Lord Alverstone, C.J., in London County Council v. Bermondsey Bioscope Company, 80 L.J., K.B. 144; 1911, 1 K.B. 445, said: "I very much regret that the practice of inserting preambles in Acts of Parliament has disappeared, for the preamble often helped to the solution of doubtful points."

2. Next, the date when the statute begins to operate should be observed. The general rule is that a statute does not operate retrospectively unless there is an express provision to that effect. By the Acts of Parliament Commencement Act, 1793, a statute operates on and from the day it receives the Royal Assent unless some other date is expressed in the statute, e.g. the Old Age Pensions Act, 1919, though it received the Royal Assent on 23rd December, 1919, was expressed to come into force on 2nd January, 1920. Note the same point in regard to the Interpretation Act, 1889 (p. 15 post).

3. Then the definitions clause should be read. Most statutes contain definition clauses giving certain words used therein special meanings. For instance

Section 23 of the Public Health Act, 1875, enables local authorities by written notice to require the owner or occupier of any house within their district which is without a proper drain, to make a covered drain connecting with any sewer of the authority which is within one hundred feet from the site of such house. House is defined in Section 4 of the Act as including schools, also factories and other buildings in which more than twenty persons are employed at a time. So the power to enforce drainage of schools and certain other buildings is by virtue of this definition conferred on the authority. Again

Section 150 of the same Act gives the local authority powers to compel the paving of any street not being a highway repairable by the inhabitants at large. "Street" is defined in Section 4 as including... any road, lane, footway, square, court, alley, or passage, whether a thoroughfare or not."

It should be further observed that sometimes the definition section says a particular word shall

mean "

Every clause of a statute should be construed with reference to the context and the other clauses of the Act so as, as far as possible, to make a consistent enactment of the whole statute."-Per Lord Blackburn in River Wear Commissioners v. Wm. Adamson & Others (1877), 2 A.C. 743.

Sometimes the sections are quite self-contained, and have little bearing on other sections. Exceptions and saving clauses should be noted, and particularly whether, and if so to what extent, earlier Acts are repealed.

5. The provisions of the Interpretation Act, 1889, should be read and borne in mind.

The Act was passed on 30th August, 1889, and came into force on 1st January, 1890. Some of the sections have a retrospective operation, some operate retrospectively but to a specified date only, whilst others only apply to the interpretation of future Acts. The interpretations specified are to have effect "unless the contrary intention appears."

Re-enactment of existing Rules.

SECTION 1. (1) "In this Act and in every Act passed after 1850, whether before or after the commencement of this Act (1st January, 1890), unless the contrary intention appears (a) words importing the masculine gender shall include females, and

(b) words in the singular shall include the plural, and words in the plural shall include the singular.'

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(2) The same rules shall be observed in the construction of every enactment relating to an offence punishable on indictment or on summary conviction, when the enactment is contained in an Act passed in or before the year 1850."

SECTION 2. (1) "In the construction of every enactment relating to an offence punishable on indictment or on summary conviction, whether contained in an Act passed before or after the commencement of this Act, the expression person shall, unless the contrary intention appears, include a body corporate."

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(2) Where under any Act, whether passed before or after the commencement of this Act, any forfeiture or penalty is payable to a party aggrieved, it shall be payable to a body corporate in every case where that body is the party aggrieved.'

"

Thus companies incorporated under the Companies Acts

are

persons " and may be fined, though they cannot, of course, be imprisoned. "It is quite true that there are certain provisions in that Act (the Summary Jurisdiction Act) which contemplate imprisonment of the defendant in certain events, and which are not applicable to a company, but. it has been held in cases under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act and the Merchandise Marks Act that there is nothing in the provisions of those Acts, or of the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, to prevent the summary recovery of a fine from an incorporated company. The fact that some of the provisions of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1848, are inapplicable to a company does not show that all its provisions are inapplicable, and does not afford any evidence of that contrary intention which under the provisions of the Interpretation Act is necessary to prevent the term person' including a corporation."-Avory, J., in Evans & Company, Ltd. v. London County Council (1914), 3 K.B.D. 319, in which case it was held that a limited liability company were occupiers of a shop under the Shops Act, 1912.

SECTION 3. 'In every Act passed after the year 1850, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, the following expressions shall, unless the contrary intention appears, have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them; namely

The expression 'month' shall mean calendar month; The expression 'land' shall include messuages, tenements, and hereditaments, houses and buildings of any tenure; The expression 'oath' and 'affidavit shall, in the case of persons for the time being allowed by law to affirm or declare instead of swearing, include affirmation and declaration, and the expression 'swear' shall, in the like case, include affirm and declare." (Cf. Oaths Act, 1909.)

SECTION 4. 'In every Act passed after the year 1850 and before the commencement of this Act the expression 'county' shall, unless the contrary intention appears, be construed as including a county of a city and a county of a town."

SECTION 5. In every Act passed after the year 1866, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, the expression parish' shall, unless the contrary intention appears, mean, as respects England and Wales, a place for which a separate poor rate is or can be made, or for which a separate overseer is or can be appointed." "Parish" is similarly defined in the Public Health Act, 1875.

New General Rules of Construction.

SECTION 15. In this Act and in every Act passed after the commencement of this Act the following expressions shall,

unless the contrary intention appears, have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them, namely—

(1) The expression "municipal borough shall mean, as respects England and Wales, any place for the time being subject to the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, and any reference to the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of a borough shall include a reference to the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of a city, and any reference to the powers, duties, liabilities, or property of the council of a borough shall be construed as a reference to the powers, duties, liabilities, or property of the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the borough acting by the council.

(2) The expression "parliamentary borough" shall mean any borough, burgh, place, or combination of places returning a member or members to serve in Parliament, and not being either a county or division of a county, or a university, or a combination of universities.

(3) The expression "borough" when used in relation to local government shall mean a municipal borough as above defined, and when used in relation to parliamentary elections or the registration of parliamentary electors shall mean a. parliamentary borough as above defined.

SECTION 19. "In this Act and every Act passed after the commencement of this Act the expression person shall, unless the contrary intention appears, include any body of persons corporate or unincorporate.

SECTION 20. "In this Act and in every other Act whether passed before or after the commencement of this Act expressions referring to writing shall, unless the contrary intention appears, be construed as including references to printing, lithography, photography, and other modes of representing or reproducing words in a visible form."

SECTION 22. "In this Act and in every Act passed after the commencement of this Act the expression financial year' shall, unless the contrary intention appears, mean as respects any matters relating to the Consolidated Fund or moneys provided by Parliament, or to the Exchequer, or to Imperial taxes or finance, the twelve months ending the thirty-first day of March.

SECTION 26. "Where an Act passed after the commencement of this Act authorizes or requires any document to be served by post, whether the expression 'serve,' or the expression 'give' or 'send,' or any other expression is used, then, unless the contrary intention appears, the service shall be deemed to be effected by properly addressing, prepaying, and posting a letter containing the document, and unless the contrary is proved, to have been effected at the time at which the letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post."

NOTE.-Section 267 of the Public Health Act, 1875, which was passed before the last mentioned section, and is therefore unaffected by it, permits two methods of service -by delivery otherwise than through the post, and by post: Notices, orders, and any other documents required or authorized to be served under this Act may be served by delivering the same to or at the residence of the person to whom they are respectively addressed, or where addressed to the owner or occupier of premises by delivering the same or a true copy thereof to some person on the premises, or if there is no person on the premises who can be so served by fixing the same on some conspicuous part of the premises; they may also be served by post by a prepaid letter, and if served by post shall be deemed to have been served at the time when the letter containing the same would be delivered in the ordinary course of post, and in proving such service it shall be sufficient to prove that the notice order or other document was properly addressed and put into the post.

Any notice by this Act required to be given to the owner or occupier of any premises may be addressed by the description of the 'owner' or 'occupier' of the premises (naming them) in respect of which the notice is given, without further name or description.'

SECTION 36. (1) "In this Act, and in every Act passed either before or after the commencement of this Act, the expression commencement when used with reference to an Act, shall mean the time at which the Act comes into operation."

(2) "Where an Act passed after the commencement of this Act, or any Order in Council, order, warrant, scheme, letters patent, rules, regulations, or by-laws made, granted, or issued under a power conferred by any such Act, is expressed to come into operation on a particular day, the same shall be construed as coming into operation immediately on the expiration of the previous day.”

6. The following are some of the principal rules which have been laid down for the construction (i.e. the interpretation) of statutes—

(i) The words of the statute must receive their plain ordinary grammatical meaning—

"In construing wills, and indeed statutes and all written instruments, the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to, unless that would lead to absurdity, or some repugnancy or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument; in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of