The imperial bill, Stayner emphasised before the committee of the council, dealt with British North America as one territory as regards regulations and charges, and in his opinion, unless the several provinces were to be so regarded, an efficient service among the provinces themselves, and between the provinces and other countries, would be impossible.
In order to encourage correspondence between the distant parts of the colonies, the imperial bill fixed the comparatively low rate of eighteen pence for all distances beyond five hundred miles. Thus a letter could be sent from Amherstburg to Halifax or Charlottetown for that sum. If each colony had its own separate postal administration the charge on letters passing between those places would, in the most favourable circumstances, cost two or three times as much. Stayner was far from agreeing that, in all its details, the imperial bill was perfect, but he was convinced that the principle on which it was based was the only practicable one.
The great objection Stayner saw in the bill of the assembly was that it was a local bill operative only within the province. Intercourse between Lower Canada and the other provinces had to be provided for, since where there are several states under one supreme head, the free exchange of correspondence between them is indispensable.
The British government, whose interests in the different provinces required that communication between them and the mother country should be uninterrupted, could never consent, Stayner was sure, to any local arrangements by which those communications might be jeopardized. The cost of communication between province and province would be prohibitive, and the consequence would be moral isolation. The separate states of the American Union, jealous as they were of any impairment of their rights, recognized the necessity of a common postal service.
Stayner dwelt convincingly on the technical difficulties of accounting and distributing the charges on inter-provincial correspondence, and on correspondence between Canada and Great Britain. As it happened at the time, most of the letters sent between Canada and England passed by way of the United States. But that was a courtesy on the part of the United States government which might be terminated at any time, and then the Canadian provinces would be entirely dependent on the province by the sea.
If each province charged its full local rates on correspondence passing through it, and Stayner could see no reason why any of the provinces should favour its neighbours at the expense of its own people, the charge on a letter sent from Upper Canada to England would not be less than six or seven shillings, while under the British draft bill, the charge would scarcely ever exceed two shillings.
The legislative council adopted Stayner's reasoning entirely. It admitted that if the post office were an institution of merely local utility, there would be little to amend in the bill sent up by the assembly. Since, however, there were several provinces concerned, whose concurrent action was essential, the conflict of interest which must inevitably arise would make the harmonious working of the separate parts of the system difficult, if not impossible.
As an instance of the difficulties springing out of the divergence of interest among the provinces, the council recalled the fact that it became necessary to invite the intervention of the mother country to settle the apportionment of the customs revenues between the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. The council suggested to the governor general that if this line of reasoning were found acceptable, a satisfactory settlement of the whole question would be reached by requiring the deputy postmaster general to furnish annually full information as to the conditions, financial and other, of the post office.
The free transmission of the correspondence of members of the legislature, the council urged, should be provided for. The deputy postmaster general should be removable on the joint address of the two houses of the legislature; the salaries of all officials should be fixed, and perquisites of every kind withdrawn. Finally such alterations should be made in the rates of postage, such post offices established and such arrangements adopted for the regulation and management of the service, as were called for by the joint address of the two houses.
The plans elaborated by the British post office for the settlement of the colonial difficulties found no more favour in Upper Canada than in the other provinces. The assembly condemned the draft bill as unworthy of consideration. The terms in which the scheme was dismissed by the assembly were sufficiently slighting, but the colonial secretary was not in the mood to be resentful.
Lord Glenelg was impressed with the substantial justice of the claims of the assemblies in the two provinces, and would not make a stand on a point of manners. As Sir Francis Bond Head was about to come to Upper Canada to take up the lieutenant governorship in succession to Colbome, Glenelg, in his letter of instructions[248] directed Head to make every effort to bring the post office question to a satisfactory conclusion.
Noticing the opinion given by the assembly on the postmaster general's scheme of settlement, Glenelg thought it right to say that the bill had the very careful consideration of the postmaster general before being sent to the several provinces. The government, however, had no desire to urge the adoption of any measure to which well-founded objections existed. They were content that the bill should be withdrawn, to make way for any better bill that might be proposed by the house.
The assembly might find, on approaching the subject more closely, continued Glenelg, that unexpected difficulties would crop up, particularly with regard to intercourse by post with places beyond the limits of the province. The lieutenant governor was authorized to assent to any judicious and practicable measure which the house might incorporate in a bill, and to regard as of no importance, when opposed to the general convenience of the public, any considerations of patronage or revenue derivable from this source.
Notwithstanding this conciliatory statement, the house proceeded along the same lines as those followed by the assembly in Lower Canada. They drew up a series of resolutions[249] providing for the establishment of a post office department with headquarters in Toronto. Specified sums were allotted for the maintenance of a head office, and for the salaries of the postmaster general and his staff. The rates were fixed on letters and newspapers, and the percentage of revenue to be allowed postmasters as salaries was defined.
The house was unsparing in its condemnation of Stayner. They estimated that during the ten years preceding, the large sum of 48,000 had been withdrawn from the province through the exactions of the post office, an amount which they said would have sufficed to establish five district banks, suited to the wants of as many different sections of the country.
The advantages of a provincial establishment appeared to the house to be very great. A large amount of wealth would be kept in the province, which was sent to Quebec, either for transmission to England, or to make up the perquisites of officials; post offices could be opened wherever they were required, and no distant part of the province would be without the means of cheap and convenient accommodation; postmasters would be better paid, and the postage on letters and newspapers would be reduced; and extravagance could be checked and abuses corrected.
The house was fully aware of the objections to a local post office system, but in their opinion those objections were not to be mentioned beside the numerous advantages the provincial post office would provide.
It would be far easier for the department to open accounts with the present or any other post office department that might be organized, than it was to arrange with the United States for the interchange of correspondence with that country, and yet there was a very extensive exchange between Canada and the United States without the aid of any law whatever.
In considering the terms of a post office bill, the house had before it a list of conditions--thirty-one in number--which a committee recommended for consideration. Many of these were obvious. Others concerned matters of detail. Some were trivial.
One peculiar condition was that 100 a year should be allotted for the purchase of books and instruments, which might be useful in helping to keep the roads in a proper state of repair. The plans for the establishment of a post office department in Upper Canada did not reach completion, as the assembly was dissolved a month after the resolutions were adopted, in consequence of its refusal to vote supplies.
The termination of these agitations in the assemblies of Upper and Lower Canada, mark the close of a period in the relations between the provincial legislatures and the post office. The resolutions which were directed against the constitutional status of the post office, and the demands for separate provincial establishments ceased at this point.
This was due rather to the disappearance of the opponents of the existing system than to the removal of the causes for complaint.
The Lower Canadian assembly held a session of less than a fortnight at the end of September and the beginning of October 1836, and another of a week in August 1837, when it was dissolved, not to be resumed. During those sessions the affairs of the post office were not mentioned. In Upper Canada the election, which followed upon the dissolution of May 1836, resulted in a great victory for the government party.
Before resuming the narrative of events in the British North American provinces, it will be convenient to see how the late proceedings were regarded by the home government. Lord Gosford, the governor general, in transmitting to the colonial secretary the bill framed by the assembly of Lower Canada, observed that it was intended as a substitute for the imperial bill of 1834, which did not suit the ideas of the house.
One of the reasons adduced against the post office was that the money which the deputy postmaster general sent to England was the produce of an illegal tax levied in violation of the act of 1778. In December 1835, some of the members of the assembly waited on Gosford, and requested him to stop the remittance of about 3000 which was being made by Stayner to the department in England.
Gosford declined to take such a step for reasons which he set forth. The members, also, asked that the governor should take measures to recover from Stayner the sums which he was shown to have taken as newspaper postage. Gosford replied that as this allowance was permitted by the imperial department, and had been sanctioned by the Duke of Richmond as late as 1831, he could not assume to do what they asked, but he would bring the subject to the attention of the home government.
The whole arrangement regarding newspapers appeared to Gosford to be improper. He was of opinion that the emoluments received by Stayner were unreasonably large, and that the practice of allowing the deputy postmaster general to draw a considerable private income from the public business was wrong in principle.
But the post office in London was already in possession of the Lower Canadian bill. Stayner had sent a copy to the secretary immediately on its adoption by the assembly, and before the legislative council had had time to consider and reject it.
At the post office the receipt of the bill with the notice that it would go into operation on the 1st of May, 1836, gave rise to great perturbation among the officials. Freeling, in passing the bill on to the postmaster general, declared it to be perhaps the most important document he had ever received.[250] It was neither more nor less than an entire suppression of the postmaster general's patent, and of the powers of an act of parliament, authorizing the levying of certain rates of postage and the payment of the amount of all such postages into His Majesty's exchequer.
Freeling was a very old man--he was born in 1764--on the point of retiring from the charge, which he had held for forty-five years, and it may be that he had forgotten that four years before, the law officers had given it as their opinion that there was no act of parliament giving the postmaster general authority over the colonial post office and postages. At Freeling's instance the postmaster general hastened to put the matter into the hands of Glenelg, the colonial secretary. Having taken time to consider the situation, the colonial office drew up a statement of the subject for the attention of the postmaster general.[251]
Observing that the assembly of Lower Canada, not being satisfied with the imperial bill of 1834, had drawn up a bill of their own, and that the legislative council, in declining to approve of this bill, had asked the intervention of the home government with the British parliament, the colonial secretary stated that the British government was not prepared to accede to this proposition.
By the act of 1834, the regulation of the post office in the several colonies was referred to the local legislatures, and His Majesty's government, the colonial office concluded, could not call in the authority of the imperial parliament for the solution of any difficulties that may arise until it could be shown conclusively that there were no other means of settling them; and then it would be only with the concurrence of the legislatures to whom the matter had been submitted.
But while determined that, in matters involving legislation, the colonies should be left to work out their own salvation, the colonial secretary observed that there were certain matters within the competence of the postmaster general which, if given effect to, would ameliorate the situation.
The legislative council had among their requests asked (1) that all information required by the legislature should be furnished; (2) that the accounts of receipts and expenditures should be laid before the legislature annually; (3) that the officers of the department should be placed on moderate fixed salaries, in lieu of all perquisites and fees.
These objects, Glenelg pointed out, would have been to a certain degree attained by the bill of 1834. But as it had not become law, no time should be lost in putting these changes into effect, as they did not require legislative sanction. The colonial secretary also animadverted on the emoluments of Stayner. These he considered entirely excessive, and besides they were levied on an objectionable principle. The postmaster general was requested to put an end forthwith to the receipt by the deputy postmaster general of any fees on account of the transmission of newspapers. His salary should not be excessive.
As a guide to the postmaster general in fixing it, the colonial secretary gave a list of the salaries of the principal officers in the colony. Omitting that of the governor general, the highest salary in Canada was that of the receiver general which was 1000 a year. No other salary exceeded 500 a year. As against these, Stayner's emoluments of 3185 for each of the three preceding years were out of all proportion.
Glenelg further impressed upon the postmaster general the anxiety of His Majesty's government that no time should be lost in removing any real grievances which might be shown to exist. The postmaster general concurred with Glenelg as to the necessity of removing all reasonable grounds of complaint, and stated that steps had been, or were about to be, taken to that end.
To the postmaster general the newspaper postage question was one of real difficulty, in view of the absence of necessary legislation. As matters stood, newspapers could only be sent as letters or under the deputy postmaster general's privilege. If the law officers could see any way out of the difficulty, the postmaster general would be glad to adopt it.
As the law officers' ingenuity was not equal to the difficulty, the situation remained essentially unchanged for some years. Meantime Stayner was enjoying to the full the peace and quiet which followed upon the altered conditions in the two provincial assemblies. It was some years since he had heard a complimentary reference to himself in either house, though no man could have shown more zeal for the improvement of the service he administered.
But an agreeable change was at hand. On February 17, 1837, the legislative council of Upper Canada had before it the report of a committee it had appointed to inquire into the post office. The chairman of the committee was John Macaulay, formerly postmaster of Kingston, and Stayner's chief support in Upper Canada. When there was a question of appointing an assistant deputy postmaster general for Upper Canada, it was Macaulay that Stayner desired for the position.
The burden of the report of the committee of the council of 1837 was that the interests of the several provinces could be maintained only by preserving to the post office its character as an imperial institution.
In Stayner's hands the service would be carried on efficiently, now that he had been furnished with the assistance he had applied for. Indeed the magnitude of his labour could be understood only by those connected with the service.
The committee drew up a series of conditions which they considered would place the institution on an efficient footing. The conditions were very similar to those suggested by the legislative council of Lower Canada in 1836. The bill of the Lower Canadian assembly appeared to the committee to illustrate the impracticability of any scheme such as that proposed by the imperial government in 1834.
If the acceptance of a post office bill was left to the provincial legislatures, they would almost certainly insist upon a scheme of low rates, based entirely on local considerations. The excessively reduced scale of rates proposed by the Lower Canadian assembly could not fail to leave a large deficit. Hence the wisdom of leaving the rates as they stood until their effects could be seen.
Ten days after the committee of the legislative council made its report, the house of assembly adopted an address to the king, in which the same ideas were embodied, and in the following month a joint address was prepared by the assembly and the legislative council.[252]
The address began with a recital of the facts making up the existing situation, and then proceeded to an effective criticism of the imperial scheme of 1834. It pointed out that the colonial secretary had stated that, in order to conform to the imperial plans, a uniformity of views should pervade the bills passed by the several provinces; that a careful consideration of the bill prepared for the acceptance of the provinces, and of the action taken upon it in the province discloses no reasonable grounds for the hope that the legislatures would soon (if indeed ever) arrive at such uniformity as would ensure the establishment of a practicable system.
Even if such unanimity on the terms of a bill were reached, it would doubtless happen frequently, the committee conceived, that amendments in this bill would be necessary, but as all the legislatures would have to be convinced of the necessity of the amendments which seemed desirable or even indispensable to any one of them, the difficulties in the way of making needful alterations to meet the changing conditions in progressive communities would be insuperable.
These conditions led inevitably to the conclusion on the part of the committee that the only means of securing a practicable system in which all interests, provincial and imperial, would be considered, was to maintain the supremacy of the British post office, and to continue to entrust to it the supreme power of making laws and regulations for the management of the post office in the several provinces. The interests of the provincial legislatures would be amply safeguarded, the committee was confident, if their demands for information respecting the post office were acceded to, and if it were understood that complaints against the deputy postmaster general, preferred by petition to the legislature and supported by the joint address of the two houses, would have the attention of the postmaster general in London.
The turn which affairs had taken was naturally gratifying to Stayner, who urged the postmaster general to give careful heed to the terms of the joint address, which, if carried into effect, would, in his opinion, provide a remedy for all warranted dissatisfaction.
The secretary of the post office did not share Stayner's hopefulness. He observed to the postmaster general that, however desirable uniformity of system might be in the post offices of British North America, the success of any act of the imperial parliament would be jeopardized, if it involved the imposition of a tax upon the colonies. The secretary was prepared, however, to listen to any suggestion Stayner might have to make in the way of improving the existing system.
Although Stayner's friends were in control of both legislative chambers in Upper Canada, his peace of mind on that account was not of long duration. In April 1837, both houses passed a franking act, under which the members were authorized to send their letters free, during the sittings of the legislature. This act, as Stayner pointed out to the postmaster general, subverted the imperial acts, upon which the existence of the post office depended, and he was placed in a very awkward situation.