United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

Lord Chancellor—This case is one of a class which always has been, and I suppose always will be, of exceptional difficulty, as will every case be in which the decision really depends upon a question of degree.

The principle of the decision in this House in the Budhill and Carpalla cases seems to me to have been this: The Court has to find what the parties must be taken to have bought and sold respectively, remembering that no definition of “minerals” is attainable, the variety of meanings which the use of the word “minerals” admits of being itself the source of all the difficulty. It must be taken that what the Railway Company intended to get and the landowner intended to give was the land under the line, for the object was to give, not a way leave, but a support. I say this, speaking generally. Upon the other hand, if anything exceptional in use, character, or value was thereunder, that was reserved, provided it could be included under the word “minerals” as understood in the vernacular of the mining world and the commercial world and the landowner.

Now applying that in the present case, it is not doubted that the substance contained in the lowest seam, at least as to three-quarters of it, was a “mineral” within the vernacular which I have described. It is said that the same persons who used that language also included, not merely the remaining fourth of the lowest seam, but the clay contained in all the other seams. I will assume that it is so. But in fact it is no answer to say that the vernacular has a still wider application than it would have if it were restricted solely to Glenboig fireclay.

The evidence given as to common meaning is evidence given of the common meaning at the present day. I should assume that it was the same at the time of the sale unless sufficient ground was given for coming to a contrary conclusion. The particular seam now being worked, to which alone the present decision of your Lordships will apply, is certainly of an exceptional character as to its properties and value upon the evidence before us; and it is not established in the evidence before us that it is present in such large proportions as to destroy its exceptional character.

It is impossible in my view to give further assistance in ascertaining when a substance is to be treated as a mineral within the Act of Parliament than we have endeavoured to give in the cases already cited, and in any observations which their Lordships may make in the course of the present case.

Lord Macnaghten—I agree.

Lord Shaw—I am of the same opinion.

Lord Robson—I am also of the same opinion.