it be a private Act."-Cahill v. The London and North Western Rail. Co. (1861), 10 C. B. N. S. 154, at p. 172; 30 L. J. C. P. 289, at p. 294, Erle, C. J.

General and Special Provisions.

General provisions in the same statute or other statutes are not to control or repeal the special provisions. The special provisions are to be read as excepted out of the general.

"The rule is, that where a general intention is expressed and the Act expresses also a particular intention incompatible with the general intention, the particular intention is to be considered in the nature of exception."-Churchill v. Crease (1828), 5 Bing. 177, at p. 180, Best, C. J.

"It may be laid down as a rule for the 'construction of statutes,

that where a special provision and a general provision are inserted which cover the same subject-matter, a case falling within the words of the special provision must be governed thereby, and not by the terms of the general provision."-Dryden v. Overseers of Putney (1876), 1 Ex. D. 223, at p. 232, Quain, J.

"Where you have general provisions, whether contained in the same Act or in another Act of Parliament, and where you have special provisions as to a particular property in the ownership of one individual, you must read the special provisions as excepted out of the general. That is the only way of reconciling these Acts of Parliament. It is the practice of Parliament, as those who are in the habit of going before Parliamentary Committees know, to insert in the bill the special clauses which are agreed on, and then those persons who have obtained their insertion leave the committee-room, and have nothing further to do with the bill. The Committee would not listen to them on the general clauses. They would say, 'It is no business of yours; you have been provided for, and you have had all your clauses put in.' If you once admit the doctrine that the general provisions are to override the special ones, anybody getting a clause inserted in the bill ought to be heard on every clause of that Act. It would be simply impossible to conduct private legislation at all if any such doctrine were admitted or prevailed I consider it an established rule, that when you find general provisions of this sort, either in the same Act or other Acts, they are not to control or repeal the special provisions, which are considered to provide for the particular property."-Taylor v. Corporation of Oldham (1876), 4 Ch. D. 395, at p. 410, Jessel, M. R.

General Incorporating Clauses.

In interpreting statutes enacting general provisions, and adjusting the general provisions in the general statute to the particular provisions of the special statute, considerations of reason and justice, and the universal analogy of such provisions in similar statutes, are proper to be borne in mind, and ought to have much weight and force.

"I pause to observe that it is of the greatest importance, in any case like that with which your lordships have now to deal, to remember the principles of the scheme of legislation contained in those statutes [the Lands Clauses Consolidation Acts and the

Railways Clauses Consolidation Acts]. They were passed because the legislature thought that a considerable number of general provisions, which had been ascertained, after sufficient experience, to be proper and necessary to be introduced into Acts authorizing undertakings of the character there referred to, had better be enacted once for all in a general form; so that when any particular undertaking afterwards came to be authorized, the special Act might be introduced in a short form, containing only such clauses as were suggested by the circumstances of the particular case. A general incorporating clause, of which your lordships have a specimen here, was to supersede the necessity of repeating in every such special Act those provisions which were universally or generally applicable."-Metropolitan District Rail. Co. v. Sharpe (1880), 5 App. Cas. 425, at p. 430; 50 L. J. Q. B. 14, at p. 15, Lord Selborne, L. C.

"In construing Acts of Parliament of this kind, and adjusting the general provisions in the general Act to the particular provisions of the special Act, considerations of reason and justice, and the universal analogy of such provisions in similar Acts of Parliament, are proper to be borne in mind, and ought to have much weight and force."-Ibid., at p. 433; L. J. at pp. 16, 17.

(As to weight and effect of decisions on the construction of such Acts, see Pugh v. Golden Valley Rail. Co. (1880), 15 Ch. D. 330, at p. 334; 49 L. J. Ch. 721, at p. 723, Thesiger, L. J., delivering the judgment of the Court, cited ante, pp. 21-23.)

Where a single section of a statute is introduced into another statute it must be read in the sense which it bore in the original statute from which it is taken.

"Where a single section of an Act of Parliament is introduced into another Act, I think it must be read in the sense which it bore in the original Act from which it is taken, and that consequently it is perfectly legitimate to refer to all the rest of that Act in order to ascertain what the section meant, though those other sections are not incorporated in the new Act. I do not mean that if there was in the original Act a section not incorporated, which came by way of a proviso or exception on that which is incorporated, that should be referred to. But all others, including the interpretation clause, if there be one, may be referred to. It is a dangerous mode of draftsmanship to incorporate a section from a

former Act; for unless the draftsman has a much clearer recollection of the whole of the former Act than can always be expected, there is great risk that something may be expressed which was not intended."-Mayor, &c. of Portsmouth v. Smith (1885), 10 App. Cas. 364, at p. 371; 54 L. J. Q. B. 473, at pp. 476, 477, Lord Blackburn.

Legislation by Reference.

In dealing with cases of legislation by reference, the primary consideration to be kept in view is the general scope and object of the amending legislation.

"If a subsequent Act brings into itself by reference some of the clauses of a former Act, the legal effect of that, as has often been held, is to write those sections into the new Act just as if they had been actually written in it with the pen, or printed in it, and the moment you have those clauses in the Act, you have no occasion to refer to the former Act at all."-In re Wood's Estate (1886), 31 Ch. D. 607, at p. 615; 55 L. J. Ch. 488, at p. 490, Lord Esher, M. R.

"Sometimes whole Acts of Parliament, sometimes groups of clauses of Acts of Parliament, entirely or partially, sometimes portions of clauses are incorporated into later Acts, so that the interpreter has to keep under his eye, or, if he can, bear in his mind, large masses of bygone and not always consistent legislation in order to gather the meaning of recent legislation. There is very often the further provision that these earlier statutes are incorporated only so far as they are not inconsistent with the statute into which they are incorporated; so that you have first to ascertain the meaning of a statute by reference to other statutes, and then to ascertain whether the earlier Acts qualify only or absolutely contradict the later ones, a task sometimes of great difficulty, always of great labour-a difficulty and labour, generally speaking, wholly unnecessary.”—Knill v. Touse (1889), 24 Q. B. D. 186, at pp. 195, 196; 59 L. J. Q. B. 136, at p. 141, Mathew, J., delivering the judgment of the Court (Lord Coleridge, C. J., and Mathew, J.).

"In dealing with cases of legislation by reference, I think that, as a rule, the primary consideration to be kept in view is the general scope and object of the amending legislation, as this affords some guide as to whether a wide or narrow interpretation is to be put upon general words or expressions capable of a wider or

narrower meaning."-Tracey v. Pretty & Sons, [1901] 1 Q. B. 444, at p. 451; 70 L. J. Q. B. 234, at p. 246, Lord Alverstone, C. J.

(See also ante, p. 351, "Statutes in Pari Materiâ.”)

Public and Private Statutes.

Whether a statute is public or private does not depend upon any

technical considerations (such as having a clause or declaration that the statute shall be deemed a public statute), but upon the nature and substance of the case.

When the interpretation is not clear, a private statute is construed more strictly than a public statute.

When the interpretation is clear, there is no difference between the modes of construing a private statute and a public statute. "Where an Act of Parliament, in express terms, or by necessary implication, empowers an individual or individuals to take or interfere with the property or the rights of another, and upon a sound construction of the Act it appears to the Court that such was the intention of the legislature, in such cases it may well be the duty of the Court, whose province it is to declare and not to make the law, to give effect to the decrees of the legislature so expressed. But where an Act of Parliament merely enables an individual or individuals to deal with property of his or their own, for their own benefit, and does not in terms, or by necessary implication, empower him or them to take or interfere with the property or rights of others, questions of a very different character arise. Here the distinction between public and private Acts of Parliament becomes material. By a private Act of Parliament, I do not mean merely private estate Acts, but local and personal as distinguished from general public Acts. Public Acts, it is said in the books, bind all the Queen's subjects. But of private Acts of Parliament, it is said that they do not bind strangers, unless by express words or necessary implication the intention of the legislature to affect the rights of strangers is apparent in the Act; and whether an Act is public or private does not depend upon any technical considerations (such as having a clause or declaration that the Act shall be deemed a public Act), but upon the nature and substance of the case. those general propositions it is not necessary I should do more than refer to Sir Francis Barrington's Case [(1611), 4 Coke, p. 416, Part VIII., 138 a], and Lucy v. Levington [(1683), 1 Ventris,

For