United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

Earl of Halsbury—In this case I think that the judgment of the Court of Appeal ought to be affirmed. It appears to me that there is a mixture, not to say a confusion, of thought in using the word “profits” in a sense which is not consistent with the mode in which it is used in the statutes relating to income-tax. It may be—I do not propose to controvert the idea—that in an ordinary sense there might be some difficulty in saying what are “profits”; but really it seems to me that every part of the argument here has been covered by authority. In the first place, it is clear that there is an occupation, and, in the next place, it is clear that there is a beneficial occupation. The alternative suggested—namely, that this is one of those excepted undertakings (the only colour for which is that the word “drain” is used in the excepting section)—is to my mind untenable. The word “drain” used by itself might perhaps bear the meaning which it is suggested by the appellants that it ought to bear, but when you look at the mode in which the word “drain” is introduced, and the other words with which it is associated, its meaning depends upon a very familiar canon of construction—that when you have a word which may have a general meaning wider than that which was intended by the Legislature, when you find it associated with other words which show the category within which it is to come, it is cut down and overridden by the general proposition familiarly described as the ejusdem generis principle; and accordingly the word “drain” used in that section is not included in the excepted businesses which are therein described, so as to make the word “drain” applicable to the present question. Then if it is not the rest seems to me to be perfectly clear, because you have here a beneficial occupation, and by the rules applicable to Schedule A you have to take a hypothetical tenant, and the rent which the hypothetical tenant would give if he were called upon to get rid of this sewage, as ascertained by the mode by which it is to be calculated, and by the machinery by which the Legislature has supposed that this somewhat difficult problem is to be solved. I really do not feel it necessary to do more than say that I concur with the judgments which have been delivered on this subject by every judicial person before whom it has come. I entirely concur with them, and I cannot forbear from pointing out that the Attorney-General ‘in the course of exactly seven minutes appeared to me to dispose of the whole day's argument with which we had been entertained. I must say that I congratulate him, and I am endeavouring to emulate his success by the length of the judgment which I am now delivering.

Lord James of Hereford concurred.

Lord Robertson—I agree that the judgment is right, and I think that the controverted subjects have been accurately and adequately discussed in the Court of Appeal.

Lord Atkinson concurred.