Against this Nova Scotia protested. John Howe, the elder, came out of his retirement in 1820, and made a strong plea for an exclusive packet service between England and Halifax, the vessel to remain at Halifax for one week before returning. He would have the public despatches for New York and Bermuda brought to Halifax, and from that place forwarded to their destination by one of the war vessels in the harbour or by a packet kept for the purpose.
Buchanan, the British consul at New York, urged the opposite view, that all the British mails for the colonies should be sent by way of New York. Dalhousie, who was lieutenant governor in Nova Scotia, at the time supported Howe's view, and matters remained as they were.
The question of newspaper postage was agitated in the Maritime provinces, as well as in the provinces of Canada. Indeed it would be inconceivable that publishers anywhere could be satisfied with the arrangements then in operation. But, most curiously, when the question came before the house of assembly in Nova Scotia, the sympathies of that body ran, not with the publishers, but with the deputy postmaster general.
In 1830, Edmund Ward, a printer, who published a newspaper in Fredericton, petitioned the legislature to be relieved of the charges for the conveyance of his paper. The post office committee of the house of assembly in Nova Scotia took the application into their consideration.
The committee reported[239] to the house that, having examined the imperial acts, they were of opinion that it was no part of the duty of the deputy postmaster general to receive, or transmit by post, newspapers printed in the colonies, or coming from abroad except from Great Britain. They found, moreover, that the secretary of the general post office in London, under this view of the case, had for a long time made a charge for each paper sent to the colonies by packet, the proceeds from which he retained to his own use.
It also appeared that about sixty years before that date (that is about 1770), the deputy postmaster general made a charge of two shillings and sixpence per annum on each newspaper forwarded to country subscribers by post, which was acquiesced in by all the publishers at that time.
The committee believed, therefore, that the deputy postmaster general was fully justified in the charges he made, but they were much in favour of having newspapers transmitted free. In accordance with this idea, the committee suggested that the assembly should take on itself the charges due for the conveyance of newspapers. They found that there were seventeen hundred newspapers of local origin distributed by post each week, and three hundred British or foreign newspapers. The assembly did not act on this suggestion.
Though the deputy postmaster general was fortunate enough to have the support of the legislature in his contention with the publishers, his position was by no means free from criticism. Indeed, there were certain features in his case, which were peculiarly exasperating to the publishers.
Howe was not only deputy postmaster general, but was king's printer, and had in his hands the whole of the provincial printing. He was also interested either directly or through his family in most of the newspapers published in Nova Scotia.
The Nova Scotian, The Journal, The Acadian and The Royal Gazette, were all controlled by the Howe family, and it appeared in the examination that all these newspapers were distributed by the post office free of postage. There were two other newspapers published in Halifax—The Acadian Recorder and The Free Press—and the publishers felt, not unnaturally, that in being compelled to pay two shillings and sixpence for each copy transmitted by post, while their rivals had the benefit of distribution by the post office free of charge, they were being subjected to an unjust and injurious discrimination.