safest way. He, therefore, deposits the money to abide the event. It now turns out that the deed was already registered, although, owing to the execution being levied in the country, the fact was not known to the parties; so that, if they had merely allowed things to take their course, and done nothing, the sheriff could not lawfully have proceeded with the execution. Our decision that, under these circumstances, the plaintiff is not entitled to the money so paid, I think agrees both with the justice of the case and the intention of the parties. Attorneys for plaintiff : Mackeson & Golding. Attorney for defendant: C. W. Jackson, for Southall & Nelson, Birmingham. 1867 MILNER v. RAWLINGS. [IN THE EXCHEQUER CHAMBER.] LORD COLCHESTER AND OTHERS v. KEWNEY. Land Tax-Exemption-Hospital-Construction-38 Geo. 3, c. 5, s. 25. In 38 Geo. 3, c. 5, s. 25 (rendered perpetual by 38 Geo. 3, c. 60, s. 1) is contained an exemption from land tax of "any hospital" in respect of its site. Commissioners appointed by the Crown to administer a fund subscribed by the public for that purpose, founded, in 1857, an asylum for the maintenance and education of three hundred daughters of soldiers, sailors, and marines, dying in active service. The asylum was built and maintained entirely out of that fund, and solely for the benefit of the children, and was under the control of the commissioners: Held, first, that the asylum was not within the exemption in the act, that exemption applying only to institutions and sites existing at the time when the tax was made perpetual. Secondly, that it was not exempt as Crown property, such exemption depending not on the ownership but the occupation by the Crown. ERROR on the judgment of the Court of Exchequer, on a special case, raising the question whether the site of the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum was liable to the payment of land tax. The Court below held that it was liable, and gave judgment for the defendant. (1) Sir R. P. Collier, Q.C. (Prideaux, Q.C., with him), for the plain(1) Reported Law Rep. 1 Ex. 368. May 18. 1867 LORD COLCHESTER v. KEWNEY. tiffs, relied upon the arguments used, and the cases cited, by him below. In support of the first point, that the hospital was within the exemption in the act; he also urged that if the words of exemption did not apply to sites of hospitals becoming such after the passing of 38 Geo. 3, c. 60, the same rule must apply to the words of taxation in 38 Geo. 3, c. 5, s. 1, and it would follow that mines and quarries opened after the passing of the act would not be taxed; and further, that in the exemption clause itself (s. 25), the words relating to classes of persons, such as schoolmasters, &c., must necessarily be taken in the extended sense, which favoured a similar construction of the rest of the section. In support of the second point, that the hospital was exempt from taxation as Crown property, he relied upon the remarks of Bolland, B., and Parke, B., in Attorney General v. Hill. (1) Mellish, Q.C. (Philbrick with him), for the defendant, relied upon the arguments used by him below; and, on the first point, further referred to 38 Geo. 3, c. 60, ss. 74, 104, 105, contending that as those sections, in making provision for the future arrangement of the land tax, contemplated the case of the exoneration of land by redemption, but did not contemplate the case of exoneration by the attaching of an exemption, it was to be assumed that no such future exemption was intended to take place. Upon the second point, he contended that the circumstance referred to in Attorney General v. Hill (2), as forming the ground of exemption, and that on which the decision proceeded, was not the ownership of the Crown, but its occupation of the land in question. [SHEE, J., referred to the provision for redeeming the land tax on Crown lands, contained in 38 Geo. 3, c. 60, ss. 49, 50.] Sir R. P. Collier, Q.C., in reply. WILLES, J. We think the argument that the 38 Geo. 3, c. 60, established the existing land tax, as a perpetual charge on the land then subject thereto, ought to prevail, and that the judgment of the Court below must, therefore, be affirmed. At the time when that act passed, the 38 Geo. 3, c. 5, had already been enacted in the same year, forming one of a series of acts which from time to time imposed an annual land tax, and which made certain exemptions (1) 2 M. & W. at p. 171. (2) 2 M. & W. at P. 165. 1867 LORD from it; and we may assume, for the purpose of this argument, that if the property, the liability of which to land tax is in contest, had, at the passing of the 38 Geo. 3, c. 5, been in its present state, it COLCHESTER would have been exempted from liability. The exemption is contained in s. 25 of the act, and is to the following effect [the learned judge read the words of s. 25]. The act, then, exempted all sites of hospitals, and it exempted also such of the revenues of certain institutions as they had enjoyed before 1693. But that act had only a temporary operation; it granted the land tax for one year, and exempted the favoured institutions as they then were. In these circumstances the 38 Geo. 3, c. 60, was passed, making the land tax then existing perpetual, and if the legislature had thought proper to make it perpetual, with a proviso that the future use of land for a purpose coming within any one of the categories of the 25th section should bring it within that exemption, it was competent to them to do so. Now, there is no express condition to that effect; but it is said that, connecting the two acts together, we are to infer that this was the intention, and to conclude that, although the site was charged for a year under 38 Geo. 3, c. 5, and charged in perpetuum under 38 Geo. 3, c. 60, yet when its use was changed to a purpose within the scope of s. 25, its liability ceased. Is this argument sustained by the language of the act, and by the ordinary rules of construction? We think not. The language of c. 60 is general and unqualified, and the intention of the act appears to have been, that the land tax then payable should so continue to be paid in respect of the land then charged. When it says that the land tax shall be perpetual, it means that it shall be perpetually payable out of the land then subject thereto; and so far as relates to the language of the statute alone, it is not necessary to go beyond the first section to shew the true construction to be that put upon it by the elaborate and lucid judgment of my Brother Channell, the conclusion of which we adopt. The recital of the preamble is, that "it may materially conduce to strengthening and supporting the public credit, and to augmenting the national resources at this important conjuncture, that the duty now payable for one year on land should be made perpetual, but subject to redemption and purchase." This is the v. KEWNEY. 1867 LORD COLCHESTER บ. KEWNEY. key to the act, and it seems to indicate the construction that we adopt. It then enacts (s. 1) that "the several and respective sums of money charged by virtue of an act of the present session of parliament, &c., on the respective counties, &c., in Great Britain, in respect of the manors, messuages, lands, tenements, and hereditaments in the said act mentioned, lying within the same counties, &c., respectively, to be raised, levied, and paid unto his Majesty within the space of one year from the 25th of March, 1798, shall from and after the expiration of the said term (except as hereinafter mentioned) continue, and be raised, levied, and paid yearly to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, from and after the 25th of March in every year for ever; and that all the several powers, rules, directions, provisions, articles, clauses, matters, and things contained in the said act, &c., as far as the same are not varied or otherwise provided for in and by this act, shall continue and be in full force, and be duly observed, &c., as if the same powers, &c. were particularly repeated and re-enacted in the body of this act and expressly applied to the provisions thereof, subject nevertheless to the rules, regulations, restrictions, and conditions of redemption or purchase herein mentioned." The 2nd section then excepts from the operation of the statute the sums charged by the previous act upon personal property, salaries, &c. Now we have before us the case of property not exempted when, either the former or the latter act passed, and we have words in the latter act making the existing liability perpetual. Unless, therefore, some special reason exists to the contrary, we must give the words their natural effect, and hold that the payment directed by the act to be made must include every portion of the land tax then payable, and that the land tax here distrained for is the representative of a part of the land tax so made permanent. Now the purpose and provisions of the statute are all in favour of general taxation, and not in favour of the particular exceptions. Not only is the tax perpetually imposed in terms, but it is to be presently dealt with as if leviable for ever. Thus, it is made the subject of purchase or transfer. That purchase is to be effected by transferring to the government a sum of consols sufficient to produce a revenue somewhat exceeding the annual 1867 LORD v. value of the land tax redeemed; with provisions for compensation out of the sum of consols originally paid, in the event of depreciation in the value of the tax. But there is no provision for the COLCHESTER case of land, which, by changing its character and thus (as is con- KEWNEY. tended) coming within the exception from the general taxation, might cease to produce anything. I will leave the argument on the statute with the remark, that its provisions rather tend to support the conclusion that no such extension of the exemption was intended as that now claimed. This branch of the subject is abundantly observed upon in the judgment of the Court below, and beyond indicating this conclusion it is unnecessary to follow out the argument farther. But, the inference from other parts of the enactment thus supporting the natural meaning of the words of s. 1, various arguments were nevertheless urged on the part of the plaintiffs in error, to persuade us that this is not the true construction. It is said that on such a construction an absurdity will follow, for if c. 60 made perpetual the charge on lands then subject to it, so it also made perpetual the exemptions then existing. We were further told that there were certain provisions for the benefit of classes of persons which required this construction, and that a similar difficulty arose with respect to certain kinds of property not then existing. Thus, as to lands then used for the site of a hospital, the question was proposed, could it be said they should not be taxed when they ceased to be so used? As to the exempted persons, were only existing schoolmasters to be exempted, or was it not intended to include all schoolmasters? And as to mines and quarries which did not exist when the act was passed, were they to be free from the tax when they were afterwards opened? These, perhaps, were the most considerable of the arguments addressed to us on behalf of the plaintiffs; but they are without basis. First, as to the question of whether land used as a hospital at the time both acts were passed, but since (as in the case of St. Thomas's Hospital) diverted to another purpose, must in its new use be taxed, it does not now call for decision. When it arises, it will probably be said on the part of the public, insisting upon its liability, that the reason for the exemption ceasing the exemption itself ceases; that it applied only so long as the land |