"CONSTRUCTIVE CHRISTMAS DAY."

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1114, 29 April 1911, Page 6

"CONSTRUCTIVE CHRISTMAS DAY."

LIQUOR MUST x\OT BE SOLD. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) Wcstport, April 28. In upholding tho appeals of the polico in the cases Dow v. Martin Ryan and Patrick Byan, who wcro charged with illegally selling liquor on Monday, December 26 last, Mr. Justice Denniston stated in his judgment: "T'iicro k abundant authority i'or holding that, in a proper case, 'any statute' may bo interpreted as excluding a particular statute, but the governing principle is that stated by tho Judicial Committee, in Attorney-General for Ontario v. Jlerccr (8 Appeal Cjsc, 777, p. 778): 'It is a sound maxim of law that every word ought prima facie to be construed 'in its primary and natural sense unless a secondary or more limited sense is required by the subject of tlio contract.' Now the considerations urged by counsel for the respondents may make it a plausible conclusion that if tbeso had been present to the minds of thoso who passed the Bill, they might haxo exempted the constructive Christmas Day from the restrictions imposed'upon the actual ones, but it is a long step from this, to assume. ■an implied intention on tho part of tho Legislature, notwithstanding the general language of tho Public Holidays Act, to exclude tho Licensing Act from its operation. To do so it"is admitted that I most road into tho Public Holidays Act after tho words, 'when in an.v Act,' the words 'relating to public holidays,' or something to that effect. Ido not think that this should bo done, unless it is clear that such a limitation must bo assumed to have been intended. In many oases, tho literal construction of ihe language of a statute leads to anomalies and hardships, but as a general rule the remedy (if any) for such lies in an amendment cf the Act. The appeals will be allowed with £5 os. costs in each case."