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.
But the case as prepared did not reach the law officers. The postmaster general had the good sense to see that his case was precarious, and he did not care to risk an adverse decision.
Freeling, accordingly, wrote to Maitland,[201] admitting that the postal transactions of Upper and Lower Canada together showed a small surplus, but he inclined to the view that the share of Upper Canada in the surplus must be very small. A number of post offices had been opened in Upper Canada and the impression in the general post office was that they were unprofitable.
If, as Maitland had intimated, the wishes of Upper Canada would be satisfied by the appointment of a separate deputy postmaster general for Upper Canada, the postmaster general, Freeling informed the governor, would make no difficulty on the point, but would naturally select for the position one of the more experienced officers such as the postmaster of York or of Kingston.
In the meantime, while the report of 1821 was being discussed by the secretary of the post office and the lieutenant governor, the members of the assembly were endeavouring to procure further information to strengthen the position they had taken. They desired to learn definitely the amount which was sent to London as postal revenue. The postmaster of York could tell them little beyond the transactions of his own office, but the contribution from that office made it clear that the revenue from the whole province must be considerable.
No information could be obtained by direct inquiry of the deputy postmaster general, but it was thought that the post office would not refuse to answer a question on the subject asked by a member of parliament.
A question was accordingly put in the house of commons in 1822, but Freeling informed the representative of the post office[202] in the house of commons that the information should not be given, as the provinces were manifesting a disposition to interfere with the internal posts, and to appropriate their revenues to their own purposes, instead of allowing them to flow into the exchequer of the United Kingdom. The maintenance of the packet service, he declared to be of the greatest political importance, as ensuring despatches against passing through foreign hands.
The course pursued by the post office under the influence of Freeling was in no way creditable to it. At a time when it was making grudging admissions that there was a small profit from the Canadian post offices, there was being sent over to London from the two provinces a sum exceeding 6000 a year, an amount which, wisely spent, would have been a considerable contribution to the road fund of the provinces.
The packet, the importance of which Freeling emphasized, was scarcely of any utility to the people of the Canadas. The service by the packets was so slow and expensive that it was not employed at all for commercial or social correspondence, the merchants in London and Liverpool using exclusively the lines of sailing vessels running between Liverpool and New York. But Freeling was obstinate and often disingenuous in maintaining his view that it was proper that the surplus revenues from the provincial post offices should be turned into the British exchequer.
The disinclination of the general post office to discuss the question of the colonial post office was not likely to suppress the subject for long. The assembly of Upper Canada had too strong a case. The political grievances from which the province was suffering were bringing into the political life of Upper Canada a group of men to voice the general dissatisfaction with the state of affairs, and so undeniable an abuse could not remain unexploited.
The house, which adopted the resolution of 1821, was on the whole favourable to the lieutenant governor and his advisers. The succeeding house, which was elected in 1825, contained a majority opposed to the government. This fact did not, however, lead to the overthrow of the lieutenant governor's advisers. They were his own choice and were in no sense responsible to the house. It was not until sixteen years later that responsible government, as now understood, was established in Canada.
The turn of affairs in 1825, which placed the control of the house in the hands of the opponents of the government had its effect on the attitude of the parties towards the provincial post office. In 1821, the lieutenant governor cordially supported the views of the house, and did what he could to make them prevail with the postmaster general. In 1825, when the post office grievance was brought up for discussion, the lieutenant governor's party upheld the position taken by the postmaster general in England.
The consequence was that, for the opposition, the post office was but one more of the many matters calling for redress, while for the government party it was another element in the burden which they had to sustain in their resistance to reform.
In the beginning of 1825, William Lyon Mackenzie presented a petition to the house of assembly to have the affairs of the post office investigated. Mackenzie, who had come to Upper Canada in 1820, was engaged in business until 1824, when, impressed with the various political abuses from which the country was suffering, he abandoned what had every appearance of a successful career, and gave himself to agitation. He established a newspaper--_The Colonial Advocate_--in 1824, and in 1828 secured a seat in the house of assembly. These vehicles of publicity he employed in ceaseless attacks on the governing clique, which from the intimacy of the ties binding its members together was known as the Family Compact, and became the principal actor in the abortive rebellion of 1837. The post office as then managed incurred his unremitting hostility.
A committee was appointed having as chairman Captain John Matthews, who represented the county of Middlesex along with Dr. Rolph, subsequently one of the leaders of rebellion in 1837. Matthews was a retired army officer, who entertained advanced political views, which were irritating to the lieutenant governor. He was later on made to feel the lieutenant governor's resentment for his opposition. As chairman of the committee Matthews reported on the 9th of March, 1825,[203] that it was in evidence that there were abuses which would be remedied, if the post offices in the province were, as they should be, under the control and supervision of the legislature.
The committee found that there were many populous districts, in which post offices were much required; that many postmasters performed their duties indifferently, letters and newspapers being opened and read before being delivered; and that complaints to the deputy postmaster general had no appreciable effect. The mail bags, the committee also discovered, were often filled with goods, having nothing to do with the post office, to the injury of contractors as well as of the post office revenues.
Editors of newspapers, it was also ascertained, suffered from the hardship of having to pay the postage on their newspapers in advance, and the committee recommended that the postage on newspapers should be collected as the postage on letters was, from those who received the newspapers. Letters on public business should, in the opinion of the committee, be carried free of postage; and the surplus revenue should be expended on the public roads and bridges which were in a deplorable state.
The final conclusion of the committee was that the provincial legislature should take on itself the entire management of the post office, even though this should involve some temporary expense. It was not anticipated that such would be the case, but in any event the deficits would be of short duration.
In the following session--1826--the post office was again discussed.
This time the discussion was on a motion of Charles Fothergill to take into consideration the state of the province. Fothergill was king's printer, and had been postmaster of Port Hope. He was dismissed from the post office for his criticism of the administration, and was soon to be deprived of the office of king's printer, on account of his advocacy of measures distasteful to the lieutenant governor.
Fothergill in his attack on the post office,[204] had the advantages of experience, and of some inside knowledge. Arguing from the revenue of Port Hope, he declared his belief that the sum remitted to London each year could not be less than 10,000, and that the business was increasing so rapidly that in a few years the surplus revenue from the post office would pay the whole expenses of civil government in the province.
Some of the postmasters, Fothergill complained, acted with much insolence towards those not in favour with the government. Their newspapers were thrown about. Their letters were handed to them open.
The mails were often opened in public bar rooms. Sutherland, the deputy postmaster general, had admitted to Fothergill that he was ignorant of the geography of the province, which was a strong reason for the appointment of a resident deputy postmaster general. Fothergill's great objection to the existing arrangements was that they were unconstitutional, and that the tax on newspapers was so oppressive as to check their circulation. To test the feeling of the house Fothergill offered a resolution declaring that the acts of 1778 and 1791 were part of the constitution of the province.
John Beverly Robinson, the attorney general, traversed Fothergill's statements, and desired the house to take satisfaction from the fact that all the other colonies sent their surplus post office revenues to the general post office, without remonstrance. He did not believe that any large sum was sent from Canada. Indeed, Freeling told him (what was quite untrue) that the Canadian post office was a burden on the home department.
Fothergill was supported by Rolph, and also by Bidwell, one of the leaders of the opposition, and afterwards speaker of the house. Rolph recalled that the postmasters who had appeared before the committee testified that the provincial post office was a remunerative institution. He was satisfied that it could not be otherwise, as he had learned by experience that a post office, however much required, would not be opened until the deputy postmaster general was guaranteed against any loss which might arise. But even if the post office could be shown to be unproductive, he would propose to take it off the hands of the mother country while it was a burden to her, and not to wait until it began to be profitable.
Rolph moved an address to the king affirming that the present system was being carried on contrary to the act of 1791, an act which was held by the house to be a fundamental part of the constitution of the province; that a well-regulated post office, responsible to the constituted authorities of the province, and extended in the number of its establishments would tend to correct and prevent abuses which were found to exist under the present system, would facilitate commercial intercourse, promote the diffusion of knowledge and would eventually become an important branch of the provincial revenue. The assembly therefore begged, with many expressions of loyalty and gratitude, that the control and emoluments of the post office so far as they concerned the province might be conceded to them. There was some opposition to Rolph's motion. Eventually the address was adopted by a vote of nineteen to five.
The address, which it will be recalled had originated with the opposition, was laid before the colonial office under very different circumstances from those attending the report of 1821. On that occasion, the memorial was brought to the foot of the throne with the good wishes of both the government and the legislature. It was accompanied by a letter from the lieutenant governor, commending it to the favourable consideration of the home authorities.
The address of 1826 was also accompanied by a letter[205] from the lieutenant governor, but so far from commending it, the purpose of the letter was to suggest an answer confuting the arguments of the assembly.
Dealing first with the allegation of the assembly that the postage charges were a tax, and as such repugnant to the act of 1778, Maitland recalled Franklin's contention before the British house of commons in 1765, that postage duty was not a tax, but rather a consideration for a service performed, and exacted only from those who chose to avail themselves of that service.
Assuming, as the governor did, that the revolted colonies generally acquiesced in the justice of Franklin's view, while objecting to other duties as unconstitutional, he could not see on what valid grounds the legislature rested its case. This reasoning is directly the opposite of the view expressed by the lieutenant governor in 1821. He then gave it as his opinion that the acts of 1778 and 1791 made it illegal for the Canadian post office to make remittances to London of surplus revenue, but that the matter would not have been noticed in the province, if a satisfactory service had been given by the deputy postmaster general.
Indeed, Maitland left no doubt that his real opinion was unchanged, for he went on to intimate that he would not depend upon Franklin's argument, if it could be shown that there was any considerable surplus from the postal operations in Upper Canada. The lieutenant governor enjoyed his little excursions among the statutes, however, and although the postmaster general had the benefit of the advice of the law officers of the crown, Sir Peregrine did not scruple to take on himself the role of legal adviser of the general post office.
Even if the duties were declared to be a tax within the meaning of the act of 1778, since the duties were collected under the amendment of 1765 to the act of 1710 which was anterior to the act of 1778, Maitland argued that it was questionable whether their collection could be regarded as a violation of the act of 1778. But there was one person to whom this gratuitous argument carried no conviction, and that was the propounder of it himself. He would still hark back to his underlying idea, and intimated his persuasion that the British government had no desire to raise a revenue from the colonies through the post office, and suggested that if it could be shown that the post office yielded a large revenue after paying the charges, the government would be prepared to reduce the rates or to place the surplus at the disposal of the colony.
Although the assembly stated that it would be desirable in the interests of the province to have the post office under the control of its legislature, the lieutenant governor believed that the preponderance of the better opinion, whether in or out of the assembly, would be found opposed to that proposition. It would be impossible to carry on an independent system in an inland province, and the attempt to do so would involve the colony in heavy expenditure. The lieutenant governor discredited entirely the allegations that there were abuses in the service, and he had much reason for thinking that Sutherland, the deputy postmaster general, discharged his duties to the general satisfaction of the public.
Maitland's letter, which bears all the marks of having been written by the attorney general, Beverly Robinson, is a capital illustration of the vicious circle of deception sometimes practised by persons having a common purpose with reference to a scheme. The official class in York, as well as the secretary of the general post office, desired to defeat the wishes of the house of assembly respecting the post office, the family compact group, because any victory gained by the house threatened the privileges enjoyed by that class; Freeling, secretary of the post office, because it would diminish the revenues of which he was a most zealous guardian.
Freeling told the attorney general that the Canadian post office was a burden on the revenues of the general post office, and the attorney general, accepting this statement, told the secretary that such being the case, the statutes on which the house of assembly relied were not applicable. The secretary's statement was demonstrably incorrect, but it furnished the foundation for the opinion which he desired, that the law did not require, nor did expediency suggest, the transfer to the Upper Canadian legislature of the control of the post office in that province.
Robinson wrote to Freeling supporting the views of the lieutenant governor; and at the same time Freeling received a letter from Markland, a member of the executive and legislative council of Upper Canada, protesting against the attempt on the part of the assembly to interfere with the post office as the assumption of a right to which they had not the least pretension. The best-intentioned and the best-informed people in the province were against such interference.
By way of parrying the demand of the assembly for control over the post office, Markland suggested that it would be well to appoint a post office superintendent for the upper province. Upper Canada was entirely distinct from Lower Canada in all matters of government. The post office alone was subject to the control of a person, outside of the province, who never visited it. The people of Upper Canada were, he declared, energetic and enterprising, and immigration was coming in on a full tide. Freeling considered this an important letter, and laid it before the postmaster general.
The agitation in Upper Canada aroused a flutter of interest in London.
When newspaper reports of the discussions in the house of assembly in December 1825, reached St. Martins-le-Grand, they fell under the notice of the postmaster general, who was moved to ask Freeling what it all meant. Freeling replied that the accounts related to great disputes in Canada as to the application of the rates of postage levied in that country, whether the rates should not be devoted to local purposes. At that time, Freeling stated, the rates formed part of the consolidated fund.
The colonial office and the treasury also made inquiries. The colonial office was informed that the revenues of Upper and Lower Canada were blended, and that for seven years previous there had been a surplus from the two provinces which amounted on the average to 5790 a year.[206] It was also pointed out that the estimated cost of the packet service was 10,000 a year.
Robinson,[207] the chancellor of the exchequer, with whom Freeling had an interview in October 1826,[208] did not fall in with Freeling's views quite as readily as the others had done. He expressed the opinion that Canada's contention was in the main sound. The net revenue from the Canadian post office ought in fairness to be applied to colonial purposes, not in the mode or on the principle put forward by the assembly, but under the direction of the home government. It should be in the nature of a civil list.
Freeling was alarmed at the chancellor's utterances, and reminded him that what was granted to Canada could not be withheld from Jamaica. The chancellor admitted this to be the case. Freeling insisted that there could be no doubt as to the legality of the present practice, though he confessed that the law officers gave no opinion on the case prepared in 1822. Indeed, it had not been submitted to them, as Lord Chichester, the postmaster general, had an invincible reluctance to taking their opinion, and would not do so unless positively instructed by the government.
Then there were the packets. Freeling could not let the opportunity pass of mentioning Canada's obligations with respect to the packet service.
He did not, however, endeavour to impose on the chancellor of the exchequer his view that the cost of this service should be set against Canada's post office surplus. In his memorandum of the interview, Freeling merely notes that the opinion between them inclined to the view that as the packets were maintained for the benefit of Canada as well as of Nova Scotia, some part of the expense should be borne by Canada.
Up to this point, the agitation against the post office was confined to Upper Canada, which indeed was the more aggressive province during the whole course of the dispute. In 1827, however, the legislative assembly of Lower Canada took a hand in the controversy, contributing a strictly legal and even technical memorandum embodying an argument in favour of its contention that the colonies should participate with the United Kingdom in the profits of the general post office.[209]
The memorandum pointed out that the act of Queen Anne established a general post office for, and throughout Great Britain and Ireland, the colonies and plantations in North America and the West Indies, and all other of Her Majesty's dominions and territories; and that of the duties arising by virtue of this act, 700 a week were to be paid into the exchequer for public purposes in Great Britain. Certain annuities and encumbrances charged on the postal revenues by earlier acts, were continued by the act of Queen Anne. When these charges amounting to 111,461 17_s._ 10_d._, and the 700 a week already mentioned were satisfied, one-third of the remaining surplus was reserved to the disposal of parliament "for the use of the public."
The house of assembly argued that this act, which by later acts was declared to be in force in Canada, applied to the people of England, Ireland and colonies of North America and in the West Indies. The word "public," therefore, being used without limitation, or qualification, could not signify exclusively the people of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the colonies. On the contrary, being equally applicable to all who were within the purview of the act, it designated the people of all the dominions of the crown in which the postal revenue was to be levied. The statute thus carried on the face of it a parliamentary declaration that the colonies were entitled to a share of the post office revenues, and it enacted, by implication, that the amount of the share should be determined by parliament at some future period.
Here followed a novel and ingenious application of the statute of 1778, which was enacted for the purpose of conciliating the colonies by conceding the point at issue between them and the mother country.
The assembly stated that by this act it was declared that, for the peace and welfare of His Majesty's dominions, the net produce of all duties, which after the passing of that act were imposed by parliament upon the colonies, should be applied to the use of the colony in which it is levied. Unlike the assembly of Upper Canada, the assembly of Lower Canada did not maintain that the act of Queen Anne was annulled by the act of 1778.