The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

Gladstone, at that time colonial secretary, sought information from Lord Cathcart, administrator of the government, as to the merits of the application and learned that, besides the Hudson Bay interest, there were prospects of large mining developments in the district, and that a body of troops was about to be sent to fort Garry, which would certainly require regular communication with headquarters.

These were considerations which post office officials in Great Britain would seldom have to take into account, and while the accommodation was authorized in this case, owing to the standing of its advocates, there would be many cases, where the necessity would appear equally great to local authorities, which would not impress the authorities at home sufficiently to cause them to disregard their customary regulations.

Parenthetically it may be stated, as instances, that when the North-West territories were taken over by Canada in 1869, it became necessary to establish a mail service over a stretch of nine hundred miles between Winnipeg and Edmonton, at a cost of $10,000 a year, while the revenue from the route would scarcely exceed as many hundreds; and for many years after the Canadian Pacific railway was carried to Vancouver in 1886, the expenditure of the post office for the conveyance of mails into that country exceeded the revenue by some hundreds of thousands of dollars.

On this point the postmaster general says: "there is no more fertile source of contention in the North American colonies than the establishment of new posts; and if the means of extending such posts throughout the colonies were provided by funds not of the post office, but granted from the general colonial revenue, however well administered a department might be, I fear it would constantly be subjected to accusations of favouritism and of undue influences."

Clanricarde conceded that it would only be reasonable to expect that the legislative assemblies would endeavour to ascertain whether by rearrangements, or other alterations in the administration, the deficiency would not be diminished, and whether economy could not be introduced with respect to salaries. The struggle of members for local advantages would heighten the feeling with which the department administered from England would be regarded.

The postmaster general summed the situation up by declaring his conviction that any measure producing a large deficiency in the post office revenue would be tantamount to a surrender of the administration by the postmaster general; and as he was of opinion that the general colonial interests called for a large reduction in the postage rates, he considered that it would be better that the postmaster general should resign his control over the post offices at once.

The imperial interests, which had determined the department in the past to retain its control over the arrangements remained in undiminished strength; and in order to safeguard these, it would be necessary to stipulate for certain conditions to which the colonies would be required to agree, before the colonial post offices were relinquished to the colonial legislatures.

The first was that correspondence passing between two colonies through the territory of a third, should not be subject to a charge on the part of the latter for transportation. This stipulation ensured that an intermediate colony should not have the power to compel the colonies on either side of it to raise their charges to meet exorbitant rates for transportation.

The second condition was that, in the case of correspondence passing between Great Britain and the colonies, the postage on which was one shilling and twopence, the part of this amount, which was for the inland conveyance, viz. twopence, should remain in operation, unless the ordinary inland rate should be less than twopence. In this case the correspondence to and from Great Britain should have the benefit of the lower rate.

The third condition was that prepayment or payment on delivery should be optional with respect to correspondence passing from one province to another, and, in order to avoid complicated accounts between the provinces, the practice should be for each province to treat as its own all the postage it collected whether it were on letters paid at the time of posting, or on letters from other provinces, the postage of which, being unpaid at the office of posting was collected at the office of delivery. The postmaster general also suggested, as highly desirable, that a uniform system and rate of postage should be maintained throughout the provinces.