Harbour – Dues Leviable – Clyde Navigation Consolidation Act 1858 (21 and 22 Vict. c. 149), secs. 98 and 9
By an Act of 1770 the magistrates of Glasgow were empowered to levy rates on goods, including timber, ‘carried in and upon the river,’ so far as it was within their jurisdiction, the dues to be paid ‘on all timber or wood either carried in boats or other vessels, or floated in or upon the river,’ and rates were levied by them for a long period. In 1840 that Act was repealed by an Act which provided that duties should be levied ‘on all goods carried or conveyed on the river Clyde within the limits hereinafter mentioned.’ A new scale was then imposed, but no change was made in the list of goods on which dues were to be levied. There was no express provision in that statute for levying dues in respect of timber which had been brought from abroad and was floated up a side channel of the river to timber-ponds which were within the ‘river’ as defined by the statutes. The Clyde Navigation Consolidation Act 1858 repealed the Act of 1840, and sec. 98 enacted that the Trustees should be entitled to levy on and in respect of ‘all goods shipped or unshipped in the river or harbour the rates specified’ in Part 1 of Schedule H. thereto annexed, which is entitled ‘Rates on goods conveyed upon or shipped or unshipped in the river or at the harbour, or using any transit-shed or warehouse,’ and contains ‘timber’ in the list of goods chargeable.
In 1877 the Clyde Trustees for the first time proposed to charge dues on the timber on its being floated up to the timber-ponds. In a suspension at the instance of the owners of the ponds-
Held: (aff. judgment of First Division), on a construction of the statutes, that the timber so floated up did not fall within the scope of sec. 98, and that the dues claimed were not leviable.
Question, Whether there was any distinction between the case before the Court and that of timber floated up to and delivered in yards in the upper parts of river, which timber had admittedly paid dues since the passing of the Act?
Opinions that in construing a statute so recent as that of 1858, the manner in which it was acted on by persons affected by it could not constitute any contemporanea expositio which could assist the Court in its construction.
Judges:
Lords Blackburn, Watson, Bramwell, and Fitzgerald
Citations:
[1883] UKHL 869, 20 SLR 869
Links:
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Rating
Updated: 30 June 2022; Ref: scu.636765