The power of the board of aldermen of the city of Charlotte to levy an annual tax for the maintenance of public schools in the city as well as that of the board of school commissioners to employ teachers and fix their salaries is derived from a private act of the Gen *472 eral Assembly. Private Laws, 1907, chap. 342, secs. 197, 199, and 206 as amended. Tbe appellants seem to concede that the judgment must be affirmed unless the act conferring this power is repealed by chapter 430 of the Public Laws of 1931. The latter act provides (see. 31) that all laws and clauses of laws in conflict with it, to the extent of such conflict only, are repealed ánd that if any section, part, paragraph, sentence, or clause be declared unconstitutional or invalid the validity of any remaining part of the act shall not be affected. The public act contains no express repeal of the private act under which the defendants have proceeded and differs in this respect from the repealing clause in chapter 562 of the Public Laws of 1933, which includes all Public, Public-Local, and Private Laws.

It is a settled principle, subject to exceptions, that where a public or general and a private or special statute relate to the same subject and the two are essentially inconsistent the special statute shall prevail on the theory that it is an exception to the former. Bramham v. Durham, 171 N. C., 196; Rankin v. Gaston Co., 173 N. C., 683; Wilson v. Comrs., 183 N. C., 638; Monteith v. Comrs., 195 N. C., 71. A local statute enacted for a particular municipality is usually treated as an exception intended for the benefit of the municipality. Felmet v. Comrs., 186 N. C., 251; Black on Interpretation of Laws, 117. It is true that the legislative intent must prevail; but as was said in S. v. Johnson, 170 N. C., 685, “A general law will not be so construed as to repeal an existing particular or special law unless it is plainly manifest from the terms of the general law that such was the intention of the law-making body.” The question is whether by the act of 1931 the Legislature intended to repeal those sections in the charter of the city of Charlotte under which the defendants acted in fixing the salaries of the teachers and in levying the tax for schools.

The trend of judicial thought is not favorable to repeal by implication. A statute should not be abrogated “by any constrained construction out of the general and ambiguous words of a subsequent act.” Bunch v. Comrs., 159 N. C., 335. As a rule apparent inconsistencies in the phraseology of statutes should be reconciled so as to make all effective, if possible. Bramham v. Durham, supra. Of course if a later is so repugnant to a prior act that the two cannot be reconciled the later act prevails; but in the statutes now under consideration we find no irreconcilable inconsistency.

The appellants insist that the act of 1931 applies to all public schools in the State, including those in the city of Charlotte. This position is based in part upon sections requiring the State Board of Equalization to approve each county and city budget (sec. 3); demanding the enforcement of formulated rules (sec. 4) ; prescribing the method of making *473 up tbe budget (sec. 6); establishing a salary schedule for teachers (sec. 12); and making various other provisions for the support of the public schools.

This act was intended primarily to give greater effect to the constitutional provision for the maintenance of the schools for a term of six months. The purpose is designated in the caption, and throughout the act the limitation is prominent. Section 5 makes it the duty of the county board of education in each county to originate the six-month budget, but subsection c providing that the extended term budget shall not be effective until approved by the county commissioners and the State Board of Equalization applies to “districts receiving State aid for the extended term” — obviously not to the budget of a county not receiving for the extended term any aid from the State. We find no evidence that the State has given the city any financial assistance for extending the term of its school. The requirement in section 3 that the county and city budget must be approved by the State Board has reference to funds “received from the State” and not to a fund to be raised, as in this case, by local taxation; and in section 12 the proviso referred to by the appellants is expressly restricted to the “operation of the six months school term.”

So, likewise, as to the proviso in section 15. It must be considered, according to the general rule of construction, as explaining, qualifying, or restraining preceding matter, and not as an independent substantive enactment operating as a repeal of local statutes to which it bears no relation and to which it makes no reference. Propst v. R. R., 139 N. C., 397.

A minute discussion of the statutes is not necessary. We have considered them from the several points of view suggested in the brief of the appellants and find no satisfactory cause for reversing the judgment.

Affirmed.