110 / 132
102
The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
[MAR., 1909
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].
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.