and have no proof of a contrary usage before that time, you fairly reach the period of contemporanea expositio" (d). An unbroken usage of 500 years (e), of 300 years (ƒ), of 200 years (g), even of fifty (h) and thirty years (i), has been held sufficient to establish a certain construction, and to restrain the Courts of later days from giving the words of statutes a meaning which might in itself be more appropriate than the one that had been adopted. "Where the penning of a statute is dubious," says Vaughan, C.J., "long usage is a just medium to expound it by; for jus et norma loquendi is governed by usage (k), and the meaning of things spoken or written must be as it hath constantly been received to be by common acceptation" (1).

In other cases it has been observed that a departure from long usage would shake every legal principle and reduce the law to a state of uncertainty. "We really are called upon," says Tindal, C.J., "after a construction has been put upon this Act of Parliament from the very period when it was passed in the 33rd of Edward I. down to the present time, to put a construction different from that which prevailed at the time when the

(d) Magistrates of Dunbar v. Duchess of Roxburghe, 3 Cl. & Fin. at p. 354.

(e) Mansell v. The Queen, 8 E. & B. at p. 111.

(f) Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter, 15 Q. B. 69, 73, 74.

(g) Garland v. Carlisle, 2 Cr. & M. at p. 39, per Gurney, B.; Morgan v. Crawshay, L. R. 5 H. L. at p. 315, per Martin, B.

(h) Lord Fermoy's Claim to Vote, 5 H. L. C. at p. 785, per Pollock, C.B.

(i) U. S. v. Ship Recorder, 1 Blatchf. Circuit Court Rep. 218, 223. (k) Horace, Ars Poetica.

(1) Sheppard v. Gosnold, Vaughan, at p. 169.

statute was enacted, and different from that which all our predecessors have put. Where would be the certainty of the law of England? What safety would there be for prisoners as well as for the public execution of justice, if judges, acting according to their own discretion, neglecting those rules of interpretation which wise men before them have laid down and which have been sanctioned by time, were to do that for the first time which we are now called upon to do, namely, to put a construction different from that which has been put by all who have gone before them?" (m). "Were the language of statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19, obscure instead of clear," says Lord Campbell, C.J., delivering the considered judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench, "we should not be justified in differing from the construction put upon it by contemporaneous and long continued usage. There would be no safety for property or liberty if it could be successfully contended that all lawyers and statesmen have been mistaken for centuries as to the true meaning of an old Act of Parliament" (n). These principles were applied in the case just cited to the question whether an appeal lay from the Court of Arches to the Judicial Committee or to the Upper House of Convocation (o). They have also been applied to the practice of challenging jurors (p), to the rating of (m) R. v. Frost, Gurney's Rep. at p. 49; reported, but not so fully, 9 C. & P. 129.

(n) Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter, 15 Q. B. at pp. 73, 74.

(0) Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter, 15 Q. B. 52; Ex parte Bishop of Exeter, 10 C. B. 102; Re Gorham v. Bishop of Exeter, 5 Ex. 630. (p) R. v. Frost, Gurney's Rep. 9 C. & P. 129; Mansell v. The Queen, 8 E. & B. 54.

L

Usage must be uniform and

mines (q), to the creation of Irish peerages (r), to the amerciament of earls and barons (s). In the United States, where an Act had prohibited the importation of foreign goods except in American ships, or in foreign ships "belonging to the citizens of the country," of which the goods were the product, and for thirty years the word country had been taken to include colonies, it was held that the construction of the Act was no longer an open question, and that the settled practice must prevail (t).

The usage to which we may have recourse must be uniform and unvarying, and can be called in general. only for the purpose of explaining language which is obscure or equivocal (u). If the words of a statute are plain they must be construed without regard to the length of time during which they have been before the world (x). "The rule amounts to no more than this, that if the Act be susceptible of the interpretation which has been put upon it by long usage, the Courts will not disturb that construction" (y). In an earlier case Lord Tenterden had said that a rule of construction which had been established for a long time ought to be followed, unless it was manifestly wrong and pro

(q) Morgan v. Crawshay, L. R. 5 H. L. 304.

(r) Lord Fermoy's Claim to Vote, 5 H. L. C. 716.

(s) 2 Inst. 28.

(t) U. S. v. Ship Recorder, 1 Blatchf. Circuit Court Rep. 218.

(u) Nagle v. Ahern, 3 Ir. Law Rep. 41; R. v. Hogg, 1 T. R. at p.

728, per Grose, J.

(c) Gwyn v. Hardwicke, 1 H. & N. at p. 53, per Pollock, C.B.

(y) Pochin v. Duncombe, 1 H. & N. at pp. 856, 857, per Pollock, C.B.

ductive of inconvenience (z). And the words of Vaughan, C.J., are to the same effect: "If usage hath been against the obvious meaning of an Act of Parliament by the vulgar and common acceptation of the words, then it is rather an oppression of those concerned than an exposition of the Act" (a). Besides being uniform and unvarying, usage must be general (b), unless, indeed, the Act which is sought to be explained is itself a special Act relating to one particular place or business (c).

Similar in effect to an unbroken usage is a long Evidenced by judicial current of judicial decisions. When doubtful words decisions. have received the same interpretation in a succession of cases, and the Legislature, which is presumed to know of such decisions, has not expressed its dissent by a declaration of the law or other positive enactment, the Courts will consider themselves bound to adopt that meaning. "When solemn determinations acquiesced under have settled precise cases and become a rule of property, they ought, for the sake of certainty, to be observed as if they had originally made a part of the text of the statute" (d). It is said that even without any express decision the uniform course and practice of the Courts is sufficient to lay down a rule of construction (e), and this may be supported by the words of Lord Coke: "It is benedicta expositio

(z) R. v. Sedgley, 2 B. & Ad. at p. 73.

(a) Sheppard v. Gosnold, Vaughan, at p. 170. (b) R. v. Hogg, 1 T. R. at p. 728.

(c) Love v. Hinckley, 1 Abbott Adm. Rep. 436.

(d) Windham v. Chetwynd, 1 Burr. at p. 419, per Lord Mansfield, C.J.

(e) Wilton v. Chambers, 7 A. & E. at p. 532.

when our ancient authors and our year-books, together with constant experience, do agree" (f). If, indeed, the decisions are conflicting, and if the reasons given for conflicting judgments are equally unsatisfactory, the Court must look to the words of the statute and interpret them by its own unfettered judgment (g). But where the authorities are consistent, the Court is bound by them, even if it does not approve the principles on which they have acted (h). When once a judicial interpretation has been put upon a clause which is expressed in a vague manner by the Legislature and is difficult to understand, "that ought of itself to be a sufficient authority for adopting the same construction" (i). In the construction of a new statute the Court ought not to disregard a decision pronounced after due deliberation by a Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction, unless there has been a palpable misconstruction (k). The same enactment, moreover, "may receive one construction when it deals for the first time with a given subject-matter, and have another meaning and construction when it deals with a matter that has already been made the subject of enactment or direction" (7).

The tendency of the Courts to adopt a construction already placed on the words of an Act of

(f) 2 Inst. 181.

(g) R. v. Leek Wootton, 16 East, at p. 122, per Lord Ellenborough, C.J.; Newton v. Cowie, 4 Bing. at p. 241, per Best, C.J.

(h) Newton v. Cowie, 4 Bing. at p. 241.

(i) Williams v. Newton, 14 M. & W. at p. 757, per Rolfe, B.

(k) Daly v. Lord Bloomfield, 5 Ir. Law Rep. at p. 77.

(1) Escott v. Mastin, 4 Moo. P. C. at p. 123.