The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

The agitation against the newspaper charges was set in motion by Robert Armour, proprietor of the Montreal Gazette. It had come to his knowledge that the sums collected from the publishers did not appear in the accounts of the postmasters with the department, and he suspected that in some way they were retained by Stayner, though on this point he had no certain information.

After Armour learned that the rates had been subjected to a continuous process of enhancement, he made diligent search for any warrant that might exist for the successive advances or indeed for the original charge. Finding none, he turned to the authorities for information. It was he who led the deputation to the governor general for relief in some form. When this step failed, Armour demanded of the deputy postmaster general his authority for the newspaper charges.

Getting no answer from that quarter, Armour endeavoured to bring matters to an issue by refusing to pay the postage on the copies of his paper which he posted in Montreal. The postmaster declined to accept the papers without the postage, and Armour appealed to the postmaster general in London. In due time the reply from the department was received, and while it offered no immediate relief, it put Armour in possession of some exclusive information, which, as a newspaper man, he must have considered valuable.

Freeling, the secretary, informed Armour that the postmaster of Montreal had failed in his duty, in refusing to transmit the newspapers simply because the postage was not paid. The postmaster should have sent the newspapers forward, and since the postage demanded by Stayner was not paid, it fell upon the postmasters of the offices to which the papers were directed to collect the postage, at the same rates as were charged on letters.

As each paper was under this ruling chargeable with the rate which was due on four letters, it may well be imagined that no publisher would offer to pay the post office for the distribution of his papers by that means. On these conditions, the postage on each copy sent from Montreal to any of the post offices on the island of Montreal, to St. Johns or to the nearer settlements in Upper Canada would be thirty-two cents. Each copy sent to Three Rivers or to any points between sixty and one hundred miles from Montreal would cost the subscribers forty-eight cents.

It is needless to pursue the charges into districts where the copies were sent over one hundred miles. Freeling went on to explain that, as the post office act had no provision for the conveyance of newspapers, the postmaster general, in order to accommodate the publishers permitted the deputy postmaster general to make private arrangements with them for the transmission of their newspapers. By ancient and authorized custom, the deputy postmaster general was allowed to treat the receipts from this source as his own perquisite. This information with the comments thereon greatly enlivened many issues of the Gazette.

Freeling was denounced as a sinecurist, who permitted impositions in the colonies which he dared not make at home. Armour announced that he would carry the matter into the legislature, and, if necessary, into the courts. He had no desire to escape the payment of postage. All he demanded was the establishment of an equitable rate, placed on a legal basis. His idea was that the postmasters who handled the newspapers should be paid from five to ten per cent. of their cost. The rates charged by Stayner amounted to from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of the subscription price. Armour would resist Stayner's claim to be a sleeping partner in his business, who, contributing neither capital nor talent, dictated what his share of the revenue should be.

Armour could write well, and his onslaught caused Stayner much uneasiness. In a letter to the postmaster general[215] he attributed it to some neglect or indignity, which Armour fancied he suffered at the hands of a former deputy postmaster general, while, he stated, other newspapers were recognizing with gratitude Stayner's efforts to satisfy the reasonable demands of the public.

Every side of Stayner's work was vigorously attacked in the Gazette. Complaints were made of a lack of necessary mail routes, and of an insufficiency of service on existing routes. It was charged also that Stayner's attention was confined to the older and more thickly settled districts, which yielded the largest revenues. But, according to Stayner, Armour's silence could have been purchased by a share of the official printing which Stayner declined to give him. Whatever grounds Stayner had for making the insinuation, there can be no question as to the energy with which Armour bent himself to the task of exposing the methods of the post office. When his papers were held in the Montreal post office on account of his refusal to prepay the postage, he entered actions for large amounts against Stayner.

These failed, as the courts declined to deal with the cases. He then addressed himself to the legislature. In the beginning of 1831, Armour and a number of other publishers presented a petition to the house of assembly of Lower Canada, setting forth the high rates they had to pay as postage for the transmission of their newspapers, and the impropriety of Stayner's practice in appropriating the proceeds; and asking that they might be put on an equal footing with the publishers in Great Britain.