FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[253]Report on the affairs of British North America(Oxford, 1912), p. 143.[254]Stayner to governor general's secretary, December 8, 1837 (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts).[255]Maberly to postmaster general, March 29, 1838, and accompanying papers (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts), and Q. 402-409passim.[256]Can. Arch., Q. 416, p. 49.[257]Colonial office to post office, May 25, 1838 (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts).[258]Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe, 1909, I. 188.[259]The succession of measures taken regarding the Cunard service may be followed in the Br. P.O. Transcripts for 1838-1839-1840.[260]Maberly to postmaster general, April 3 and September 28, 1844, with accompanying papers (Br. P.O. Transcripts).[261]The papers on the reduction of the ocean postage rates are gathered together as accompaniments to a letter from Mr. Poulett Thomson, the governor general, to Lord Russell, of April 16, 1840. See Q. 271, p. 224.[262]Stayner to Maberly, May 12, 1839, and accompanying documents (Br. P.O. Transcripts).[263]Treasury Minute, July 6, 1840 (Br. P.O. Transcripts).

[253]Report on the affairs of British North America(Oxford, 1912), p. 143.

[254]Stayner to governor general's secretary, December 8, 1837 (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts).

[255]Maberly to postmaster general, March 29, 1838, and accompanying papers (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts), and Q. 402-409passim.

[256]Can. Arch., Q. 416, p. 49.

[257]Colonial office to post office, May 25, 1838 (Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts).

[258]Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe, 1909, I. 188.

[259]The succession of measures taken regarding the Cunard service may be followed in the Br. P.O. Transcripts for 1838-1839-1840.

[260]Maberly to postmaster general, April 3 and September 28, 1844, with accompanying papers (Br. P.O. Transcripts).

[261]The papers on the reduction of the ocean postage rates are gathered together as accompaniments to a letter from Mr. Poulett Thomson, the governor general, to Lord Russell, of April 16, 1840. See Q. 271, p. 224.

[262]Stayner to Maberly, May 12, 1839, and accompanying documents (Br. P.O. Transcripts).

[263]Treasury Minute, July 6, 1840 (Br. P.O. Transcripts).

Diminution of powers of deputy postmaster generalâ€”Commission on post office appointedâ€”Its reportâ€”Efforts to secure reduction of postal charges.

The arrival of Poulett Thomson as governor general marks the passing of the uncontrolled authority of Stayner as administrator of the post office in the Canadas. By the terms of their commissions, the deputies of the postmaster general in the colonies, were responsible to the postmaster general alone for the conduct of the affairs of the post offices within their jurisdiction.

Subject to the approval of the postmaster general, the deputies opened all post offices, appointed all postmasters and other officers of the department, and made all contracts for the conveyance of the mails. Until Stayner's time, the department at home exercised a watchful oversight in one particular. It insisted that the deputy postmaster general should not extend the system, or increase the accommodation within it, unless he could satisfy St. Martins-le-Grand that the additional outlay required should be met by a corresponding increase in the revenue. Assured on this point, the department gave the deputies a practically free hand.

Insistence on the point of finances brought the general post office into sharp collision with the colonial legislatures for a number of years. But shortly after Stayner's assumption of office, the department in London loosened the reins, and directed him to study the wants of the rising communities, and extend postal accommodation to whatever districts seemed to him to require it.

The confidence bestowed by the postmaster general on his young deputy in the Canadas was not misplaced. Stayner was a man of energy and authority, who had grown up in the service under the administration of his father-in-law, who was his predecessor in office, and his loyalty to the interests of both the postmaster general and the community he served stood unquestioned. With his appointment to his high office, he fell heir to a dispute which had been waged for a number of years between the general post office and the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada, involving the legal right of the post office to do business in the colonies under existing conditions.

Stayner was fortunate in finding in each province differences between the administration and the houses of assembly, which gave little promise of settlement, and he promptly attached himself to the side of the administration. This, indeed, was the only course open to him, in view of his accountability to a department, which, in according him a certain freedom of action, took jealous heed that he should not abuse it.

But Stayner had important interests of his own, which called for protection by the government. His extra-official emolumentsâ€”from the postage on newspapers, and from his agency for the collection of United States postage, due in Canadaâ€”now far exceeding his official salary, began to excite public attention, and he required all the support he could gather to himself, to enable him to brave it out with the assemblies, when they insisted on his showing by what right he took these emoluments.

His position, however repugnant to popular notions, was officially unassailable, and as he managed to identify his interests with those of the administrations, the governors of the two provinces remained steadily his friends and protectors. He had even the gratification of being commended for his great services by the assembly of Upper Canada in 1837.

But a change was coming for Stayner, and indeed had come. Ever since the amount and the sources of his income became known to the home government, there had been disapprobation. The secretary of the post office, a large part of whose income had been derived from similar extra-official sources, deprecated the criticism which began to spring up, and the postmaster general weakly and reluctantly agreed that Stayner's exceptional services entitled him to exceptional emoluments.

The colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg, however, was of another mind. The two provinces were seething with dissatisfaction, and it was not clear to him in what the grievances of the colonials consisted. A committee of the house of commons had sat in 1828, heard evidence, and reported, and the leaders of the assembly in Lower Canada had declared that if the recommendations of the committee were carried into effect, the province would be content.

Guiding his policy by that report, and seeking every opportunity to make good its findings, the colonial secretary observed that the political dissatisfaction and unrest, so far from disappearing, was spreading year by year. His bewilderment sharpened his eyes, and as they rested on Stayner's case, he saw a condition which offendedhis sense of justice, and he at once demanded of the postmaster general that he should remove this obvious wrong.

For a time Stayner's tactics, or his luck, held him scatheless. The postmaster general and the colonial secretary had agreed that the remedy for all the ills that afflicted the post office was to be provided by the bill adopted by the imperial parliament in 1834. This bill, however, could not become operative until the acceptance by the several colonial legislatures of a common measure for the regulation of the post office in the several provinces by the postmaster general of England. As all the colonies had rejected this measure, the situation remained unchanged.

Stayner continued to take his exorbitant emoluments, and the government was helpless. The postmaster general asked the colonial secretary to furnish him with an expedient for settling the matter, but the colonial secretary could think of nothing, to which overriding legal or political objections could not be made. While, however, Stayner enjoyed immunity from attacks by the government, he was a marked man, and when Poulett Thomson came to Canada, he lost no time in making Stayner realize that the period of his exceptional fortunes was at an end.

Poulett Thomson's special mission to Canada was to lay the foundations of responsible government in the country, and he began by taking things into his own hands. In dealing with the post office he sent for Stayner, and, instead of treating him as an officer of independent authority, Thomson informed Stayner that it was his intention to reform the post office in its construction and duties.

All the governor general required of Stayner was that the latter should furnish him with any information he considered necessary. Although Thomson had never had any actual experience in the workings of a post office he had opportunities of acquiring a sound theoretical knowledge on the subject. He was a member of the committee of the house of commons which was appointed in 1837 to examine the proposition of Rowland Hill for penny postage.

As Hill's scheme involved an entire change in post office methods, themodus operandiat that time pursued was thoroughly set out to the committee, its weaknesses exposed, and the merits of the new proposition fully discussed. No observant man could attend the work of that committee without gaining definite views as to the principles upon which a post office should be conducted.

In June 1840, Stayner reported to the secretary of the generalpost office a state of affairs that indicated that Thomson had taken the direction of post office affairs into his own hands. He had ordered Stayner to enter into negotiations for the conveyance of mails by steamer between Quebec and Montreal, and upon lake Ontario, and when the negotiations failed, he expressed a determination to obtain authority to build vessels for post office purposes. He also directed Stayner to draw up a bill for the administration of the post office in British North America upon principles to be determined by the governor.

The colonial secretary, in July, instructed the governor to appoint a commission to investigate and report upon the post office in the colonies in all its bearings. The committee as appointed consisted of Dowling, legal adviser to the governor, Davidson, senior commissioner of crown lands, and Stayner.

In point of ability the committee was a competent one. Its members all had that sort of experience in public affairs, which would enable them to apprize fairly the mass of information laid before themâ€”evidence which would satisfy the public as to the justice of their conclusions.

But having in mind the aims of the committee, its composition was not such as to give hope for harmonious co-operation among its members. The colonial secretary in instructing the governor general to appoint the committee, directed that it should investigate and report on the state of the British North American post office, including its administration.

The work of the committee was necessarily a scrutiny into the methods of the administration of Stayner, and involved an attitude of defence on his part. And the other members of the committee did not fail to make him feel the difficulty of his dual position. Although he signed the report as a commissioner, he appended a note to it stating that he did so, merely because he conceived it to be his duty as a commissioner.

But he also intimated that he was far from agreeing with all the conclusions of his associates; and a few months later he presented a statement to the governor general, pointing out the respects in which he differed from the other commissioners, and defending himself against charges which were set forth in the report.

The committee entered upon their work by calling upon the deputy postmasters general of Canada and the Maritime provinces for a body of statistics and other matter, which, when furnished, provided them with a survey of the whole colonial system, and its methods of operation.

Detailed information was given in tabular form of every post office in the coloniesâ€”the name and date of appointment of its postmaster, the revenue of the office, and the several items that composed the postmaster's income; and of every mail route, with its cost of maintenance. All regulations for the guidance of postmasters in the management of their offices were submitted to the commission.

The commissioners addressed circular letters to all the postmasters, and to prominent people in every section of the colonies, inviting them to give their views on the post offices in their locality, and asking particularly as to the extent letters were carried by agencies other than the post office, and their opinions as to why these other agencies were employed in preference to the post office.

Theinformationobtained was most voluminous, and the report of the commission based upon it was comprehensive.[264]It began with a historical sketch of the post office in the colonies, from its origin down to the time of the commission; passed on to a survey of the institution as it then stood; pointed out the defects they discovered in its arrangements; and concluded by a number of recommendations for the removal of the defects, and the improvement of the system.

The defects which most impressed the commissioners were the want of uniformity within the system, and the uncontrolled power of the representatives of the postmaster general in the colonies. As illustrating the lack of uniformity, they pointed out that though the colonies were in postal theory an undivided whole, they were under the control of two deputies of the postmaster general, who were entirely independent of one another, and that no effort seemed to have been made to co-ordinate the practice in the two jurisdictions.

The absence of organization was more noticeable in the Maritime provinces, a condition which the commissioners attributed to the failure of the deputy at Halifax to establish general regulations, and to the want of travelling surveyors or inspectors, who might have introduced uniformity of practice among the postmasters.

A striking instance of unauthorized variation from usual post office practice was the existence of way offices. These were, to all intents and purposes, post offices, and yet they had no official recognition as such.

These way offices were set up at any convenient place along the line of the post roads. They were put in operation, sometimes by local magistrates, or other people of importance in the districts; sometimes by neighbouring postmasters, and sometimes by the deputy postmaster general. They had no accounting relations with the head of the department, but carried on their work under the control of an adjacent postmaster who was held responsible for the postage collected by them.

In spite of their anomalous character, these way offices had a usefulness of their own; for they were not abolished until after the Nova Scotia post office was absorbed in the post office department of the dominion in 1867.

The commission in support of their second conclusion, that the power of the deputies of the postmaster general were subject to no practical control, and that the abuses usually associated with irresponsibility were not absent from the administration of the colonial post office, submitted two cases which had come under their notice, and which seemed to show that in these cases at least Stayner was chargeable with maladministration and nepotism.

Stayner in his rejoinder defended himself with vigour and success against the imputations of his colleagues, and retorted upon Dowling, the chairman, with charges of unfairness and studied discourtesy towards himself. The bearing of Dowling was so offensive that Stayner was with difficulty restrained from severing his relations with the commission.

The remedies proposed by the commission for the two cardinal defects to which they had drawn attention, were simple and efficacious. They would place the whole colonial postal system in the hands of a single deputy postmaster general, who should own responsibility, not only to his official superior in England, but also, in all points which did not conflict with his primary duty, to the executive heads of the several provinces, so far as related to the parts of the system within their respective jurisdictions.

The headquarters of the deputy postmaster general, the commission urged, should be at the capital of the province of Canada, and he should be under the orders of the governor general. The authority of the deputy postmaster general in the other provinces should be vested in local inspectors, whose relations with the lieutenant governors were to be identical with those which should subsist between the deputy postmaster general and the governor general.

In cases occurring in the other provinces, which appeared totranscend the powers of the local inspectors, the lieutenant governors might correspond with the governor general, and the inspectors with the deputy. Stayner objected to the plan proposed, in so far as it took the appointments to postmasterships and other offices out of the hands of the representative of the postmaster general, and made them the subject of political patronage.

Having disposed of the questions relating to the organization and administration of the department, the commissioners proceeded to discuss matters bearing upon its operations.

The first of these was the rates of postage. In dealing with this subject the commission had before them a mass of evidence from all parts of the colonies, which convinced them that the great bulk of the letters exchanged, did not pass through the post office. It was asserted by responsible persons that, in some parts of the country, scarcely ten per cent. of the letters written were conveyed by the post office, and in few cases was the estimate of letters carried by private means less than fifty per cent.

Though various other reasons were given for this systematic evasion of the only lawful means of conveying lettersâ€”the infrequency of the couriers' services, and the public distrust in the security of the mailsâ€”there was practical unanimity in the declaration that the chief obstacle in the way of the public's using the post office was the excessive rates of postage.

The commission found that there was a strong sentiment among their correspondents, favouring the adoption of the system then recently introduced into England by the genius of Rowland Hill. Until 1840, the postal rates in England were substantially the same as those which hampered the post office in the colonies; and the general avoidance of the post office by the merchants and other writers of letters in that country was as marked as it was in Canada.

Richard Cobden declared that not one-sixth of the letters exchanged in England were transmitted through the post office, and other observers of equal authority bore similar emphatic testimony. The displacement of the complicated system of charges based on the number of enclosures and the distance the letters were carried, and the adoption of a penny rate carrying letters to all parts of the United Kingdom, immediately turned all the streams of correspondence into the channels of the post office. Not only were the private letter-carrying agencies put out of business, but the low, easily comprehended rate called into existence a vast body of new correspondence.

Few people in Canada believed in the possibility of a rate as low as a penny for the Canadian post office, but many were attracted by the fascination of a uniform charge even though it should be higher than that, which was so vastly augmenting correspondence in England.

To all such, whether the uniform rate they advocated were a penny or higher, the commission addressed themselves, pointing out that the geographical, social and industrial differences between England and the colonies, made it impracticable to base an argument for the one upon the experience of the other.

Uniform penny postage was an immediate success in the United Kingdom because in the United Kingdom there were three thickly-populated countries, with highly developed social and industrial systems. Hill discovered, by a study of the postal statistics laid before the house of commons, that in consequence of the great volume of correspondence exchanged, the comparatively short distances letters were as a rule carried, and the highly developed system of transportation, the average cost of carrying a letter in the United Kingdom did not exceed one farthing. A sum equally small covered the expenses of administration and the maintenance of post offices.

A further discovery of equal importance, which surprised Hill as much as it did anybody, was that the difference in expense between carrying a letter the shortest and the longest possible distances in the kingdom was so small that it could not be expressed in the least valuable coin in use.

In these facts lay the whole case for uniform penny postage. At a penny a letter, there was a clear profit to the post office, and the augmentation in the number of letters as a result of this inducement to correspondence made almost any imaginable profits possible; and the insignificant difference in cost between carrying letters long and short distances, led inevitably to the ideal uniform rate.

The conditions in the British North American colonies were in all respects the reverse of those existing in England. The vast extent of their territories, the sparseness of their populations, and their undeveloped state, socially and industrially, all combined to make the postal system very costly, and the returns meagre; and the great, almost unsettled, stretches between the centres of population made the difference in the cost of conveyance between long and short distances very considerable.

The commission, with such statistics as were available beforethem, estimated that the average expense of delivering a letter was threepence for conveyance, and twopence-halfpenny for overhead and maintenance charges. These figures showed the impracticability of either low or uniform postage rates, unless the legislatures were willing to take on themselves the yearly deficits, which were certain to occur.

The commission, however, were prepared to recommend considerable reductions in the charges, even though these should result in a noticeable shrinkage in the revenue. Indeed, it seemed to them a distinct advantage that the revenue should be brought down to a point, at which it would no more than meet the expenses. They took it as settled that the British government would adhere to the principle of the imperial bill of 1834, under which the surplus revenues were to be divided among the colonies; and they foresaw serious difficulties among the provinces in dealing with the problem of distributing the surplus.

The rates they recommendedâ€”ranging from twopence a letter when the conveyance did not exceed thirty miles up to one shilling for a distance over three hundred milesâ€”were much lower than those charged at that time by the post office.

Dealing with the question of newspaper postage, the commission condemned the impropriety of allowing the sums accruing under this head to pass into the pockets of the deputies of the postmaster general, and recommended that newspapers should be charged at the rate of one-halfpenny each, and that the proceeds should go with the other postage into the treasury.

A point, interesting as illustrating one of the differences of view between ourselves and our grandfathers, was that the commissioners strongly recommended that the prepayment of postage on newspapers should not continue to be compulsory, but that it should be optional whether the sum should be paid by the sender or recipient of the newspaper.

It had never been held that the sender of a letter should pay the postage; and to the public it appeared a hardship that there should be a different practice as regards newspapers. Indeed the committee saw very good reasons from the standpoint of the post office why the payment of postage on newspapers should be deferred. If postmasters could add to their revenues, and consequently to their salaries, by collecting the postage when delivering newspapers, they would have a strong motive for seeing that the papers were delivered.

The commission closed their report by noting a number of thedetails of post office practice: the demand for more post offices throughout the provinces, which they endorsed; complaints of the inconvenience of sites of post offices; the hours post offices should be open to the public, and the time for closing the mails; special handling of money letters, and the enforcement of the terms of mail contracts, and the salaries of postmasters. On all these matters they commented at length, and made a number of helpful suggestions.

The report was presented to the governor general on December 31, 1841. While it was in course of preparationâ€”on November 29, 1841â€”the post office building in Quebec was destroyed by fire.

For Stayner this was a serious misfortune. Not only was he compelled to withdraw his attention from the affairs of the commission, in order to make provision for carrying on the departmental work, but he was crippled in drawing up his rejoinder by the fact that all his papers were consumed with the building, and material upon which he had depended for explanation and justification of transactions called in question was no longer available. His statement was not laid before the governor general until the April following.

In it, besides confuting the conclusions of the other commissioners on the matters affecting his administration of the post office, Stayner discussed a number of questions, in which he differed in opinion from his colleagues. He expressed a qualified approval of the scale of postage rates recommended in the report, and agreed entirely with them in their proposals respecting the postage on newspapers.

But Stayner was convinced that his colleagues took entirely too favourable a view as to the effect of the postage reductions on the revenue of the department, and he strongly recommended that, before the proposed changes should be approved, the whole scheme should be submitted to the provincial legislatures, with its probable financial consequences, in order that an assurance might be obtained from them that the deficits which he foresaw should be made good by the provinces.

The first of the measures taken by the government on the report of the commissioners was to deprive Stayner of a portion of his power. The proposal to place him under the direction of the governor general was not entertained in its entirety. But in August 1842, the appointment of his postmasters was taken out of his hands, and transferred to the governor general.[265]

Stayner protested that it would be out of his power satisfactorily to discharge his responsibility as resident head of the post office if he were deprived of the selection of his officials. The postmaster general may have agreed with Stayner, but the decision of the matter was not allowed to rest with him. Consequently, he had no choice, but to inform Stayner that the question was closed, and that he would have to conform to the new conditions.

So much freedom of action, however, was still left with Stayner that he was not expected to retain the services of any official who failed to satisfy his requirements. But he could no longer dismiss peremptorily. The official under condemnation was to be afforded an opportunity for defence before his case was finally disposed of. Thereafter, and until the post office was transferred to the control of the Canadian government, whenever a vacancy occurred among the postmasters, the nomination was made by the governor, and the official appointment of the person selected, was made by the postmaster general.

In August 1843, Lord Stanley, the colonial secretary, notified the governor that on assuming office, he found awaiting him the report of the commission, but owing to the complexity of the matters involved, and to the fact that further representations on the same subject had been received from the colonies, the government was unable to arrive at a conclusion until that time.[266]

The decisions arrived at by the government and imparted to the governor were of far-reaching importance. The practice which had prevailed ever since the post office was established, of fixing the postage on letters, according to the number of enclosures they contained was to be abolished, and the weight system to be introduced to replace it. A single letter thereafter was to be one which weighed less than half an ounce, and the postage determined by the number of half ounces it weighed. The rates themselves were not changed, nor was the principle of regarding the distance a letter was carried any factor in the postage, in any way affected.

But though the effect of the substitution of the weight system for that based on enclosures was not great, so far as concerned the amount of postage required on a letter, much was gained in the direction of simplicity and propriety, when there was no longer the constant appeal to the postmaster's curiosity, and, at times, cupidity, which was made by the regulation requiring him to hold up every letter between him and a lighted candle, in order to satisfy himself as to the number of its contents.

Another reform, no less welcome to the public, was the abolition of the privilege conceded to the deputy postmaster general of putting into his own pocket the proceeds of the postage on newspapers. The recommendation of the commission that newspapers should be charged one-halfpenny each, the proceeds to form part of the post office revenue, was adopted by the government.

These changes went into operation on the 5th of January, 1844. By way of compensation to the deputy postmaster general for the loss of his newspaper and other perquisites, he was given the not unhandsome salary of Â£2500 sterling a year. This was an amount much beyond what the treasury considered should be paid as salary for this office, in the absence of the special circumstances of Stayner's case, and the salary of his successor was fixed at Â£1500 a year.[267]

The merchants and other large users of the post office, while perhaps not unmindful of what had been gained, still had little cause for satisfaction with the results of the labours of the commission. Substantial reductions in the postage were still unattained. The movement in the colonies was greatly stimulated by the course of events in England as regards penny postage.

Post office officials had, from various motives, decried the great reform, and ministers of the crown, with their eyes on the diminished revenue, doubted whether the public benefits had been commensurate with the cost. Opposition to the continuance of the experiment had reached a point when it became a question whether modifications in the direction of higher charges should not be made.

In 1844 the government appointed a committee of the house of commons to inquire as to the measure of public benefit that could fairly be attributed to penny postage. The committee made no report, but they submitted a mass of evidence taken from every quarter of the kingdom, and from every walk in life, that effectually silenced objectors, and aroused a desire in all civilized countries for the enjoyment of a similar boon, to the extent that their circumstances would permit. The United States, in 1846, after a period of agitation, reduced its charges to five cents a letter, where the conveyance did not exceed a distance of three thousand miles, doubling the charge for greater distances.

The British North American colonies shared to the full in the general desire for the abatement of the impediments to the freer circulation of correspondence. The Canadian legislature, in1845, was called upon to deal with a number of memorials on this subject, and asked Stayner for his advice.

Stayner was prepared to welcome any reductions that the legislature might be able to obtain, but he warned them that whatever might be the ultimate effect of lowered postage rates on the augmentation of correspondence, there would be an intermediate period, in which the shrinkage of revenue would be considerable, and it was for the legislature to determine whether the general financial condition of the province would warrant their incurring even a temporary deficit in the post office.

The legislature having in view the fact that the surplus revenue of the post office was only Â£8000 at the time, decided that it would be unwise to embark on any undertaking that threatened them with additional financial burdens.[268]But the public in Canada were of a different opinion. The boards of trade of Montreal, Toronto and Quebec petitioned the postmaster general for a rate of twopence-halfpenny a letter, and, in 1846, the legislature casting caution aside presented a strong address to the queen. In it they pointed out the hardship endured by British subjects in one portion of the empire, in being compelled to pay extravagant charges for that which is enjoyed by others at merely nominal cost; and begged to be put on an equal footing in this regard with the citizens of the United States.

The legislatures of the Maritime provinces were pressing on the home government demands of a similar character with equal vigour, and as the policy adopted by the home government was the result of the combined pressure, and affected all the colonies identically, it is desirable, before dealing with that policy, to bring the narrative of events in the Maritime provinces forward to this point.

FOOTNOTES:[264]This report, with the data obtained by the commissioners, is printed as Appendix F to theSessional Papers of Canada for1846.[265]Circular Letter of Instructions, August 1842 (Journals of Assembly, N.B., 1843, p. 36).[266]Journals of Assembly, Canada, 1843, p. 51.[267]Maberly to Stayner, July 27, 1844 (Br. P.O. Transcripts).[268]Journals of Assembly, Canada, 1844-1845, App. P.P.P.

[264]This report, with the data obtained by the commissioners, is printed as Appendix F to theSessional Papers of Canada for1846.

[265]Circular Letter of Instructions, August 1842 (Journals of Assembly, N.B., 1843, p. 36).

[266]Journals of Assembly, Canada, 1843, p. 51.

[267]Maberly to Stayner, July 27, 1844 (Br. P.O. Transcripts).

[268]Journals of Assembly, Canada, 1844-1845, App. P.P.P.

Continuation of account of post office in Maritime provincesâ€”Departmental inquiry into conditionsâ€”Agitation for reduced postage.

The information elicited from Howe by the general post office in London, and the house of assembly of Nova Scotia, in the course of the inquiry as to the financial position of the post office in that province, disclosed matter for considerable surprise to both of them.

The general post office learned for the first time that for some years the provincial post office was carried on partly with the assistance of the legislature. The assembly on its side was equally unaware of the fact that, while they were making annual grants in aid of the provincial establishment, a very considerable sum was being remitted each year by the deputy postmaster general to the British treasury as surplus postal revenue.

This anomalous state of affairs was corrected, and a more satisfactory footing was established as the result of the mission of the Nova Scotia delegates to England in 1839. But one is inclined to wonder how this condition of ignorance could continue with Howe, a perfectly honest man, in constant communication with his official superiors in England on the one hand, and with the legislature on the other.

It would seem to have arisen from the fact that the post office in Nova Scotia was a much more intimate institution than the post office was in Canada. Circumstances, as has been seen, maintained a gulf between the post office in Canada and the provincial legislatures. The antagonism of the legislatures in the two Canadas towards the post office, arising from their belief in the illegality of its foundation, and the steady struggle on their part to bring the institution within the sphere of their authority, operated to prevent the establishment of intimate relations between the legislatures and the deputy postmasters general.

All these separative factors were absent in Nova Scotia. The Howes, father and son, had administered the post office for nearly forty years. They were constantly occupied with the public life of the province. They published the principal newspapers, andJoseph Howe, son of the one, and brother of the other, was one of the leaders in the legislature. The younger Howe was also a commissioner for the summary trial of actions, and for the poor, both of which appointments he held without salary.

The interests of the Howes were as much engaged to the affairs of the province, as to those of the general post office, and this fact was recognized by the legislature. When, therefore, there was a question of extending the postal lines into new districts, Howe was fully sympathetic, and it was felt, by the assembly, when he informed them that they must be prepared to make up any deficiencies in the cost of the new services, that he spoke as one of themselves, but with authority, and there was no more question.

As a consequence, new routes sprang up gradually in different parts of the province, under the simple arrangement that the postage collected on the route would be applied as far as it would go to meet the expenses of the postmasters and mail couriers, and that the legislature would make up what was lacking.

Thus, on the western line, from Halifax to Yarmouth, and around the shore to Lunenburg, the revenue collected was in 1839 only Â£378, whereas the expenditure was rather more than Â£900 beyond this sum. On the eastern line, the shortage to be made up by the legislature was over Â£450. The northern line, that is, through Londonderry, Amherst, Wallace, Dorchester and Parrsboro nearly paid its expenses. The province had to contribute no more than Â£60, to cover the deficiency.[269]

All that the general post office had been informed regarding these routes was that the revenues from them were being held to pay expenses. They had no idea that there were heavy deficiencies, which the legislatures provided for by annual votes, arranged between Howe and the post office committee of the legislative assembly. Howe held, when brought to account for his remissness, that as these routes were under the authority of the province, and not of the postmaster general, there was no object in embodying them in his accounts.

The general post office did not know of the existence of the post offices of Yarmouth, Shelburne, Liverpool and Lunenburg on the west and south coasts; Antigonishe, Wallace and Parrsboro on the north; and Arichat and Sydney in Cape Breton, all of which had been in operation for a number of years.

The only route in the province that yielded a revenue sufficient to meet expenses was the grand route leading to Canada, with itsbranch to Pictou. As the grand route was employed for the conveyance through the provinces of the valuable mails exchanged between Canada and Great Britain, it was naturally very remunerative.

The agreement with the treasury, satisfactory as it was in appearance, had in it the seeds of misunderstanding. The treasury announced its willingness that, so long as the revenue from the internal post office was sufficient to meet the expense of the internal communications, no demand for this object should be made upon the provincial funds. The terms of the minute seem to lack nothing in clearness, unless some of the words employed were held to have a significance other than that usually accepted. That is what was the case in this minute.

The treasury, in selecting the words it used, meant nothing more or less than that, if the revenue collected on letters passing within the territories of Nova Scotia were sufficient to cover the expense of maintaining the post offices and mail couriers within the province, the provincial authorities would be exempt from all liability.

The legislature accepted this view of the case on all but one point. They maintained that Halifax post office existed mainly for imperial purposes,[270]in that its chief function was to provide for the interchange of the mails between Canada and Great Britain, and that its value as a provincial institution was fully offset by the advantages extended by Nova Scotia to Great Britain and Canada in providing for the transmission of their mails across its territory.

Holding this view, the assembly examined the accounts laid before them by Howe, and satisfied themselves that, omitting the expenses of Halifax post office from consideration, the internal postage practically covered the expenses of the internal service. They therefore resolved that no vote would be required during that session. They pledged themselves, however, in case the revenue of that year should prove inadequate, to provide for the deficiency, so that the services should not be interrupted or diminished.

In the following year, 1840, there was an unquestionable surplus of revenue over expenditure; consequently no demand was made upon the legislature. In 1841, the friction, which was certain to develop when Howe's loose methods were subjected to any strain, began to make itself felt.

In April of that year, Howe advised the lieutenant governor, Lord Falkland, that the funds available for the payment of the post office expenditure were deficient to the extent of Â£546.[271]He, at the same time, submitted to the lieutenant governor his correspondence with the general post office in London, from which it appeared that the general post office, fearing that the omission of the legislature to make any provision for the service would lead to a deficiency, intimated that it might be necessary to make some curtailments, and asked whether some of the less productive routes might not be discontinued.

Howe, following his usual practice, had consulted with several members of the legislature, and being satisfied that the legislature would make up any shortage that arose, concluded that there would be no necessity of abandoning any of the lines.

It was only when the legislature was prorogued without making provision for a possible shortage, that Howe submitted the question to the governor. Falkland was rather embarrassed by the responsibility thus unnecessarily thrust upon him. But as he was of opinion that it would cause much inconvenience to stop any of the mail routes, he directed the amount of the shortage to be paid. The lieutenant governor, however, in relating the circumstances to the colonial secretary, took occasion to complain of Howe's methods.

The communications respecting the post office passed him by entirely, unless some trouble arose which made an appeal necessary. In the present case, if he had been made acquainted with the circumstances in time, he would have laid them before the legislature, and left them to decide whether any of the services were to be dropped, or the deficit made up. As a result, Howe was admonished that his irregular practice must cease, and that when recourse to the legislature was necessary, he should approach them through the lieutenant governor alone.

In 1842, the situation became more acute. The assembly had before them the accounts of 1841, in which figured the additional expenses due to the ambitious transatlantic steamship scheme. At the best, the revenues from the inland services were no more than sufficient to meet its expenses, and the increase in the cost of the conveyance between Halifax and Pictou from Â£285 a year to Â£1937 (Â£1550 sterling), and the additional expense in the Halifax post office from Â£625 a year to Â£1694 due to a large augmentationin the staff, involved the legislature in a situation, to which they were disinclined to submit.

The trouble was precipitated by a letter from Howe to the lieutenant governor, informing him that, as the sum of Â£1143 had been advanced by him from the packet postage, which belonged to the British treasury, and as the legislature had appropriated only Â£550 to meet this advance, there was still the sum of Â£593 due to His Majesty.

The assembly to whom Howe's communication was referred, took the opportunity of reviewing the whole situation. It was beyond doubt that, in 1839, the internal postal service was self-supporting. This condition was disturbed to the detriment of the financial position of the post office by burdening it with the total expense of the Pictou service, which was maintained principally for the benefit of New Brunswick and Canada, and of the Halifax post office, which since the establishment of the ocean steam service for all the colonies was in reality much more an imperial than a provincial institution.

As, in justice, the inland colonies were chargeable with the major part of the outlay for the Pictou service, and the maintenance of Halifax post office should properly be defrayed from the packet postage, the legislature declined to meet the demand made upon it by the post office.

The lieutenant governor was in full sympathy with the legislature, and after fortifying himself with the opinions of his law officers as to the legal aspects of the case, appealed to the governor general to induce the Canadian government to take on themselves the proper share of the charge.

The Canadian government for the reasons given could not see the propriety of their taking on themselves any part of the expense of conveying mails to their outport at Quebec, and the British government were powerless to bring pressure on the Canadians, since the treasury was in receipt annually of large remittances from Stayner as surplus post office revenues, which the British government, by their act of 1834, admitted to belong to the colonies, and which only awaited colonial legislation to be handed over to the several legislatures.

The treasury was willing also as a measure of grace to allow the colonial legislatures to retain the part of the packet postage collected in the colonies, if they would only adopt the scheme involved in the act of 1834. But it was not prepared to admit that any part of the packet was, as a matter of right, chargeablewith the maintenance of the post office at Halifax or of the Pictou coach service, and as it was becoming plain that the scheme of making Halifax the distributing centre for the Canadas, was not proving the success they hoped for, they determined to inquire as to the feasibility of having a port in the United States utilized in the exchange between Canada and Great Britain.

To that end, an official of the British post office, W. J. Page, was sent to Nova Scotia to investigate this subject, and at the same time to make a thorough inquiry into the condition of the Nova Scotia post office, which had been animadverted upon rather severely by the royal commission, in its report of 1841.

By means of Page's reports and of the report of this commission, we are enabled to give a clear account of the Nova Scotia post office in the beginning of the forties. There were eighteen post offices in the province at this period, and fifty-one sub-offices. The mails were carried on the route from Halifax to Pictou and St. John three times a week in summer and twice a week in winter.

From Pictou the mails were carried to Antigonishe twice a week, and with the same frequency from Halifax to Annapolis. Mails were carried in all directions throughout the province, but, with the exceptions mentioned, only once a week.

The management of this considerable system was in the hands of the deputy postmaster general and his assistant. It was impossible with the work demanding their attention in Halifax, and the deficiency of facilities for travel, that these two could give any attention to the offices which were not under their immediate eye, and consequently all attempts to exercise control over the operation of the system came by degrees to be abandoned. When postmasters were appointed, all the instructions they received were a few short directions from the deputy postmaster general, or from an outgoing predecessor, whose knowledge was a combination made up of the official instructions and the interpretations placed upon them, when occasion arose that required some action or decision on his part.

The way officesâ€”those peculiar products of the Maritime provincesâ€”excited the ridicule of English and Canadian trained officials. Page, in a letter to the secretary of the general post office, expressed his despair of comprehending the varieties of origin or practice of these offices. Not one in ten of the keepers of these offices were appointed by Howe; nor did he or any one in his office know the names of many of them, though Howe considered the offices to have been sanctioned by him.

What happened was like this: a postmaster would write to Howe telling him that there ought to be a house for leaving letters at, in such or such a village or settlement. If any person were mentioned as willing to take charge of the letters, Howe generally agreed to his being appointed, and considered the matter settled. If no particular person was mentioned, Howe agreed to the suggestion that there should be a receiving house in the place indicated, and left the selection to the postmaster.

The whole affair was considered as a private matter between postmaster and way office keeper; no letter bills or forms of any description were ever supplied to the way office keepers, and so long as they paid to the postmasters the amount of postage due on letters sent to them for delivery, the very existence of these offices was ignored.

These way offices were known locally as twopenny offices, that is, the keepers charged twopence on every letter passing through their hands. An instance will explain the mode of operation in these offices. A gentleman living in Port Hood, on the west coast of Cape Breton, stated that he had sent a double letter weighing less than half an ounce a distance of fifty miles; and as it had to pass through five way offices, the charge was one shilling and eightpence (thirty-three cents). He received letters from England, which cost one shilling and fourpence (twenty-seven cents) from England to the Straits of Canso; but the conveyance from that point to his home, a distance of twenty-six miles, cost one shilling and fourpence more.

The anomalies were due partly to the mixed character of the control of the system in the province, and partly to the inability of the deputy postmaster general, owing to his lack of efficient help, to supervise the system. Howe was under the authority both of the postmaster general in England, and of the provincial government, which provided for the maintenance of a number of offices, which would not have been sanctioned by the postmaster general on account of the expense.

Illegal conveyance of letters was the rule in this province, as well as in all the others. The great proportion of the correspondence between the towns and villages on the long coast was carried by trading vessels. On some of the main routes, notably from Halifax to Pictou and to Annapolis, there were fast four-horse coaches. They travelled eight miles an hour in summer and five in winter. They were employed to carry the mails, but it never happened that the mail bags contained as many letters as the pockets of the passengers.

In Cape Breton there was not a single carriage road in the island. Most of the roads were mere bridle paths, and in many parts there were no roads of any kind. It took five days to carry the mail bag from Halifax to Sydney during the summer, and from eleven to eighteen in the winter.

The deputy postmaster general had a salary of Â£400 a year, which was supplemented by the amounts collected as newspaper postage. In 1841, the amount of this perquisite was Â£330 a year. It was a cause of complaint on the part of rival publishers that theNova Scotian, the leading newspaper in the province, paid no postage. As the circulation of this paperâ€”1400 copies a weekâ€”was more than double that of any other paper in the province, the grievance was a real one.

In explanation of the exemption, Howe stated that for ten years before he purchased theNova Scotian, the proprietor, Joseph Howe, had assisted him in the management of the office for eleven months while the deputy postmaster general was in England, taking full management of the provincial system. For these services Joseph Howe had asked no compensation, and the deputy postmaster general had therefore taken no remuneration for mailing the newspapers.[272]

There were only two towns in the province where letters were delivered by carriersâ€”Halifax and Yarmouth. In Halifax, the city was divided between two carriers, whose pay consisted of the fees they were entitled to take from the recipients of the letters they delivered, at a penny a letter. They attempted to charge the same sum for the delivery of each newspaper, but many persons would not pay the fee. The carriers received Â£2 10s.and Â£2 a week respectively. Yarmouth also had two carriers, whose penny fees gave them each about Â£12 10s.a year.

The relations between the deputy postmaster general and the provincial government were the subject of much critical comment on the part of Page. The fact that the government contributed to the maintenance of the less remunerative routes and post offices gave the executive and the assembly a colour of title to interfere in the management of the post office, which was exercised, in Page's opinion, beyond all due bounds.

The governor's secretary was in the habit of giving Howe orders, and if Howe showed any hesitation in complying with them, he became offensively peremptory. Investigations into complaints against postmasters were taken into the hands of a committee ofthe assembly, in disregard of Howe's authority. As it appeared to Page, there was a determined effort to set aside the authority of the postmaster general and to take over the management of the system by the government. Howe at Page's instance, took a firm stand and informed the governor that, in case of conflict between the directions he received from England, and those given by the governor, it was the directions from St. Martins-le-Grand he was bound to obey.

The disappointment in the general post office over the failure of the plan to remove the difficulties with the government of Nova Scotia, which was largely due to the hopeless complication of the accounts, changed the attitude of the officials at home towards Howe from one of good will to one of censure, which reached the point that nearly determined them to dismiss Howe.

Page pointed out the injustice of such a step. Howe's position was one in which it was impossible to escape criticism from either the provincial authorities or his official superiors, whose views were frequently in sharp antagonism to one another. The part of the provincial system under Howe as deputy of the postmaster general in England had its accounting scheme, and the part, which was maintained by the legislature, had another, separate and distinct.

But the passing of letters between the recognized post offices and those established by the legislature, gave rise to accounts between the two systems under Howe's management, which it was practically impossible to adjust satisfactorily, unless by the adoption of a give-and-take system, to which neither the general post office nor the legislature showed any disposition.

Howe's death in January 1843 closed the question as to whether or not his administration was deserving of censure. It also brought to an end an era, within which the postal service had expanded from the single route extending from Halifax to Annapolis and Digby, over which the mail courier travelled but once a month, to the network of routes whose ramifications covered every part of the province.

Judged by the only possible test, the administration of the Canadian service under Heriot, Sutherland and Stayner, the administration of the two Howes must be pronounced a conspicuous success. The deputies in Canada were faithful to their superiors in London, but they were so at the expense of the popularity of the postal service in the provinces.

The Howes managed to extend their service equally with their Canadian colleagues, and at the same time held the good will ofthe authorities in the province. Howe was a man who left no enemies. The governor, in discussing the postal difficulties of the province with Page, expressed the utmost good will for Howe himself, the only ground of complaint against him being an embarrassing intimacy with the members of the legislature.

Page, who visited Nova Scotia for the purpose of inspecting Howe's administration, bore testimony, before Howe's death, to his kindly disposition and to the high respect in which he was held, officially and in private life. His rectitude in all his relations was never in question.[273]

Howe's successor was Arthur Woodgate, who had served in the post office in Jersey. Woodgate administered the post office in Nova Scotia until the provincial system was absorbed in that of the dominion, when the confederation of the several provinces took place; until 1851, he was, as were his predecessors, deputy of the postmaster general in England; after that date he was postmaster general for the province of Nova Scotia.

An immediate consequence of the death of Howe was the removal of the post office in Halifax from the site it had occupied to the Dalhousie college building. The merchants objected to the continuance of the post office in its former situation, and in the search of a more convenient location, it was observed that the ground floor of the college building, which was occupied as a tavern, offered advantages, which satisfied the mercantile community.

A lease was effected for the new quarters on the 6th of July, 1844, and the post office surveyor reported to the secretary that there was at the disposal of the department, a large and capacious room solely for the purposes of the inland sorting office; a delivery office, and a large room for sorting papers, all on the ground floor; while in the second storey there was ample accommodation for the deputy postmaster general and his staff.[274]

The question of a reduction in the postage rates engaged the attention of the legislature every session, after the beneficial results of penny postage in Great Britain became known. In March 1842, the assembly, which was at this time under the speakership of Joseph Howe, petitioned to have the charges taken entirely off newspapers and pamphlets. As newspapers were almost the only vehicles of information in the province, and the postal charges were collected entirely from the rural parts, they were a heavy burden on people who could least bear it.

The postmaster general in reply stated that the proposition to relieve newspapers altogether from postage could not be considered, but a reduction in the charge was at that time being considered by the treasury. Newspapers were increasing so rapidly, at the existing rates, that it was becoming a question, with the bad state of the roads, as to how to provide for their transmission. Pamphlets were being charged as letters in England, and it would be impossible to sanction their free conveyance in the colonies.

At the same time the assembly requested the lieutenant governor to have inquiries made as to the feasibility and effect on the revenue of a uniform rate on letters of fourpence per half ounce within the province. The deputy postmaster general, to whom the question was referred, was strongly opposed to the proposition. He was convinced that the increase in the correspondence would be slight, and that, at the rate mentioned, the revenue would not be sufficient to pay the cost of any one of the principal routes in the province.

At the beginning of 1844, the changes, already mentioned, of charging letters by weight instead of number of enclosures, and of charging newspapers a halfpenny per sheet, came into operation in the Maritime provinces. These ameliorations went as far as the officials of the post office were prepared to recommend, in the existing state of the finances of the provincial post office. The assembly in Nova Scotia were persistent in their demand for a reduction in the charges on letters. They had before them the evidence taken that year in England as to the effect of penny postage, which had then been in operation three years.

The resolutions the assembly adopted were fully borne out by that evidence. They resolved that the experience of the parent state had clearly established that "the introduction of a uniform rate of penny postage has had a beneficial effect upon the social and commercial classes of the United Kingdom; has largely increased the number of letters passing through the post office and prevented the illicit transmission of letters by private opportunities, and that its effect has been fully counterbalanced by the other important consequences resulting from it."[275]

The assembly were therefore satisfied that a fourpenny rate established under the same regulations as to the use of postage stamps, would promote the public interests, not add materially to the labour of management, and ultimately increase the public revenue.

Coupled with this resolution was another to the effect that itwould be desirable to have the provincial post office under the control and management of the legislature. With this point, the secretary of the post office dealt at length in a memorandum to the postmaster general.

In his opinion very great advantage resulted from the present system, by which the control of the post offices in the greater part of the British colonies was vested in the postmaster general. To abandon it would be extremely prejudicial, and would have the effect of breaking up the existing organization (which he was at that time endeavouring to make as uniform as possible for the whole empire) into various conflicting systems framed according to the views and feelings of each separate colony, to the great detriment of the general interests of the empire.

Loud complaints, the postmaster general was reminded by the secretary, were being made respecting the post offices in Australia, where four different scales of rates of postage were in operation, resulting in inconveniences which a recently appointed commission of inquiry were authorized to obviate. He regarded it as a great advantage that one uniform system of management and one uniform scale of rates of postage should prevail in the North American provinces, in Newfoundland and in the West Indies.

The reply of the postmaster general, which was based on the secretary's report,[276]received the cordial assent of the legislature. After reviewing the condition of the colonial post offices in their relation to the imperial system, the postal committee of the legislature declared that "the promptness and celerity of intercourse is unrivalled in the world, and has greatly contributed to the commercial advancement of the nation. So complicated is the British postal system that, without the details, it is not possible to obtain a conception of its present perfection. Nowhere is inviolability of letters more respected than in England and the United States, and by the constitution of the latter, adopted in 1789, exclusive power is given to congress to establish post offices and post roads, thus preventing the difficulties which would have resulted from leaving this department to the several states."

On this point, then, the committee advised that the house should yield to the wisdom of the imperial parliament. They returned, however, to the question of a uniform fourpenny rate for letters, which in their opinion would facilitate intercourse, and ultimately carry the revenue far beyond the amount expendedfor the maintenance of the service. Since Hill made the use of postage stamps an integral and important part of his scheme for penny postage, the legislature, in again expressing its faith in the benefits and feasibility of the uniform fourpenny rate, directed attention to the merits of postage stamps.

The postmaster general was of opinion that this suggestion should not be entertained. Any proposal for allowing postage stamps to be used in the colonies had hitherto been resisted from a fear, amongst other objections, that forged stamps would find their way into circulation with little fear of detection. The solicitor of the post office was of opinion that if forgery were committed in the United Kingdom it could not be punished in the colonies, whilst on the other hand, if committed in any of the colonies, it could be visited with no penalty on parties in the United Kingdom.

With the acquiescence of the Nova Scotia legislature in the view of the general post office as to the desirability of maintaining a centralized imperial postal system, and the only outstanding question on which there was disagreement that of a reduction of postage rates, it will be expedient to bring forward the narrative of events with respect to the post office in New Brunswick. The information amassed by the royal commission makes this an easy task.

What strikes one at first glance is the little progress that had been made since 1825, when Howe made his official tour through the province. In 1825, the population stood at 75,000, and in 1841 it had risen to nearly 160,000. The increase was distributed with considerable evenness over every part of the province, though the preponderance found its way to the outlying districts. The numerous settlements thus established would seem to call for a wide extension of the postal service.

But little was done to meet the requirements. There were nine post offices in the province in 1825: in 1841, when the population had more than doubled and was scarcely less than half what it is to-day, there were no more than twenty-three. Between Fredericton and Woodstock, a stretch of sixty-two miles of well-settled country, there were no post offices. The districts lying between Fredericton and Sussexvale, eighty-eight miles, and between Fredericton and Chatham, one hundred and fifteen miles, embracing many farming communities, were equally unprovided for, which is the more inexplicable since couriers travelled through all these districts to the several points mentioned, and the expensefor post offices would have been more than covered by the revenues of the offices.

The system of mail routes can be described shortly. From Halifax there was a main post road, which entered New Brunswick a few miles west of Amherst, and following in its general lines the course of the inter-colonial railway passed the bend at Moncton, and continued its way on to St. John. At a point near the present Norton station, called the Fingerboard, there was a route to Fredericton.

Over these routes the courier travelled twice each way weekly. Between Fredericton and Chatham, there was a service of the same frequency. Chatham was the distributing point for the line of settlements, skirting the shore, northward to Campbellton, and southward to Dorchester. On the former route, the trips were made weekly, and on the latter, twice a week. Mails were carried daily between Fredericton and Woodstock, Fredericton and St. John and St. John and St. Andrews.

Though, in comparison with the other provinces, the mail conveyance in New Brunswick was not greatly open to criticism in point of frequency, the post office was no more popular there than elsewhere. Steamers, which ran daily between St. John and Fredericton, were employed by the post office to carry the mails, but though the steamer carried many every trip, there were few of which the post office got the benefit.

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