558 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 8,

If this section stood alone, and there was nothing
said as to the increase or diminution of the salaries of
the Judges in the parts of the Constitution relating to
such Judges, it might be argued that their salaries
would be governed by this general provision and could
neither be increased or diminished. But a Cardinal
rule of construction is that some meaning is, if possi-
ble, to be given to every word in the instrument.

The Judicial Department is a separate department
of the State Government, and is dealt with in a separate
Article of the Constitution. There is the strongest
presumption that, this Article was intended to deal ex-
haustively with all matters relating to the tenure and
salary of Judges, and that provisions in other parts of
the Constitution, relating to officers, were intended to
refer to other than Judicial officers.

There are many other officers beside Judges
provided for in the Constitution, and ample scope
is given for the operation of section 35, of Arti-
cle 3, by construing it as intended to apply to
officers other than Judges. In addition, if this sec-
tion includes the salaries of Judges, then the words
"shall not be diminished, " in section 24, of Article 4,
would mean absolutely nothing; and if our construc-
tion of that section is correct, then the two sections
are inconsistent and contradictory. We would have
the Constitution in one section as we have shown, de-
claring by necessary implication that the salaries of
the Judges may be increased; and in another declar-
ing that they may not be increased. No such con-
struction is to be given to any instrument, much less
to the Constitution of the State as to make the several
parts contradictory. The only consistent construction
which gives effect to all parts of the Constitution, is
that section 35, of Article 3, applies to officers other
than Judges.

The last clause in section 1, of Article 15, has no
application to this question, for the plain reason that
it embraces only cases not specially provided for; and
as the case of the Judges is specially provided for, it
can have no reference to them.

(5. ) The Constitution of the United States, Article
3, section 1, in making provisions for the Supreme