The total correspondence passing between the two countries is given as having a postage rating of $85,636.97.
The second annual report of the Postmaster General is dated the 31st March, 1853, and contains little of interest but statistics. 176 new post offices were established and 504 miles of new post routes added. The gross revenue of the Department for the fiscal year is given as £84,866.6.11½. and the total postage on the correspondence passing between Canada and the United States was $104,966.40.
The third report, of 31st March, 1854, speaks of a large reduction in the postal charges upon newspapers circulating within the Province and on certain classes of periodical prints, which took place on Feb. 1, 1854, but gives no further details. Concerning the British packet postage, however, the report says:—
In March, 1854, the charge on packet letters passing between Canada and the United Kingdom and most foreign countries was reduced by the Imperial Government from 1s. 2d. sterling to 8d. sterling per ½ oz. when sent in closed mails through the United States, and from 1s. to 6d. when sent direct from a Provincial Port, Quebec or Halifax.
Further on are the following recommendations:—
Should no further change be likely soon to take place in the charges on the correspondence with England, it would promote the public convenience to procure Postage stamps of the value of 10d. and 7½ d. respectively to correspond with the present packet letter charges.
And again:—
Much unnecessary labor and waste of time is occasioned to this Department by the practice now followed of rating and collecting Postage on all Government and Legislative correspondence, and it would be an improvement, in my belief, very worthy of adoption, to authorize by enactment the transmission of all such matter through the mails, under proper regulations, free of Postage charge, and that in lieu thereof, a certain fixed annual sum estimated to be equivalent to the aggregate of the Postage arising upon such correspondence, should be paid by the Receiver General to the Post Office, to be accounted for as Post Office Revenue.
Perhaps the most pregnant remark is one short statement:—"The use of stamps has materially increased"; for it will be remembered that the first annual report of the Postmaster General was pessimistic with regard to the employment of stamps, fearing that their use was diminishing.