Many of these trammels to correspondence were removed by special conventions before the Postal Union came into being. But how many remained may be judged from the fact that the Canadian postal guide, issued shortly before Canada was admitted to the Postal Union, contained a list of rates to 127 different countries, which must be consulted by correspondents and postal officials before the charge on a letter going abroad could be ascertained.
The immediate effect of coming into the union was the removal of these extensive and complicated lists from the postal guide, and their replacement by a single sentence, in which the charge on letters for all the countries in the union was stated to be five cents per half ounce. The Postal Union did not at that time comprehend all countries, though it did all the most important, but since then adhesions have been made from year to year until to-day there is scarcely a country to which letters are written, which does not come within its scope.
In 1898, at Canada's instance, a closer union was formed for penny postage within the British Empire. It went into effect on Christmas day of that year. It did not include all parts of the Empire at the time it was formed, Australia being deterred from associating itself with the scheme, by financial considerations.
A few years ago Australia found itself able to adjust the difficulties with which it was confronted when the union was formed, and the imperial penny postage scheme is operative in all parts of the Empire.
In 1903 the postmaster general of Canada opened negotiations with the administrations of the various parts of the Empire for a reduction of the postal rates on newspapers. His proposition was to allow newspapers to circulate throughout the Empire at the same rates as were charged for their transmission within the countries from which they were sent. The proposition encountered much opposition at the outset, but it made gradual progress, and to-day a newspaper may be sent from Canada to Great Britain and several other portions of the Empire at the same rate as would carry it from one place to another in Canada.
The auxiliary postal services—the money order and the savings bank—have expanded in their operations enormously between the period of Confederation and the present time. In 1868 there were 515 money order offices in the provinces comprising the dominion, and the amount of the orders issued by them was $3,342,574. The corresponding figures for 1914 were 4274 offices, which issued orders to the amount of $118,731,966.
The post office savings bank was not in operation prior to Confederation. It was established in April 1868, and at the end of the first year 213 post offices were charged with the duty of receiving and paying out savings deposits. The deposits at the end of the first year amounted to $861,655. In 1914 there were 1250 post offices doing savings bank business, and the deposits amounted to $11,346,457, and the balance standing at the credit of depositors was $41,591,286.
The financial operations of the Canadian post office have undergone a great expansion. The revenues which at the end of the first year of Confederation were $1,024,711, have, in spite of the steady reduction in the charges, been multiplied sixteen-fold within the forty-eight years since that period. In 1914 the amount collected for its services reached $16,865,451.
It is interesting, as illustrating the much greater use made of the post office by the public in Canada, to note that while the revenue has increased sixteen times, the population has not much more than doubled within the same period. In 1868, when the population of the four original provinces was given as 3,879,885, the amount paid to the post office was $1,024,711; in 1914, when the population was 8,075,000 the revenue was $16,865,451. Thus, notwithstanding the fact that for every letter posted during the first year of Confederation five cents was exacted by the post office, while in 1914 two cents only was demanded, the average expenditure for each member of the population was in 1868, rather less than twenty-seven cents, while in 1914 it was a small fraction over two dollars.
The Canadian post office has been on a sound footing as a business institution for a number of years past. This fact is more notable than would perhaps appear. The postal system of this country embraces a territory more extended than that served by any other system on earth, except the United States and Russia; and the population to utilize its services, and thereby furnish its revenues, is very much less than that of either of these countries.