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1865.

WEYMOUTH

V.

NUGENT.

and certain tolls, rates or duties were thereby granted for the objects therein specified. It further recites that Mayor &c. of the petty customs or wharfage authorised to be levied under stat. 22 G. 2. c. 22. were very inadequate to the purposes for which they were applicable; and that the corporation, acting in execution of stat. 1 G. 4. c. xl., had taken down and rebuilt the bridge, and borrowed considerable sums of money on the credit of the tolls by that Act granted, which still remained due and could not be repaid, nor could the new bridge, harbour and quays be maintained in repair, unless the tolls and duties granted by that Act were varied and increased. Sect. 2 enacts that the petty customs and wharfage duties in the first schedule to the Act annexed, and the harbour dues and ballast duties in the second schedule to the Act annexed shall be demanded and taken upon every ship, trow, or other vessel which shall be brought into the harbour, and shall be vested in the corporation for the purpose of repairing, improving and maintaining the harbour, wharfs, quays and piers. At the end of the first schedule is a general clause fixing a toll "For all other goods not here enumerated, which shall be landed or shipped." There is no exception in favour of the Crown. The second schedule fixes the harbour dues "For every ship or vessel which shall load or unload in the harbour" and "For every ship or vessel which shall sail into the harbour, and neither load nor unload there." [Blackburn J. Suppose Her Majesty went into the harbour in her yacht.] The scheme of the Act applies to the class of vessels which carry the goods enumerated in Schedule I, viz. ships of burden, and to merchant ships coming into the harbour by stress of weather, not to the royal navy or the Queen's yacht. Sect. 3 empowers the corporation to reduce the rates.

1865.

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Sect. 4 enables the collector to demand payments of the customs and duties either from the owners of the goods Mayor &c. of WEYMOUTH imported or from the keeper of any warehouse, &c., and to demand payment of the customs and duties upon vessels coming into the harbour from the respective masters. Sect. 7, which directs that the custom house officers shall not permit any ship, boat, barge or other vessel chargeable with rates, wharfage dues or duties under the Act to be entered inwards or outwards or coastwise, or any commodities to be landed from such vessel, until the rates, wharfage dues, and duties have been paid, shews that the Act was intended to apply only to merchant ships, not to ships of war which, as such, would not be chargeable with the rates, wharfage dues, and duties. But there is no such qualification in the clause which imposes the duty on goods.

Where tolls are granted by charter, the Crown is exempt, because such grants are construed in favour of the Crown; but that rule of construction does not apply to such a statute as this, by which the Crown assents to a bargain with some of its subjects that they shall have the right to take tolls and duties in consideration of making and maintaining certain works. Sect. 31 empowers the corporation to borrow money for repairing, improving and maintaining the harbour, wharfs, quays and piers, on mortgage of the wharfage duties and harbour dues. Sect. 35 directs the application of the moneys received from the duties and dues to the repayment of the money borrowed and the interest, "and to and for no other use or purpose whatsoever." [Cockburn C. J. Originally the right to take tolls was part of the prerogative of the Crown. If Parliament takes upon itself to grant that right, can it bind the Crown without express words?] There are some express exemptions

1865.

WEYMOUTH

V.

NUGENT.

from the tolls and dues, and therefore other exemptions are excluded. Sect. 29, imposes duties on coals brought Mayor &c. of into and landed within the port in any vessel, boat, barge or other craft, "save and except coals imported into the said port for the use of His Majesty's steam packets and actually used on board the same." [Mellor J. It may be that coals imported in vessels not belonging to the Crown, though for the use of ships belonging to the Crown, might not be exempt without this express saving.] If that were so, coals imported in such vessels for the use of some other public department would not be exempt. So, as to the tolls for passing over the bridge. Sect. 23 expressly exempts "any horses or carriages attending His Majesty or any of the Royal Family;" which is like the exemption in The General Turnpike Acts, 3 G. 4. c. 126. s. 32., 4 G. 4. c. 95. s. 24. According to the contention on the other side, there was no necessity for the exemption in sect. 23 in favour of officers and soldiers in the army, and of horses and carriages employed in conveying the mails under the authority of the Postmaster General, and every other State purpose for which horses and carriages can be employed.

There is no instance in which, where the right to take tolls has been granted by Parliament in consideration of persons expending their private funds upon works beneficial to the public, the Crown has been held to be exempt from the toll without express words. The Harbours, Docks, and Piers Clauses Act, 1847, 10 & 11 Vict. c. 27., contains a clause, sect. 28, exempting from the payment of rates and duties vessels belonging to or employed in the service of Her Majesty, or any member of the Royal Family, or of any of the State departments. And The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, 17 & 18 l'ict. c. 104. s. 4., enacts that the Act shall not,

1865.

WEYMOUTH

V.

NUGENT.

except as thereinafter specially provided, apply to ships

Mayor &c. of belonging to Her Majesty. [Mellor J. It has become the practice to insert such saving clauses ex abundanti cautelâ.] It will hardly be contended that at the origin of railways, when persons might have run their own carriages on them, the Crown could have done so without payment of toll to the Company. [Crompton J. A railway is not a public highway except conditionally.] [He referred to The Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, 8 & 9 Vict. c. 20. s. 92., and stat. 5 & 6 Vict. c. 55. s. 20.] This harbour is vested in the corporation of Weymouth as much as docks are vested in a dock Company.

The maxim, that the Crown is not bound by any statute unless expressly named to be so bound, was adopted when Acts of Parliament were framed in a short form and construed by intendment; that rule of construction is unnecessary when there is a redundancy of enactments. Moreover the maxim only applies where by a general statute some prerogative right, title or interest, is devested or taken from the Crown; Bac. Abr. Prerogative (E) 5, Rex v. Wright (a), in the Exchequer Chamber, where the statutes and cases are collected. [Cockburn C. J. It is part of the prerogative of the Crown to enjoy immunity from toll. Blackburn J. The Poor Law Act, stat. 43 El. c. 2. uses most comprehensive terms, yet it does not charge the Queen.] That is one of the antient statutes the construction of which was left to intendment. It is not a prerogative of the Crown to be exempt from duties on goods when charged by Act of Parliament on all goods without exception. In Reg. In Reg. v. The War Department and Meade, Trin. T. 18 4 (b), decided upon stat. 20 (a) 1 4. & E. 434. (b) 28 Just, of the Peace, 423.

& 21 Vict. c. xxxvii., "An Act for the improvement

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WEYMOUTH

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NUGENT.

Landport and Southsea, and the neighbourhoods, in Mayor &c. of the parishes of Portsmouth and Portsea, in the county of Southampton," sect. 47 of which contained an express prohibition against making a rate "upon or in respect of any ramparts and walls belonging to or forming part of any fortifications within the limits of this Act, or in respect of any of the ditches or ground kept in an unproductive state in connection with such fortifications, or upon any custom-house or other buildings or premises used by or for the use of the Crown in the service of the customs," this Court held that the express exemption shewed an intention that other property should be rated, though appropriated to public and national purposes, and therefore a fortification called Cumberland Fort was rateable. [Crompton J. The object of stat. 20 & 21 Vict. c. xxxvii. was to do away with the exemption from rating of certain portions of Crown property. Blackburn J. The ratio decidendi was that sect. 50, by which for the purposes of that Act certain officers of the Crown were to be deemed the occupiers of Crown property, and the Commissioners for executing the Act were empowered to rate them as the occupiers, shewed conclusively that such property was intended to be rated.]

The Solicitor General (Dowdeswell with him), for the respondent.-First. The law is thus stated in Bac. Abr. Prerogative (E) 5, which is consistent with the decision in Rex v. Wright (a) in the Exchequer Chamber: "Herein a general rule hath been laid down and established viz. that where an Act of Parliament is made for the public good, the advancement of religion and justice, and to prevent injury (a) 1 4. & E. 434.

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