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 5½d. 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 8½d. 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 £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 £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.