Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/378

 it, the clear auty of the court is to adopt the latter construction. End. Interp. St. 247; Opinion of Justices, 41 N. H. 553, The language of the statute is that “there shall hereafter be paid into the treasury of this territory a percentage of all the gross earnings of the corporation owning or operating such railroad, arising from the operation of such railroad as shall be situated within this territory.” This language does not, in terms, extend to earnings on interstate traffic, nor is it, in terms, limited to local earnings. The language is broad and general, and necessarily requires construction by the court to determine its precise meaning. The “gross earnings” which were taxed were derived “from the operation of such railroad as shall be situated within this territory.” (If the argument of respondent be correct, then it forces us to the conclusion that it was intended to tax the gross earnings from interstate traffic whenever that traffic passed over a part of any railroad situated within the territory. Thus, if a shipment be carried by appellant from St. Paul to Tacoma, and it receives $100 as freight earnings therefor, the argument of respondent is that these earnings were intended to be taxed by the act.) We think a fair construction of the language does not warrant this conclusion. Nor is there anything in the act which warrants the conclusion that it was intended to tax a proportionate part of these earnings, derived by comparing the number of miles the shipment passed over appellant’s railroad within the territory with the total number of miles it passed over appellant’s railroad. In order to arrive at such a construction, it would be necessary to insert new and additional words in the statute; and this, of course, is not permissible. To do so, would be to make a new law, not to construe tho old one.

What then is the true construction to be placed on the language? If the language is transposed, and placed in its proper order, it would read: “All the gross earnings arising from the operation of such railroad as shall be situated within this territory.” It is obvious that the intent of the legislature could not have been to tax all the gross earnings of any corporation that might happen to operate a railroad situated within the territory. And yet a strict grammatical construction would war-