The Gazette 1908-9

[MAR., 1909

The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

102

Again, by sub-s. 8, the District Council is empowered to pay compensation exceeding ^10, but not amounting to ^100, into the County Court; and all the jurisdiction ex ercised by the High Court under the Lands Clauses Act, with respect to the sum so paid in, is conferred upon the County Court. This rendered necessary some provision with respect to the costs of proceedings in the County Court, and this provision is made by sub-s. 12, which enacts that Rules of the County Court shall regulate the practice and procedure in that Court under that section, and in particular shall provide that the costs payable by the District Council incident to the payment out of Court of any money shall not exceed £10, with a proviso that if the Court is satisfied in any particular case that, owing to the difficulty of showing title, the costs properly and neces sarily incurred in respect of such payment amount to a larger sum, the minimum of ;£io may be exceeded. Again, sect. 38 of the Act of 1906 repeals so much as was then unrepealed of sect. 12 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1885. This izth section was one which enacted that a Provi sional Order of the Local Government Board for confirming an Improvement Scheme under the Act should become absolute and take effect, unless a petition against it were presented, in which event jurisdiction was given to the Lord Lieutenant in Council to make a confirming Order, and sub-section 6 provided that the costs of all parties of and incident to the application for the confirmation of the Provisional Order should be in the discretion of the Lord Lieu tenant in Council; -and by the yth sub-section the Lord Lieutenant in Council was authorized to make General Rules inter alia for " fixing the amount of any fee, and the taxation of any costs to be taken, allowed, and paid in relation to the confirmation of Provisional Orders." These words are almost identical with those in sect. 31, and under it Orders in Council had been made ' and laid before Parliament, under which a scale of costs was fixed and an authority to tax constituted. The code contains many other provisions which might be referred to for the purpose of ascertaining its general purpose, but without mentioning them in detail the conclusion I have arrived at from reading them all is that the statute of 1906 was the ultimate step in a legislation which commenced upwards of a quarter of a century ago for the purpose of enabling land to be acquired for labourers' dwellings in a cheap and expeditious manner.

there does not appear to be any ground upon the face of the section for suggesting, as argued for the Respondent, that it should be confined to the fees of the solicitor for the Local Authorities. Neither can it be said that the Vendor's costs of showing title to land are not " costs in relation to the carrying into execution of the improvement scheme." It seems to me prima facie to have for its subject- matter all costs payable by the Local Authority, save those specially dealt with in prior parts of the Act, which are excepted by the words "subject as aforesaid." In construing, there fore, sect. 31 by itself, without reference to the legislation of which it forms part, I should not entertain any doubt that general Rules might have been made under it fixing a scale upon which such costs might have been taxed, and that Sir George Roche's costs, the subject of consideration here, are within its scope. No such scale, however, had been fixed by general Rules at the time the business was done, and therefore there is.now no scale ap plicable to those costs, save that prescribed by the Order under the Solicitors' Remuneration Act. So too would I hold on the words of the section that "provide for taxation" authorizes the designating of an officer to tax other than the Supreme Court taxing officers. I now take the entire Act; and it appears to' me that, so far from the legislation, as a whole, containing anything which would justify us in restricting the literal interpretation of sect. 31, there is much to be found which favours that literal construction. By the 35th section of the Act, it is to be construed as one with the Labourers Acts, 1883 to 1903 ; and by sect. 11, for the purposes of the present case, that is the taking of land otherwise than by agreement, the Lands Clauses Acts, as amended by the provisions contained in the Second Schedule to the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, which by the 3rd section of the Labourers Act, 1896, was deemed to form part of the Labourers Acts, were further amended ; and one of those amendments—I mean that effected by sub-s. 4 —was the substitution of a Receipt for a Con veyance ; and it was by that sub-section expressly provided that no Approval Fee or any other charge should be payable by the District Council in respect of any Receipt given in pursuance of tliat sub-section. This sub-section, therefore, expressly deals with the costs of a vendor's solicitor. Then by sub-s. 6 [His Lordship read that sub-section, and con tinued].