population had now increased to 450,000, but there were only twenty post
offices in the whole of the five provinces. Heriot's patent gave him
authority to establish new routes and offices, but, in accordance with
the general policy, only when in his opinion their establishment would
be likely to benefit revenue. The rates at this time were, of course,
nominally based on the Act of the 5th George III, but as the routes had
never been properly measured, the distances on which the rates were
actually based were largely a matter of conjecture. The posts were
said, however, to have paid their way and even to have yielded a surplus
revenue, which was transmitted to England.[109]
The administration of the posts rested ultimately with the
Postmasters-General in London. The service could be extended only by
their authority, and the colonists found that the Deputy in the
colonies, being bound by his instructions from the Postmasters-General,
was unable to extend and improve the service in the manner which they
themselves thought desirable. A large number of immigrants entered the
provinces, especially Upper Canada, during this period, and settlements
were springing up in remote districts far away from the post routes.
Heriot was admonished from London that in considering the provision of
new services he must look to the revenue to be anticipated as well as to
the convenience of the public, and to adopt no scheme involving
sacrifice of revenue. His instructions forbade the opening of any post
office or post route unless the anticipated revenue was sufficient at
least to pay the postmaster and courier. He found that these
restrictions prevented him from providing a service in any degree
adequate to the demands of the settlers, or indeed adequate to their
real needs. It was essential that the settlers in the remote districts
should be kept in touch with civilization. They could not be allowed to
pass beyond the reach of the Government. They must be kept in contact
with the means provided for the administration of the law. For these
reasons it was essential to provide post accommodation, although in the
nature of the case it could not be expected that a revenue sufficient to
cover the cost would be obtained. All these considerations were pressed
on the Deputy, and he was so far persuaded as sometimes, in response to
urgent local representations, to depart from his specific instructions.
But such cases usually led to a reprimand. The natural result was that
the province was driven itself to undertake by grants from the public
funds the provision of many local services which it deemed essential.
Thus grew up the anomalous system under which the colonies made large
grants in aid of the service, but were unable to exercise any
substantial control over its administration. The more important routes
were self-supporting and were controlled entirely from England. In order
to obtain extensions of the service the colonists, through the Governor,
requested the establishment of certain services, undertaking that, if
the revenue derived from these services should prove insufficient to
meet the expenditure, the balance should be made up by the colony. A
regular post was established in 1801 between Quebec and York (Toronto)
under a guarantee of this kind. The colonists naturally wished to have
some controlling voice in the administration; but the Deputy, holding
office under the Imperial authorities, was not bound to concede to them
any rights over the administration of the service, however great sums
they might pay towards its maintenance--a situation which was sure to
lead to difficulties. Whether or not serious trouble occurred depended
in large degree on the character of the Deputy.[110] In later years
there was considerable friction and much irritation on the part of the
colonists.
In Nova Scotia the system of grants in aid was developed to an even
greater extent than in Upper Canada. When Sir George Provost became
Governor in 1808, there were only five post offices in Nova
Scotia--Halifax, Windsor, Horton, Annapolis, and Digby--and they were
all on the line of the Quebec post. Sir George was anxious for an
extension of the posts on military rather than general grounds, and he
asked the postmaster of Halifax, John Howe, to establish several new
routes. Howe was inclined to favour the projected posts, but Heriot
realized that they could not be expected to yield a revenue equal to
their cost, and he informed the Governor that his instructions from
England prevented compliance with the request. Sir George Provost
thereupon induced the Legislature to appropriate a sufficient sum for
the establishment of the posts. The Governors of New Brunswick and
Prince Edward Island followed this example, with the result that a large
part of the Post Office establishment in these provinces was outside the
jurisdiction of the Imperial authorities.
This development is noteworthy. It has always been found in Canada that
for a large part of the country the circumstances are such that a postal
service adequate to the necessities of the inhabitants cannot be
self-supporting, but the Legislature has never hesitated to make grants
from general taxation in order to provide means of communication. In the
early days the question of post office communication was intimately
bound up with the question of general means of communication, and was
usually treated in connection with the making or maintenance of roads.
For a long period the posts in Canada were maintained not solely for the
transmission of letters, but to a great extent on account of collateral
advantages. They were largely military in character, and were identified
with the military routes.[111]
In 1816 Daniel Sutherland was appointed Deputy Postmaster-General for
Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Under his administration the
development of the service was pushed forward, and so far as was found
consistent with the interests of revenue, new offices and routes were
established. But in 1820 there were still no more than forty-nine post
offices in the whole of British North America, distributed thus: in
Lower Canada twenty offices, in Upper Canada nineteen, in Nova Scotia
six, in New Brunswick three, and in Prince Edward Island one. The
progress was from this time somewhat more rapid. By 1824 the number of
offices in the Canadas alone had risen to sixty-nine, and during the
next ten or fifteen years the growth, both of Post Office accommodation
and of Post Office revenue, was more rapid than the growth of
population.
The settlers were not, however, completely satisfied. Their complaints
were to some extent laid against the administration of the office--they
claimed, for example, that gross overcharges of postage were being made,
through incorrect computation of the distances on the post roads--but
they became more and more dissatisfied that the control of the whole of
the service and its officers should rest with the Postmaster-General in
England. The question was, of course, to a large extent political, and
one only among the several general grievances of the colonists at this
period, which caused so much anxiety to the Home authorities.
As early as 1819 a movement began in Upper Canada to obtain the
transference of the administration to the provincial authorities. A
Committee of the House of Assembly considered the abuses of the existing
Post Office system, and on presentation of their report, in March 1820,
the House passed a resolution condemning the administration of the
service. The question continued to receive a good deal of attention. The
chief complaint of the colonists was that a net revenue was year by year
transmitted to London. There is no doubt that a balance was paid over to
the Imperial administration year by year, but it is questionable whether
any of this balance was a net revenue on the local service.[112] The
colonists chose so to regard it. They advanced the contention that the
legal right of the Imperial Government to levy postage rates in the
colonies at all was doubtful, because postage was a tax; and the raising
of money by authorities outside the colonies was a direct infringement
of their own constitution, which provides that "no tax shall be levied
on the people of this country except such as shall be appropriated for
the public use and accounted for by the Legislature,"[113] and of the
Declaratory Act, in which Great Britain disclaimed the right to impose
upon a colony any duty, tax, or assessment, except where necessary for
the regulation of commerce.[114] The Government were advised by the Law
Officers that it would not be wise to contest the point, and proceeded
to consider a measure for placing the establishment on a more
satisfactory basis.
If the Home Government could have agreed to hand over the entire
administration of the office in British North America to the local
Legislatures, there would have been an end of the matter. But such a
course would have left the interior provinces at the mercy of those on
the seaboard as to the conveyance across those colonies of the mails to
and from England. Although there was no desire to continue the
appropriation to the Imperial revenue of any surplus which might arise
on the service in North America, it was felt to be highly desirable that
the Imperial Government should retain control over the administration of
the office, particularly in the matter of fixing the rates of postage,
since by that means excessive charges for transit across other provinces
would be prevented. But in controlling the administration from London
there was the difficulty that any alteration of the rates of postage by
Act of the British Parliament might be an infringement of the rights of
the colonists under the Declaratory Act of 1778. Accordingly, all
intention of direct legislation by the British Parliament was abandoned,
and in 1834 an Act was passed,[115] repealing the Act of the 5th George
III, on which the whole Post Office establishment of North America
rested, conditionally on the passing by the Legislatures of all the
provinces of a Bill for the regulation of the colonial Post Office
service, which had been prepared in London. This Bill provided that the
ultimate control of the whole service in British North America should
remain in the hands of the Postmaster-General in London, but that the
rates of postage should be fixed by the local Legislatures, and any
surplus of revenue over expenditure should be divided between the
provinces.
Nova Scotia was prepared to accept the Bill, but only with modifications
which would have prevented its adoption as the basis of a general
service throughout the five provinces. New Brunswick and both Upper and
Lower Canada rejected the Bill. The Assembly of Lower Canada substituted
a Bill of its own.[116] The Legislative Council were indisposed to
accept the substituted Bill,[117] and in March 1836 adopted an Address
to his Majesty, explaining that in their view it would be exceedingly
difficult, if not impracticable, to secure the co-operation between the
separate Post Office establishments of the several provinces essential
for the attainment of the purpose of the original measure, and they
pointed for illustration to the United States, a country where,
notwithstanding a keen regard for State rights, the whole control and
management of the Post Office department had been delegated to the
Federal Government. Since the Post Office establishment was a most
effective means for strengthening the ties connecting the several
provinces, as well as an essential aid and convenience of commerce, they
deemed the best course to be the retention by the Imperial Parliament of
the exclusive power of legislating for the control and management of the
Post Office in all parts of the Empire. In March of the following year,
there being still no prospect of the adoption of the Bill by the
provinces, the House of Assembly and Legislative Council of Upper Canada
adopted a joint Address to his Majesty, substantially identical with
that adopted a year earlier by the Legislative Council of Lower Canada.
It was clear that little progress was to be anticipated.[118]
In 1840 a Commission was appointed. Its attention was directed more
especially to the faulty administration of the office and the excessive
rates of postage. To remedy the former, and to make the administration
more amenable to local control, they suggested placing the Deputy
Postmaster-General under the control of the Governor-General in all
matters which did not conflict with the authority of the
Postmaster-General in England. As to postage, they were satisfied that
the rates at that time in operation were too high. They considered that
the rates should be such as would yield a revenue sufficient to meet the
expenses of the department, and no more; and in their view, if the
revenue improved after the establishment of such rates, which there
should be no difficulty in calculating, the proper course would be
either to grant further facilities or further to reduce the rates. There
should not in any case be a net revenue of any magnitude. The
Commissioners themselves made an estimate of the rate which should
fulfil the requirements they had detailed. In so doing they proceeded on
much the same lines as Sir Rowland Hill in his pamphlet _Post Office
Reform: Its Importance and Practicability_. They had no difficulty in
answering the demand for penny postage in British North America, a
demand based on its successful inauguration in England. The
circumstances in the two countries were not comparable. England, small
and densely populated, the first industrial and commercial nation of the
world, could not in such a matter be compared with a country of vast
extent, sparsely peopled and almost entirely agricultural. While Sir
Rowland Hill had been able to show that in the case of letters conveyed
for comparatively long distances in England the actual cost of carriage
was only one thirty-sixth part of a penny, the Commissioners found that
in British North America the actual average cost of conveyance was no
less than 3d., and the actual average total cost of dealing with letters
no less than 5-1/2d. Uniformity of rate at a penny, which had been
justified in England on existing facts of the service, could therefore
find no similar justification in North America.
There could, however, be no doubt that with a reduction of the rate,
which then averaged 8-1/2d. a letter, the number of letters would be
very greatly increased and the cost per letter consequently reduced. The
public were in the habit of making use of every available means other
than the post for forwarding their letters. Steamboats which carried a
mail would carry outside the mail many times the number of letters that
were enclosed in the mail. Teamsters, stage drivers, and ordinary
travellers all carried large numbers of letters, and in cases where no
such opportunity offered, persons had been known to enclose the letter
in a small package, which could be sent as freight at less charge than
the rate of postage on the single letter. If, therefore, all these
letters, and the many additional letters which would be written if
transmission were cheap and easy, were sent in the mails, the cost of
the service would not be by any means proportionately increased, and the
average cost per letter would be very greatly reduced. It would still,
however, have been considerably more than a penny. Their conclusions
were less satisfactory in regard to the rates actually recommended. They
proposed a graduation according to distance of no less than five stages,
starting with as short a distance as 30 miles. For this the rate was
2d., and the scale rose to 1s. for distances over 300 miles. The only
virtues of the rates were that they were lower than those in operation
in the United States and were to be charged by weight.[119]
The chief recommendations of this report were carried out under the
authority of the Colonial Office. The weight basis for determining rates
of postage was adopted, and the Deputy Postmaster-General's authority
was restricted. His privilege of sending newspapers free of postage was
also taken away, and in compensation he was given a salary of [L]2,500 a
year--personal to himself, and high on account of his long enjoyment of
the lucrative newspaper privilege. That for his successor was fixed at
[L]1,500 a year. The agitation in the provinces in regard to the Post
Office continued during the succeeding years, but it was less vehement
and concerned itself more with the question of rates than with questions
of administration.
In 1842 a member of the headquarters staff of the British office (Mr. W.
J. Page) was commissioned to examine and reorganize the service in the
Maritime Provinces, with the object more especially of introducing such
measures of reform as should bring the expenditures of the department in
those provinces within the revenue. His reports throw a flood of light
on the state and methods of the service.[120] He found extraordinary
anomalies in the methods of charging postage, in the methods of
remunerating the Deputy-Postmasters, the couriers, and the Way Office
keepers, and in the relations subsisting between the Post Office and the
local Legislatures. The financial arrangements of the office were in a
condition which can only be described as chaotic. Postage was, of
course, chargeable on the total journey of the letter. But in Nova
Scotia letters were charged with a new rate at each office through which
they passed, and postage became an excessive charge on all letters which
passed through two or three offices. Deputy-Postmasters were paid a
percentage, usually 20 per cent., on the amount of postage collected by
them, but their chief remuneration in many cases arose from the right
which they exercised of franking all their private and business
correspondence, a consideration which they had principally, if not
exclusively, in view in taking up their appointments. Many of the
deputies were lawyers or other professional men. The privilege was
nominally subject to the limitation of four single letters, or two
double letters, or one packet of an ounce by each mail; but this
limitation was very generally disregarded. To such an extent was this
the case that one-half of many mails consisted of free letters.
Couriers received fixed wages, which were either paid by the Deputy
Postmaster-General out of the general funds of the department, or from
grants in aid, given by the Legislature specifically for the support of
the respective routes. Way Office keepers received no remuneration from
the department: in many instances the existence of the Way Offices was
unknown at Halifax. This was explained in great part by the manner in
which such offices were usually established. A courier travelling a
particular line of road received from the despatching postmaster a
number of "way letters," or letters for persons living on or near his
route. Partly for his own convenience, and partly for the accommodation
of the persons addressed, the courier would leave packets of the letters
at some house on the route, and the occupant would collect the postage
on behalf of the courier. In course of time the courier induced the
postmaster to make up the letters for this particular place separately,
and to open a private account with the householder, who thus became an
agent for the postmaster, and the house became a Way Office. The keepers
of these Way Offices usually charged a fee of 2d. on each letter
received or sent. The Post Office was not in any way concerned in the
transactions, except that in some cases, where it was not always
possible for the Way Office keeper to obtain his fee in advance, the
practice grew up, with the co-operation of the Deputy-Postmaster, of
charging forward the unpaid Way Office keeper's fee as unpaid forward
"postage." Some of the Way Office keepers also claimed and exercised the
same rights of franking as the Deputy Postmasters. Others were paid on
the basis of a percentage of 20 per cent. of the postage collected; and
in such cases some of the keepers still collected their fee of 2d., and
some did not.
When letters were sent from one Way Office to another--as was frequently
the case, since often there were several Way Offices in succession--a
fresh fee was charged; and a letter might be charged four or five
twopenny fees and no postage, the fees all being appropriated by the Way
Office keepers and nothing finding its way to the Post Office revenue.
Indeed, the Post Office department received scarcely any revenue from
the Way Offices, and no sort of control over them was even attempted.
The House of Assembly was in the habit of establishing post routes, and
of voting increases in the salaries of existing couriers, the resulting
expense of which was to be paid by the Post Office. The action of the
Legislature was often taken on the presentation of memorials from
persons interested, or on the initiative of a member specially
interested in Post Office matters with some axe to grind. The
Legislature would vote, say, [L]10 or [L]20, for a courier to some remote
place, for which the number of letters was negligible--perhaps a dozen
in a year, perhaps two a week and a few newspapers. The resolution of
the House would then be forwarded to the Postmaster-General, who by
virtue of his delegated authority established the route, the cost over
and above the amount voted by the House being drawn from Post Office
funds. The whole system was permeated with jobbery, and the House used
to become more than usually active in these matters as the elections
approached. In Cape Breton, in 1841, the expenses of the couriers
amounted to some [L]604, and the revenue, after deducting the commission
of the three postmasters in the island, was some [L]308--the explanation
being that the member for the island was one of the leaders in Post
Office matters in the Legislature.
Internal correspondence was at this time literally nonexistent, many of
the couriers conveying only newspapers (which in general went free), and
fee letters (that is, letters charged only with the Way Office keeper's
fee, and no postage). Except in five towns (Halifax, Yarmouth, and
Picton in Nova Scotia; and St. John and Fredericton in New Brunswick)
there was no provision for the delivery of letters except at the post
office window. In those towns, delivery was made in the first instance
at the post office, but all letters which were not called for within a
short time after the arrival of the mail, were sent out for delivery
throughout the town by letter carrier. An additional charge of 1d. per
letter was made by the carrier, and retained by him as his remuneration.
In some cases 1d. was charged also for the delivery of newspapers; in
others this penny was charged only where the receivers could be induced
to pay; and in some cases newspapers were delivered free. At Halifax two
letter carriers were employed, and their total weekly earnings were
estimated at [L]4 10s., indicating 1,080 as, approximately, the weekly
number of letters and newspapers received. At Fredericton a charge of
1d. was made on letters and on newspapers, but the amount was taken by
the postmaster, who paid a weekly wage to the carrier. The postmaster
estimated his annual receipt at about [L]19 10s., corresponding with a
weekly average of 90 letters and newspapers delivered in Fredericton.
He paid the carrier [L]14 10s. per annum.
Up to 1827 there were no internal posts in Prince Edward Island. The
only post office in the province was at Charlottetown. In 1827 the
Legislature resolved to establish an inland service, and appointed
couriers to travel weekly for the conveyance of letters. Way Office
keepers were also nominated at various places. A uniform rate of 2d. for
single letters, and 1/2d. for newspapers published in the island, was
fixed for transmission within the island, and, in consideration of the
whole expense being borne by the Provincial Treasury, the Deputy
Postmaster-General of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick agreed to the
retention by the province of the net revenue. The Way Office keepers
received as their remuneration 20 per cent. on the postage collected,
with the privilege of franking for transmission within the island. The
province made a small grant, at first [L]20 per annum and later [L]30, in
aid of the administration of the posts.