LAW J

HYNDMAN-JONES, J

I have had much hesitation in arriving at a conclusion in this case, for the Ordinance is very inartistically drawn, and it is therefore difficult to apply the principles that should guide us in dealing with the interpretation of statutes.

As long ago as 1584 in Heydon's case it was, says Lord Coke, resolved that, for the sure and true interpretation of all statutes in general (be they penal or beneficial, restrictive or enlarging of the common law) four things are to be discerned and considered:-

Ist. what was the common law before the making of the Act?

2nd. What was the mischief and defect for which the common law did not provide?

3rd. What remedy the Parliament hath resolved and appointed to cure the disease of the Commonwealth?

4th. The true reason for the remedy, and then the office of the judges is always to make such construction as shall suppress the mischief and advance the remedy.

But it is to be borne in mind that the office of the judges is not to legislate, but to declare the expressed intentions of the legislature even if that intention appears to the court injudicious, and I believe that it is not disputed that what Lord Wensleydale used to call the golden rule is right, viz., that we are to take the whole statute together and construe it all together giving to the words their ordinary signification unless when so applied they produce an inconsistency or an absurdity or inconvenience so great as to convince the court that the intention could not have been to use them in their ordinary signification, and to justify the court in putting on them some other signification which, though less proper, is one the court thinks the words will bear (River Wear Commissioners v. Adamson 2 Ap. Ca. 743. The great difficulty, as Lord Blackburn pointed out in Allgood v. Blake L.R. 8 Ex. p. 162, is in applying these rules, for, "whereas to one mind the literal construction may produce such an inconvenience and absurdity as to justify a deviation from the grammatical meaning, to another mind the proposed deviation may appear a violent construction."

As Lord O'Hagan said in Hutton v. Harper 1 Ap. Ca. 464: "The argument from inconvenience is not to be lightly entertained, and never for the purpose of construing a statute which is clear in its terms and indicates unmistakably the purpose of the legislature. When the words are obscure and the purpose therefore more or less doubtful it may help to a right understanding of them."

Now applying these principles to the case before us, there can be no question as to what the common law was before this Ordinance was passed - the lender would be entitled to recover his money from the borrower, the holder of a promissory note to sue for the money due to him. These were what may be called vested rights with the Ordinance purports to restrict.

What then is the mischief and defect in the common law which the Ordinance was intended to remedy?

Possibly there were two objects - first, to prevent so far as possible the junior members of the public service having recourse to money-lenders; secondly, to prevent the scandal and inconvenience to the public service which would arise were its junior members exposed to civil proceedings in the law courts, even in respect of obligations incurred before they entered the public service. The pecuniary limit was probably fixed because the legislature felt that persons with limited incomes were more particularly open to the temptations of the moneylender.

Be this as it may, $150 was fixed as the limit, and from the fact that a limit was fixed, it may be argued that the legislature did not intend to interfere with vested rights more than was absolutely necessary to the protection of a certain section of the public service, viz., those public servants with incomes of $150 a month and under.

Now as to the first object, viz., to prevent the junior members having recourse to money-lenders, it is clear that no vested rights