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manner with the ship’s-room “ before the arrival of the fishing ships out of England, Wales and Berwick ; and until all such ships shall be provided with stages, etc.”,* necessary for their business and pursuit. In spite, however, of this enactment, possession of “ Ships-rooms ” was taken, from time to time, by the resident inhabitants, and continued from year to year, so that it became difficult to ascertain within a very short period after the passing of the Act, what were “ Ships-rooms,” and what were not. Now it is obvious that the design of the Legislature was only to exclude the inhabitants from the use of the “ Ships-rooms ” so far as their occupation of them might be practically injurious to the interests of the fishing-ships. If, then, an occupation or possession of a “ Ships-room,” or of any part thereof, which must have inferred to have been not injurious to any of the fishing-ships because it had not been disturbed by them, had been enjoyed by a resident inhabitant from a remote period down to the very time when the Legislature should be induced, under an altered state of the fishery, to take away the public use of such “ Ships-room,” it is probable that the framers of the law would adopt the principle “ cessante causa cessabit effectus : ” and, since the interests of the transitory fishery, to which alone the interests of the sedentary fishery had been postponed, no longer required that the resident inhabitant should be debarred from the permanent possession of such “ Ships-rooms ” it might reasonably be expected that the Legislature, in removing the former restraints upon possession, would be anxious to cut off all sources of litigation springing out of those restraints by confirming every title founded upon actual possession.† If, therefore, in an Act passed for the purpose of taking away the public use of certain “ Ships-rooms,” the Legislature, with a full knowledge of these “ Ships-rooms ” were, and for a long time past had been, in the actual possession of private persons, should declare, that the said “ Ships-rooms ” “ should be no longer deemed and taken to be “ Ships-rooms,” but should be possessed as private property, in like manner as any other portions of land in Newfoundland,” there can
be little doubt but that such a clause, standing by itself, would be sufficient to legalize a possession of those rooms obtained prior to the passing of the Act. Nor is the argument in favor of ancient possession materially weakened by a power being vested in the Governor, under the same clause‡ in which the before-recited passage occurs, to grant and let the same “ Ships-rooms : ” for as it had been proved, that at the time of passing the 51 Geo. III., c. 45, the “ Ships-rooms ” included in it were partly vacant, and partly in the occupation of resident inhabitants, the words “ granted ” and “ possessed ” may possibly admit of a distinct and separate application to these two divisions ; so as, “ reddendo singula singulis,” to confer on the Governor a power of granting
* It is evident from this clause that the Legislature intended that a resident inhabitant might even have the use of a “ Ships-room ” after the fishing-ships were supplied with as many as they wanted.
† It seems clearly warrantable to endeavour to ascertain the meaning of an ambiguous expression in an Act of Parliament by reasoning, a priori, upon what the intention of the Legislature was likely be in respect to the subject matter of it.
‡ Viz : 51 Geo. III., c. 45, s. 1.
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the vacant parts, and to confirm to private individuals the possession they already had of the other parts. Admitting, however, that they accuracy of this construction might be open to question, if there was nothing to support it beyond the words employed in the 51 Geo. III., c. 45, it is certainly warrant-able to seek for a confirmation of it in other statutes in eadem materia. Looking, then, with this view to the 5 Geo. IV., c. 51, which by its 14th section empowers the Governor to dispose of all the remaining “ Ships-rooms,” it appears that this power is granted under a guarded and strongly expressed proviso, “ That nothing contained in that section shall extend, or be construed to the prejudice of any private right of any person whatever.” In the consideration of which proviso these points naturally suggest themselves :
1st.—What right could any person acquire in a “ Ships-rooms,” whilst it is continued such, that does not owe its existence to possession ?
2nd.—Is not, therefore, a private right to a “ Ships-rooms,” growing out of the previous possession of it, expressly recognized and solemnly confirmed by the 5th Geo. IV., c. 51 ?
But if this right of possession of a “ Ship’s-rooms ” is, as every one must see that it is, respected and protected by the 5th Geo. IV., c. 51, it is, at the least, in the highest degree probable, that the same motives which induced the Parliament to respect it in 1824 must also have had a similar influence upon the Legislature in 1811 : and since the words employed in the 51st Geo. III., c. 45, are susceptible of an interpretation analogous to the obvious meaning of the 5th Geo. IV., ch. 51, without much departure from the sense in which they might otherwise be taken, this Court feels bound to put the same construction upon the two statutes ; and to hold that the Crown is not entitled under them to claim a piece of ground, which had heretofore been a “ Ships-rooms,” against such a possession as would be a bar to the claim of the Crown if the land in dispute had never been clothed with the character of “ Ships-rooms.”
The jury retired to their chambers for about ten minutes, and the returned into court with a general verdict, “ not guilty.”
[This case, and the following case of “ The King v. Luke Ryan,” were taken by the Crown to the Privy Council.]
[1927lab]
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