But the situation of the deputy postmaster general was too difficult for him to secure unalloyed success. The various interests he had to serve, and, as far as possible, to reconcile, were too antagonistic for complete success. On the one side was a country being settled rapidly and clamouring for postal service in all directions. On the other stood the general post office fixed in its determination that its profits should not be diminished, and scanning anxiously every fresh item of expenditure.
Any serious inclination in one direction was sure to arouse resentment in the other. A curious instance of this occurred in 1819, three years after Sutherland had taken office. A number of merchants and others in Montreal appointed a committee to wait on the deputy postmaster general with a memorial containing an expression of their opinions and desires respecting the postal service in Canada.
The post office in Montreal it was urged had become unsuitable as regards site and space for the accommodation of the public, and the assistance employed by the postmaster was unequal to the requirements of an efficient service. The communications with the United States, Upper Canada and within the province, should be increased in frequency, and an interchange of mails should be opened with the Genesee and other settlements in New York state by way of Prescott and Ogdensburg. The memorialists also desired that letters might be sent to the United States without prepayment of postage.
Sutherland, in his reply to the memorial, dealt with the committee with an engaging frankness.[188] He was well aware, he said, that the accommodation in Montreal post office was inadequate, but what was to be done? The postmaster had only £300 a year salary, and out of that he had to pay office rent and stationery. It was not to be wondered at, that the postmaster endeavoured to economize in every way possible. He, himself, had on more than one occasion advised the postmaster general of the necessity for greater clerical help, but so far without the desired effect.
Only the year before, Sutherland told the memorialists, he had submitted to the postmaster general with his strongest recommendation, a petition from the postmaster of Montreal for increased salary and assistance, but the petition was refused. As for the increase in the frequency of the communications it was beyond his power to authorize such an expenditure. He had done his best on two recent occasions to induce the postmaster general to allow letters to go into the United States without the prepayment of postage, but was told that British postage must be paid on letters going into foreign states.
The memorial and Sutherland's reply were transmitted to the general post office. There they excited much indignation. Freeling, the secretary, in a minute to the postmaster general, professed his inability to understand whether this unreserved disclosure of Sutherland's proceeded merely from indiscretion or from some other motive. The postmaster general was, in effect, accused of inattention and supineness in the discharge of his duties. His decisions were placed in the most invidious light before the inhabitants of Montreal.
Indeed the whole circumstance had to Freeling the air of an understanding between Sutherland and the committee. The postmaster general was equally indignant, and ordered Sutherland's dismissal. But, as so often happened, Freeling changed his attitude, urging a number of countervailing circumstances against this extreme measure, and the postmaster general, who appeared to do little more than to convert the opinions and suggestions which Freeling so humbly submitted into departmental decisions, concurred in this recommendation.[189]
In 1824, Sutherland met with a serious financial loss. The postmaster at Montreal became a defaulter to the extent of £1706. Sutherland took action against the postmaster's sureties, but owing to informalities his suit was thrown out. He appealed to the general post office, alleging that the reason of his non-suit was its failure to answer certain questions which he had put to the postmaster general. The appeal was not allowed. In 1827, Sutherland retired owing to ill-health, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Thomas Allen Stayner, the last and, in some respects, the most distinguished of the representatives of the British post office in Canada.
FOOTNOTES:
[167] Can. Arch., Br. P.O. Transcripts, III.