The History of the Post Office in British North America

by William Smith

As for the act of 1801, which established a scale of rates, by no liberality of construction could it be made to apply to Canada, because the act of 1778 was against it, and the constitutional act of 1791 was against it, and the fact that the revenues to be raised by the act were to be appropriated to the purposes of the United Kingdom made it illegal for the postmaster general to enforce it in the province.

There were other acts passed by the imperial parliament affecting the postage rates, but an examination of these disclosed no intention to make the acts operative in the colonies. Rates were fixed for conveyance in the United Kingdom, and to and from the colonies in America, but nothing was said as to the rates within the colonies. It was quite clear to the committee, therefore, that the only acts, which by any possibility could be made applicable to the colonies, were inoperative in the Canadas.

The committee clinched the argument by a survey of the laws passed by the British parliament, levying taxes on the colonies. They showed that whenever such taxes were imposed, the proceeds were never applied to the purposes of the United Kingdom, but always to the use of the colony concerned. There was an act passed in 1764 imposing duties on the sugar plantations. The revenue was devoted to the protection of their trade.

The Quebec revenue act of 1774[200] was the other case. This act imposed duties on rum, brandy, and other liquors coming into the province, and employed the proceeds for the establishment of a fund to aid in defraying the charges of the administration of justice and of the civil government in the province of Quebec. It was clear, then, that the acts of 1778 and 1791 contained no new principle, but were simply declaratory of the steady policy of the British government as disclosed by a review of its earlier practice; and everything combined to satisfy the committee that the legislature of the mother country never contemplated the raising of a tax by inland postage in the colony of Upper Canada.

The committee concluded by submitting for the acceptance of the house a resolution to the effect that the present system of public posts for the conveyance of letters within the province had grown into use without the sanction of law, and that a bill should be introduced establishing public posts and fixing the rates of postage on letters and packets for the purpose of raising a permanent revenue, applicable solely to the improvement of the roads throughout the province.

The proposition of the assembly was thoroughly conservative. It was simply that the profits from the post office should be devoted to improving the means by which the post office was carried on. Settlements were springing up in all parts of the province which reason and policy made it necessary to connect with the more central districts, and it was only proper that the profits arising from the system should be used for improving and extending it.

At this period and for a long time afterwards the roads throughout the province were in a wretched condition. One of the principal mail contractors informed a committee of the house in 1829, that all the main roads in the province were very bad, and that those in the neighbourhood of York were bringing discredit on the inhabitants. The deputy postmaster general informed the same committee that he had just been advised that the contractors on the road from Montreal to Niagara had to swim their horses over some of the rivers on the route, the bridges having been carried away.

Peregrine Maitland, the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, forwarded the report of the committee of 1821 to the colonial office, with a letter in which he explained that what the legislature desired was to have the control of the provincial posts vested in them, or at least to have a deputy postmaster general for Upper Canada. With the latter request he fully sympathised, as he was convinced that a deputy postmaster general residing in Quebec could not possibly appreciate the requirements of the rapidly rising communities, situated so far from his headquarters.

The lieutenant governor shared the opinion of the legislature that it was contrary to the acts of 1778 and 1791 to send remittances from Canada to England, but he did not believe that the legislature would have concerned themselves with the subject, if the post office authorities had provided a satisfactory service.

At the general post office in London the report was turned over to the solicitor with directions to prepare a case for submission to the law officers of the crown. The law officers were requested to give their opinion as to whether the postmaster general of the United Kingdom had the right to control and manage the internal posts in the provinces of North America, and, if so, whether the proceeds derived from the inland conveyance of letters in North America ought to be paid into the exchequer of the United Kingdom or whether they ought to be applied to the use of the province from which they were taken.