Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/280

 the same building that was commenced before the mortgage was given. “The purpose of its design” was in no manner changed. It had the same dimensions, the same general arrangement, and was furnished and fitted for the purposes originally intended. That it was heated in a differcnt manner is of no more significance than would have been the addition of another coat of paint or plaster. From the time of its commencement there was, so far as the record shows, no cessation or delay in its erection until it was completed. It is idle to say that there can be two points of time at which such a building is commenced. We cannot add to the statute. These statutes have generally been liberally construed to give effect to the benefits they are intended te secure. To deny the respondent a lien for its labor and materials that went into that building, superior to the lien of a mortgage that, confessedly, was executed five days after the building was commenced, would be in clear disregard of the statute. It may be that there is an element of hardship in it. It may be that the mechanic or material-man could protect himself by searching the record, but experience shows that line of business is not usually done in that manner. It may be that the person who takes a mortgage upon realty whereon a building is in process of erection assumes some risks that he cannot accurately measure. But so the law is written. Nor is there any great hardship in it. The mechanic or material-man is entitled to no lien until he has augmented the value of the property, and then only to the amount, theoretically and presumptively, of such augmented value. This increased value of his security is directly beneficial to the mortgagee. It is true that to save his mortgage lien he may be required to make an increased investment in the security, but the increased investment is measured by the increased value. One lien or the other must be superior, and the legislature, in its wisdom, has seen proper to require that the mortgagee should take care of the mechanic’s lien— usually insignificant in amount as compared with the mortgage—rather than that the mechanic, often a day laborer, should tuke care of the mortgage of the capitalist As under the statute the respondent’s lien was superior to the lien of ap-