The value of this service was not as great as it afterwards became when there was a complete railway connection between Halifax and St. John, but it nevertheless effected a considerable reduction in time. Thus, in November 1855, mails were carried between Quebec and Halifax by way of St. John and Portland in four days, though the average, through the winter, was about a day more. The steamer carried the mails between St. John and Portland three times a week in summer, and twice a week during the balance of the year.
The postage on letters circulating throughout the North American provinces was threepence a half ounce, and newspapers were transmitted free of all postage. The registration of letters was introduced in 1852, the fee being sixpence; and a money order system established in 1859. The limit on the amount of a single order was fixed at the low sum of $20 and the charge on each order was the rather high one of tenpence an order.
By 1860 a fully equipped postal system was in operation in Nova Scotia. The revenue of the department responded with fair readiness to the accommodation afforded to the public. For the last year under the old system, when rates were excessively high, and the accommodation limited, the revenue was $28,260. The immediate consequence of the great reduction was a shrinkage in the revenue by $4856 in the following year. Five years after the low rates were established, the revenue for the year 1851 was surpassed, and in thirteen years it was practically doubled. In 1866, the last complete year under the provincial regime the revenue had reached the respectable sum of $69,000.
The steady expansion of the service entailed an outlay which considerably surpassed the revenue. In 1852, the first complete year under the provincial administration, the deficit was $10,500. This deficiency steadily mounted until for the years 1859 to 1861, it averaged $29,000. Thereafter it descended as steadily as it had risen, and during the last three years before the provincial system was absorbed by the post office department at Ottawa the shortage was $17,500 a year.
Neither Nova Scotia nor New Brunswick had the advantage of an extended railway mail service until some years after Canada had been in enjoyment of it. The service by railway began at the commencement of 1857, the mails being carried between Halifax and Grand Lake, a distance of twenty-two miles. In the following year it was extended to Truro and Windsor, which was the total extent of the railway mail service at the time of confederation.
It was resolved at the time New Brunswick assumed the administration of its postal system, to make the postmaster general a member of the provincial cabinet. But the legislature did not act on its resolution until 1855, the postmaster general in the interim being, as in Nova Scotia, merely an officer of the government. In 1851, the post office in New Brunswick had, in regular post offices and way offices, exactly one hundred offices.[295] These were increased with much rapidity. After five years, the number had increased to two hundred and forty-six offices; and at the period of confederation, there were four hundred and thirty-eight post offices in New Brunswick.
The conditions under which letters and newspapers were carried in New Brunswick were the same as those which prevailed in the other provinces. The postage was threepence per half ounce for letters, and newspapers were carried without charge. The effect on the revenue was the same as in the other provinces.
In the first year after the low charges were introduced, the reduction in the revenue was considerable. On comparing the revenue for the first six months under the reduced rates with the revenue for the corresponding period of the preceding year, there was found to be a diminution of $3959. But the rebound was as rapid as it was in Canada. In 1853, the revenue had nearly attained the figures of 1850-1851. Thereafter the progress of the revenue was steady, reaching the sum of $50,769 in 1866.
As in Nova Scotia, the cost of maintaining the service at its existing efficiency outran considerably the revenue produced. The deficiency of revenue to meet expenses amounted in 1854 to $15,316. This shortage increased to nearly $24,000 in the years 1856 and 1857. There were variations during the years that followed, but in the last three years the average annual deficit was rather more than $20,000.
The department at Fredericton took a philosophical view of these deficits which the government were called upon annually to make good. The large expenditure, it was maintained, might be fairly viewed in the same light as the amounts annually granted by the legislature for roads and bridges and for the support of common schools. "The mail carriage to all parts of the province secures to the travelling public conveyances which would not otherwise exist, and the very large amount of newspapers, etc., which passes through the post office affords strong evidence that the department may be considered a branch of our educational system."