Odger's English Common Law

70 HOW TO ASCERTAIN THE LAW.
the promoters of the bill.
" The intention of the Legislature
in every Act of Parliament is to be collected, not by travel-
ling out of the Act, but from looking to the whole of the Act
itself." x
Under our constitution the office of declaring the law is separated from
that of making it. It is not the province of a judge to speculate upon
what in his opinion may be most for the advantage of the community ; it
is his duty simply to construe what Parliament has said. " It is dangerous
in the construction of a statute to proceed upon conjecture." 2 "We
cannot speculate upon the intentions of the Legislature which are neither
expressed in terms nor conveyed by implication ; our duty is to interpret
the words of a statute according to their plain and grammatical meaning,
when, as in this case, they are not controlled by anything to be found in
the context." 3
(ii.) If the words of the statute be plain and clear, it is
not for the Court to raise any doubts as to what they mean.
" We cannot assume a mistake in an Act of Parliament." 4
This is so, though " anomalous and inconvenient " results
may follow. 5
" If the words of the statute are in themselves precise and unambiguous,
then no more can be necessary than to expound those words in their natural
and ordinary sense. The words themselves alone do, in such a case, best
declare the intention of the lawgiver. But if any doubt arises from the
terms employed by the Legislature, it has always been held a safe means of
collecting the intention to call in aid the ground and cause of making the
statute, and to have recourse to the preamble, which, according to Chief
Justice Dyer, 6 is ' a key to open the minds of the makers of the Act and
the mischief which they intended to redress.' " 7 " If the words of the enact-
ing part of an Act of Parliament are clear and unambiguous, they must be
construed according to their ordinary meaning, even although by so doing
the Act is extended beyond what is shewn to be its object by its preamble.
But the preamble must always play an important part in the construction
i Per Wilde, C. J., in B. v. Manning (1819), 2 C. & K. at p. 903.
2 Per cur. in Barton v. Muir (1874), L. R. 6 P. C. at p. 144 ; and see S. E. By.
Co. v. By. Commissioners (1880), 50 L. J. Q. B. at p. 203.
3 Per cur. in Mutter v. Baldwin, (1874), L. E. 9 Q. B. at p. 461 ; and see the judgment
of Lord Haldane, L. C, in Vaclier $ Sons v. London Society of Compositors,
[1913] A. C. at p. 113.
* Per Grove, J., in Bichards v. McBride (1881), 8 Q. B. D. at p. 122.
5 See Clementson v. Mason (1875), L. R. 10 C. P. 209, 217.
6 Stowel v. Lord Zouch (1613), Plowden, at p. 369.
' Per cur. in The Sussex Peerage Case (1844), 11 CI. & F. at p. 143 ; and see Abley
v. Dale (1851), 11 C. B. at p. 390; Richards v. McBride (1881), 8 Q. B. D. 119;
Fielding v. Morley Corporation, [1899] 1 Ch. 1. As to cross-headings in a statute, see
Union Steamship Co. v. Melbourne, Ike, Commissioners (1884), 9 App. Cas. at
p. 369.