person wishing to have a letter carried by the coach could see no one to whom he cared to entrust it, he would make up a package of old papers and sticks, and place the letter in the centre. The freight on the bundle was less than the postage on the letter concealed in it. Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island had the same stories of evasion to tell. Along the extensive coast-line, every boat and coasting vessel had its quota of letters. In the western counties and on the southern shore of Nova Scotia, it was estimated that the Post Office scarcely carried one-tenth of the letters exchanged.

The correspondents of the commission were unanimous in the opinion that the excessive postage rate was the cause of these illegalities. But the commission, while not disposed to uphold the existing rates, inclined to the belief that due weight had not been given to other causes, such as the lack of post offices, the inconvenience of the office hours, or the infrequency or slowness of the mail. These various defects in the system were examined, but the attention of the commissioners was given mainly to the rates. Many of their correspondents had been impressed with the attractiveness of the penny postage proposals, but it was easy for the commission to show the fundamental differences, from the standpoint of the Post Office, between a small and densely populated country, containing many great cities and the commercial centre of the world, on the one hand, and on the other a thinly settled colony, almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of the soil, and with its commerce in its infancy.

Rowland Hill had been able to make out his case for penny postage on the existing circulation of letters in Great Britain, without calling into his calculation the enormous increase in the number of letters which was certain to follow upon the reduction of the rates to a penny a letter. According to his calculations upon the circulation of letters as it stood at that time, the total cost for carrying letters from post office to post office was less than one farthing, and the difference in the cost of conveyance upon a single letter for the longest or the shortest distance was so small as to be negligible. Pursuing the same method of reasoning, the commissioners showed that the cost of handling a single

letter was fivepence-halfpenny, of which threepence was for conveyance. They then proceeded to the inference that, if a revenue was to be produced which would meet the expenditure, the proposition of a low uniform rate must be dismissed as impracticable.

The commission was wrong in basing its reasoning on the existing circulation. The average postage charged on a letter was ninepence, and to suppose that if it were reduced to threepence or fourpence a letter there would not be a great increase in the volume of the letters transmitted by post, was to disregard all previous experience. Indeed, when the threepenny rate was established in 1851, the number of letters more than doubled within a twelvemonth. However, having agreed to exclude from consideration the proposition of a uniform rate, the commission set about ascertaining a scheme of rates with the smallest possible number of variations. It finally settled on a schedule which contained five different rates, running from twopence for distances up to thirty miles, to one shilling for distances over two hundred miles, rates much lower than those in operation in the United States at that time. The commission decided also to recommend the adoption of the weight system in fixing the charges, in preference to the prevailing system by which the charges were determined by the number of enclosures in a letter. As regards newspaper postage, which had hitherto been the perquisite of the deputy postmaster-general, the commission recommended that it should go into the general revenue of the Post Office, and suggested a charge of one halfpenny a sheet.

This report was dealt with piecemeal by the British government. On August 16, 1842, the first stroke was made at Stayner's practically absolute power by taking from him the right to appoint postmasters and vesting it in the governorgeneral. Stayner retained the power to dismiss any official for misconduct, but he was reminded that no person should be dismissed until he had opportunity of defending himself against the charges brought against him. In August 1843 the colonial secretary announced to the governor-general that it had been decided to adopt the weight system instead

of the number of enclosures in determining the postage on letters, to abolish the deputy postmaster-general's newspaper perquisite, and to fix a rate of one halfpenny per sheet for newspapers. In July 1844 Stayner was notified that thereafter his salary would be the handsome one of £2500 sterling a year in lieu of all emoluments, but that his successor would have not more than £1500 sterling a year.

All the principal recommendations of the commission having been carried into effect except that relating to the postage rates, the course of events ran in a narrower channel, and though the ends towards which they tended were not less important than those already reached and overpassed, the movement thereafter was marked by less vehemence. The settlement of the newspaper question, and the wiping out of the deputy postmaster-general's perquisites, allayed the sense of personal irritation felt generally throughout the country. The main point towards which attention was directed for the next few years was the reduction of the rates, and their assimilation as far as the circumstances of the country would permit to the rate which was producing such a variety of beneficent results in Great Britain.

As

II

THE MARITIME PROVINCES

EARLY POSTAL EFFORT

S the Maritime Provinces were pursuing substantially the same ends, it is proposed from this point until 1851 to combine the movement in Canada and in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, into a single narrative. Before doing this, however, it is necessary to relate shortly the progress of events in the Maritime Provinces up to the point we have now reached.

The first post office established in the Maritime Provinces, and, indeed, in the present British colonies, was opened at Halifax in 1755, when, on the urgent appeal of the governors of the several colonies after Braddock's disaster

at Fort Duquesne, the packet service was put in operation between Falmouth, in Cornwall, and New York. Letters to and from Halifax were exchanged by way of New York, or Boston, by any war or merchant vessel that happened to be passing between the two places. No further post offices were opened until after the American Revolution, and, indeed, the few settlements on the Atlantic were not ill served by the coasting vessels running to and from Halifax. The little groups which were forming on the Bay of Fundy, both before and after the incoming of the loyalists, received their letters from Windsor, which was connected with Halifax by an Acadian road. At the close of the war, a movement was begun to have direct packet service between England and Halifax; and Lord North, foreseeing that Halifax would become a place of some importance as the rendezvous of the fleet, encouraged the colonies to believe that their desires would be met. But other views prevailed. In November 1783 the postmaster-general re-established the service between Falmouth and New York, and the Maritime Provinces, to their indignation, found that they had to depend on a foreign post for the maintenance of their communication with the mother country. Canada having joined hands with the provinces by the sea in their demand for a direct service to the British colonies, the imperial government in 1788 required the packets running between Falmouth and New York to call at Halifax en route. At the same time a monthly courier service between Quebec and Halifax brought the Canadian provinces into connection with the packets. On the establishment of the monthly inland service, post offices were opened at Windsor, Horton, Annapolis and Digby in Nova Scotia, and at Fredericton in New Brunswick. A post office had been in operation at St John since 1784, and thus the inland service in the Maritime Provinces was begun. Matters remained unchanged until the outbreak of the War of 1812, when, owing to the dangers from American privateers in the Bay of Fundy, the deputy postmaster-general was compelled to abandon the route by way of the Annapolis Valley and the bay, and to take an inland line of travel to the St John River. This route passed through Truro and on to Fort

Cumberland, thence along the old Westmorland road to a point near the present Norton Station, then called the Fingerboard. Here the courier turned on to a trail which led to Fredericton.

Like the deputy postmaster-general in Quebec, the deputy in Halifax, John Howe, was subjected to constant pressure on the part of the governor and the legislature for an extension of postal accommodation to all parts of the province. The governor was anxious for a means of communicating with the militia, which were organized in each county, and the legislature pointed to the fact that the census of 1817 showed the population of Nova Scotia to be 82,373 as a reason why postal facilities should be distributed more freely throughout the province. The deputy was under the same restrictive orders from home as were embarrassing his brother official in Quebec, but he met the difficulty with more tact. He laid before the legislature the injunction of the secretary of the Post Office that no route should be established which would not produce at least revenue enough to cover its expenses, and obtained from that body an assurance that it would make up any deficiency on a route. He, on his part, engaged, in disregard of his instructions, to allow all postages arising on unproductive routes to be applied as far as they would go to the payment of the postmasters and mail couriers on such routes.

In 1817 Howe made a comprehensive report on the mail routes in the province. There were two principal lines of mail conveyance. The first in local importance was that from Halifax to Digby by courier, and thence by packet to St John. Beyond Digby to Yarmouth, and thence round the coast to Shelburne, there was a line of settlements, which were served by a courier who was paid partly by the legislature and partly from the postages collected on the route. The second leading route was that between Halifax and Fredericton by way of Truro. This route, which was established at the beginning of the War of 1812, was discontinued at its close, but was shortly afterwards restored and became the permanent road between Halifax and Quebec. From Truro a branch line ran through the eastern counties to