The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

Freeling told the attorney general that the Canadian post office was a burden on the revenues of the general post office, and the attorney general, accepting this statement, told the secretary that such being the case, the statutes on which the house of assembly relied were not applicable. The secretary's statement was demonstrably incorrect, but it furnished the foundation for the opinion which he desired, that the law did not require, nor did expediency suggest, the transfer to the Upper Canadian legislature of the control of the post office in that province.

Robinson wrote to Freeling supporting the views of the lieutenant governor; and at the same time Freeling received a letter from Markland, a member of the executive and legislative council of Upper Canada, protesting against the attempt on the part of the assembly to interfere with the post office as the assumption of a right to which they had not the least pretension. The best-intentioned and the best-informed people in the province were against such interference.

By way of parrying the demand of the assembly for control over the post office, Markland suggested that it would be well to appoint a post office superintendent for the upper province. Upper Canada was entirely distinct from Lower Canada in all matters of government. The post office alone was subject to the control of a person, outside of the province, who never visited it. The people of Upper Canada were, he declared, energetic and enterprising, and immigration was coming in on a full tide. Freeling considered this an important letter, and laid it before the postmaster general.

The agitation in Upper Canada aroused a flutter of interest in London. When newspaper reports of the discussions in the house of assembly in December 1825, reached St. Martins-le-Grand, they fell under the notice of the postmaster general, who was moved to ask Freeling what it all meant. Freeling replied that the accounts related to great disputes in Canada as to the application of the rates of postage levied in that country, whether the rates should not be devoted to local purposes. At that time, Freeling stated, the rates formed part of the consolidated fund.

The colonial office and the treasury also made inquiries. The colonial office was informed that the revenues of Upper and Lower Canada were blended, and that for seven years previous there had been a surplus from the two provinces which amounted on the average to £5790 a year.[206] It was also pointed out that the estimated cost of the packet service was £10,000 a year.

Robinson,[207] the chancellor of the exchequer, with whom Freeling had an interview in October 1826,[208] did not fall in with Freeling's views quite as readily as the others had done. He expressed the opinion that Canada's contention was in the main sound. The net revenue from the Canadian post office ought in fairness to be applied to colonial purposes, not in the mode or on the principle put forward by the assembly, but under the direction of the home government. It should be in the nature of a civil list.

Freeling was alarmed at the chancellor's utterances, and reminded him that what was granted to Canada could not be withheld from Jamaica. The chancellor admitted this to be the case. Freeling insisted that there could be no doubt as to the legality of the present practice, though he confessed that the law officers gave no opinion on the case prepared in 1822. Indeed, it had not been submitted to them, as Lord Chichester, the postmaster general, had an invincible reluctance to taking their opinion, and would not do so unless positively instructed by the government.

Then there were the packets. Freeling could not let the opportunity pass of mentioning Canada's obligations with respect to the packet service. He did not, however, endeavour to impose on the chancellor of the exchequer his view that the cost of this service should be set against Canada's post office surplus. In his memorandum of the interview, Freeling merely notes that the opinion between them inclined to the view that as the packets were maintained for the benefit of Canada as well as of Nova Scotia, some part of the expense should be borne by Canada.

Up to this point, the agitation against the post office was confined to Upper Canada, which indeed was the more aggressive province during the whole course of the dispute. In 1827, however, the legislative assembly of Lower Canada took a hand in the controversy, contributing a strictly legal and even technical memorandum embodying an argument in favour of its contention that the colonies should participate with the United Kingdom in the profits of the general post office.[209]

The memorandum pointed out that the act of Queen Anne established a general post office for, and throughout Great Britain and Ireland, the colonies and plantations in North America and the West Indies, and all other of Her Majesty's dominions and territories; and that of the duties arising by virtue of this act, £700 a week were to be paid into the exchequer for public purposes in Great Britain. Certain annuities and encumbrances charged on the postal revenues by earlier acts, were continued by the act of Queen Anne. When these charges amounting to £111,461 17s. 10d., and the £700 a week already mentioned were satisfied, one-third of the remaining surplus was reserved to the disposal of parliament "for the use of the public."