Part 36

+------------------------------------ | Percentage of Total Expenditure to | Total Revenue. Year. +------------------------------------ | Postal Services. | All Services. ---------------+------------------+----------------- 1839-40 A B | 31.66 | -- 1840-41 B | 63.16 | -- 1880-1 | 61.84 | 68.97 1890-1 | 65.79 | 74.33 1900-1 | 71.75 | 80.99 1905-6 | 69.44 | 80.19 1909-10 | 73.75 | 84.00 1910-11 | 72.28 | 82.94 1911-12 | 72.36 | 82.89 1912-13 | 71.25 | 82.05 1913-14 C | 69.71 | 80.02

A: Penny Postage introduced, 10th January 1840.

B: Revenue does not include proceeds of Impressed Stamp on Newspapers.

C: Estimated.

--_Report of Postmaster-General_, 1913-14, pp. 122-3.

[101] "The inhabitants live so scattered and remote from each other in that vast country, that posts cannot be supported among them."--Benjamin Franklin, evidence before House of Commons, 28th January, 1766 (_Parl. History_, vol. xvi. col. 138).

[102] The usual rate of remuneration for deputy postmasters in North America. Cf. _infra_, pp. 49 and 66.

[103] "On account of the scarcity of money, people will forbear to correspond until they find occasions by friends, travellers, and the like, to send their letters, which makes it to be wished that the Legislature might enact that the rate of postage for the greatest distances on the Continent of America may not exceed 1s. 6d. for a single letter and so in proportion."--_British Official Records_, 1764.

[104] Preamble of 5 Geo. III, cap. 25.

[105] "The present rates may in some parts be reduced, and the Revenue nevertheless may hereafter be improved, by means of a more extensive circulation."--5 Geo. III, cap. 25, [S] 1.

[106] _British Official Records_, 8th February 1774.

[107] _British Official Records_, 23rd September 1790.

[108] J. G. Hendy, _Empire Review_, London, 1902, vol. iv., p. 180.

[109] "There is no doubt that the revenues of the provinces showed a nominal surplus, but it is not so clear that this surplus, which amounted to [L]884 in 1801, and to [L]2,514 in 1811, was a surplus on the provincial services. Many years later, when the administration of the Post Office in the colonies and the question of the disposal of the surplus revenue had become part of a political matter of the first magnitude, the provincial Legislatures alleged that the surplus amounted to a very considerable sum each year, and that the circumstances constituted a taxation of the colonies by the Mother Country; but the Deputy Postmaster-General asserted that this surplus was in fact composed of revenues to which the colonies had no claim, viz. the charges for British packet postage, that is, for transmission of letters across the ocean, and payments in respect of military postage, and that in point of fact the local service had never yielded a surplus--that, indeed, there was probably a deficit.

"This I feel myself bound to state as my firm conviction, that neither for the last ten years, nor for any previous period, has the postage of Lower Canada afforded one farthing of Net Revenue."--Mr. T. A. Stayner, Deputy Postmaster-General (_Report of Special Committee of the House of Assembly on the Post Office Department in the Province of Lower Canada_, 11th February 1832, p. 12).

[110] See, e.g., _Report of Special Committee, House of Assembly, Lower Canada_, 8th March 1836.

[111] In 1790 Governor Carleton of New Brunswick manned the posts at St. John, Cumberland, Preguile, and Fredericton with a troop of soldiers, by which means "the route was kept in good order"; and in 1794 the Duke of Kent, then Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Nova Scotia, constructed a military post road from Halifax to Annapolis, and also other roads in the vicinity of Halifax.--_British America_ (British Empire Series, vol. iii., London, 1900), p. 121.

[112] _Vide_ p. 41, note, _supra._

[113] 31 Geo. III, cap. 31.

[114] 18 Geo. III, cap. 12.

[115] Will. IV, cap. 7.

[116] _Report of Special Committee, House of Assembly, Lower Canada_, 8th March 1836.

[117] Ibid., _Legislative Council, Lower Canada_, 15th March 1836. Cf. _Report of Select Committee, Legislative Council, Upper Canada_, 17th February 1837.

[118] "We have failed to discover reasonable grounds for hoping that the several Colonial Legislatures will soon (if indeed they ever will) arrive at such uniformity in their enactments for the management of the Post Office within their respective localities as would ensure the establishment of a practicable system, more especially since it is admitted that the Bill of one Legislature, in order to become effective, must correspond in all its material provisions with the Bills of all the other Legislatures, and that after these Bills have been found to correspond with one another, and had in consequence thereof become Laws, no alterations in them, however expedient it might be deemed by one Legislature for the improvement of the system, could be carried into effect, until agreed to by each separate Legislature."--_Joint Address, Legislature of Upper Canada_, March 1837, p. 11.

An example of the difficulties likely to be encountered, and some justification for the reluctance of the Imperial authorities to yield control of the service, is afforded by a dispute which occurred at about this time between Canada and Nova Scotia concerning the arrangements for the transmission of the British mails between Quebec and Halifax. Nova Scotia refused for the first time to make good the deficiency in the Post Office revenue. The authorities in London thereupon ordered the Deputy in the province to discontinue all unremunerative services, a course of action which proved effective.

[119] _Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the affairs of the Post Office in British North America_, 31st December 1841.

[120] _British Official Records_, 1842-3.

[121] W. J. Page, Report of 1st October 1842 (_British Official Records_).

[122] Despatch of 28th August 1847.

[123] _Report of a Committee of the Executive Council of Canada on the Post Office_, 10th June 1848.

[124] 12 & 13 Vict., cap. 66.

[125] _Correspondence on the Subject of the Establishment of a General Post Office System in British North America_, Montreal, 27th February 1849.

[126] In 1851, $362,065; in 1852, $230,629; in 1855, $368,166.

[127] "He would, were it necessary for the revenue, prefer to retain the existing letter rate than to extend through the Dominion this newspaper impost, unknown in the Maritime Provinces before."--Hon. Dr. Tupper, _Parl. Debates_ (_Canada_), _House of Commons_, 20th December 1867.

[128] Hon. Mr. Campbell, Ibid., _Senate_, 3rd December 1867.

[129] "The Postal service should be expected to yield a revenue; but the service should be performed as low as possible, and if it paid its way that was all that need be desired."--Hon. Mr. Campbell, Ibid.

[130] The revenue in 1868 was $1,024,702, and in 1871, $1,079,768. In 1889 the rate was made 3 cents per ounce.

[131] See _infra_, p. 143.

[132] Sir W. Mulock, _Parl. Debates_ (_Canada_), _House of Commons_, 1st April 1898 (_Official Reports_, vol. xlvi.).

[133] Sir Charles Tupper, Ibid., 13th May 1898.

[134] In 1898, $3,527,810: in 1902, $3,888,126.

[135] "It is ordered that notice be given that Richard Fairbanks his house in Boston is the place appointed for all letters which are brought from beyond the seas or are to be sent thither to be left with him, and he is to take care that they are to be delivered or sent according to the directions; and he is allowed for every letter a penny, and must answer all miscarriages through his own negligence in this kind."

[136] Stanley I. Slack, _A Brief History of the Postal Service_, Omaha.

[137] M. E. Woolley, _Early History of the Colonial Post Office_, Providence, R.I., 1894, p. 6.

[138] New York, in 1692, enacted that any persons or body politic or corporate other than the Postmaster-General presuming to "carry, re-carry, or deliver letters for hire, or to set up or imploy any foot-post, horse-post, or pacquet-boat whatsoever" for the carrying of letters or packets should forfeit [L]100; and the Act of New Hampshire, passed in 1693, provided that no person or persons whatsoever should carry letters for hire, "except letters sent by private friend or by any messenger for or concerning the private affaires of any person."

[139] Preamble of Act (1st April 1693).

[140] "The mail carriers rode through the wilderness in this year of the beginning."--Stanley I. Slack, _A Brief History of the Postal Service_, Omaha, p. 11.

[141] See _infra_, Appendix B, pp. 391 ff.

[142] "An Act for establishing a General Post Office for all her Majesty's Dominions" (9 Anne, cap. 10).

[143] 5 Geo. III, cap. 25. See _supra_, pp. 38-9.

[144] Cf. _supra_, p. 38.

[145] Evidence of Benjamin Franklin before House of Commons Committee, 28th January 1766. The Committee were, of course, most anxious on points having relation to the taxation of the colonies by the English Parliament, and Dr. Franklin was asked questions directed to discovering whether the colonists regarded postage, which was fixed by Act of the British Parliament, and had been newly fixed by such Act in the previous year (5 Geo. III, cap. 25), as a tax. On this point Dr. Franklin emphatically held that the postage paid on a letter was not of the nature of a tax, but that it was simply payment for service performed; and, moreover, the payment of postage was not compulsory, since a man might still, as before the passing of the Act, send his letter by a servant, a special messenger, or a friend, if he thought it cheaper or safer. Dr. Franklin said that every Assembly encouraged the Post Office in its infancy by grants of money; that they would not have done this if they had thought the postage charge a tax, and as a matter of fact the system was always regarded as supplying a great convenience (W. Cobbett, _Parliamentary History of England_, vol. xvi. cols. 137-160).

[146] _Manifesto to the American People_, issued by Goddard, 2nd July 1774. Earlier in the manifesto it was remarked that "newspapers, those necessary and important alarms in time of public danger, may be rendered of little consequence for want of circulation."

[147] "It is not to be doubted but that the institution will be properly regulated by the Continental Congress."--_Manifesto to the American People_, 8th May 1774.

[148] _Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789_, pub. Washington, 1904, vol. ii. p. 208.

[149] Resolution of 30th September 1775. Ibid., vol. iii. p. 267.

[150] _British Official Records_, 6th December 1780.

[151] "The officers of the American Army beg leave to inform their friends and correspondents that the postage of all letters to and from the Army is doubled: but as their pay is fully adequate to every expense, they therefore request them to send all letters by the public post, and not _through any [oe]conomical view_ by a private conveyance.

'Tis a pity that the Honourable Congress did not treble the postage for Officers' letters, as a large annual sum by this means would be put into the public Treasury.

The several printers of newspapers on the Continent are requested to insert the above."--_Pennsylvania Packet_, 22nd June 1779.

[152] In all, no less a sum than $111,967 was advanced to the Post Office during the year 1779.--_Journals of the Continental Congress_, 1774-1789, pub. Washington, 1904, vol. xv. pp. 1412 and 1436.

[153] Ibid., vol. xviii. p. 1142.

[154] The rates were given in pennyweights and grains of silver, each pennyweight being estimated as equivalent to five-ninetieths of a dollar.

[155] _Journals of Congress_, Philadelphia, 1781-2, vol. vii. p. 509.

[156] See pp. 12-14, _supra._

[157] Ibid., vol. xii. p. 11.

[158] Message to Congress, 25th October 1791.

[159] See _Debates and Proceedings in Congress_, 20th December 1791. (Washington, 1849.)

[160] Ibid., 6th December 1791.

[161] See _Congressional Record_ (_House of Representatives_), 21st February 1863.

[162] Questions of the establishment and maintenance of the post roads were dealt with by Congress separately from questions of mail service.

[163] _Reports of Senate Committee_, 27th January 1835, p. 115.

[164] Letter to Hon. Mr. Kennedy, _Life of Sir Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage_, pp. 336-7.

[165] See D. D. T. Leech, _The Post Office Department of the United States of America; its History, Organization, and Working_, Washington, D.C., 1879.

[166] Message to Congress, 3rd December 1844.

[167] Some notion of the spirit in which the question was approached may be gathered from the following extracts:--

"To content the man dwelling more remote from town with his homely lot, by giving him regular and frequent means of intercommunication: to assure to the emigrant, who plants his new home on the skirts of the distant wilderness or prairie, that he is not forever severed from the kindred and society that still share his interest and love: to prevent those whom the swelling tide of population is constantly pressing to the outer verge of civilization from being surrendered to surrounding influences and sinking into the hunter or savage state: to render the citizen, how far soever from the seat of his Government, worthy, by proper knowledge and intelligence, of his important privileges as a sovereign constituent of the Government: to diffuse, throughout all parts of the land, enlightenment, social improvement, and national affinities, elevating our people in the scale of civilization, and binding them together in patriotic affection."--_Report of House Committee_, 15th May 1844.

"It [the Post Office] was a most important element in the hand of civilization, especially of a republican people. There would be room to dilate in reference to the utility of the diffusion of sciences, the promotion of morals, and all these great benefits resulting from the intercourse of mind and mind.... Because it was so well understood by those who framed the Constitution, we find in that sacred instrument that the power of this department of the public service is exclusively vested in Congress.... Every nook and corner of this country should be visited by its operations, that it should shed light and information to the remote frontier settler as well as to the inhabitant of the populous city or densely populated districts."--Mr. Merrick in the Senate when introducing the Bill, 27th January 1845 (_Congressional Globe_).

"And what element but universal enlightenment of the people forms the chief corner-stone in the temple of our political hopes? and what instrument so calculated to awaken the ambition of the people to become educated as the cultivation of the taste for epistolatory correspondence, calling into action those energies of the mind so necessary to the intelligent discharge of the high and responsible duties of freemen, in a country where every man is equal, and the builder and maker of his Government."--Mr. Paterson in the House of Representatives, 1st March 1845 (_Congressional Globe_).

[168] "The extension of the mail service and the additional facilities which will be demanded by the rapid extension and increase of population on our western frontier will not admit of such curtailment as will materially reduce the present expenditure."--Message to Congress, 2nd December 1845.

[169] "The honour and interest of the nation required that as soon as the title to the country was settled, our citizens who were resident there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish the mail, it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is just and reasonable that the letters passing between Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expenses of a mail to Oregon on the pretext that the Post Office must support itself."--J. Leavitt, _Cheap Postage_, Boston, Mass., 1848, p. 27.

[170] Mr. Root (_Congressional Globe, House of Representatives_, 18th December 1850).

[171] "Sir, I am acquainted with the privations and hardships incident to the settlement of a new country: and I do not intend that my friends who are now combating the trials and hardships of California and Oregon shall be visited by their Government with such injustice. The men who are settling those countries are sacrificing their lives for a coming generation. I will not add to their hardships by taxing them four times as much as a citizen of the old States of the Union for a letter which shall give them intelligence of their friends left behind them, and shall chill that gush of feeling which will swell their bosoms, as they take possession of a letter that comes from their far-distant native land."--Mr. Sweetser (Ibid., 4th January 1851).

[172] _Congressional Record, Senate_, 17th January 1883.

[173] The cost of the provision and maintenance (lighting, heating, etc.) of Post Office buildings is charged directly on the Federal Treasury, and does not in any way figure in the Post Office deficit.

[174] "If the postal revenue arising from letter postage could be set aside for its proper uses, the millions of letter-writers of this country might quickly be permitted to enjoy a reduced taxation on letter-writing. In point of fact, there is a dear gain of nearly $30,000,000 from letter postages."--_Annual Report of the Postmaster-General_, 1890, p. 53.

[175] Ibid., 1891, p. 102.

[176] "There is now, and has been for many years, an insistent demand for the reduction of letter postage. The advocates of that reduction argue that the volume of business naturally resulting therefrom would offset the temporary loss in revenue. They insist that the charge for first-class matter is out of all proportion to the cost of its handling and transportation."--_Annual Report of the Postmaster-General_, 1906, p. xlvi.

[177] "As the profit on first-class matter is almost equal to the loss on second-class matter, it will readily be seen that an equalization of rates on the basis of the cost of service would permit a reduction in letter postage from 2 cents to 1 cent an ounce."--Mr. Hitchcock, Postmaster-General, evidence before Commission of 1911.

[178] P. Jaccottey, _Trait['e] de L['e]gislation et d'Exploitation Postales_, Paris, 1891, p. 5. E. Gallois, _La Poste_, etc., Paris, 1894, pp. 41 and 44.

[179] A. de Rothschild, _Histoire de la Poste aux Lettres_, Paris, 1879, p. 60.

[180] P. Jaccottey, op. cit., p. 6.

[181] Edict of 19th June 1464.

[182] Edict of 8th May 1597: "['E]dit du Roy pour l'['e]tablissement des relais de chevaux de louage, de traite en traite, sur les grands chemins, traverses et le long des rivi[e']res, pour servir [a'] vo[:i]ager, porter malles et toutes sortes de bagages."

[183] "Louis XI ne se pr['e]occupait nullement de la correspondance des particuliers, ni du d['e]veloppement des relations commerciales et sociales: il poursuivait un but exclusivement politique.

"Engag['e] dans sa grande lutte contre la f['e]odalit['e], il cherchait le moyen de transmettre avec c['e]l['e]rit['e] ses ordres dans les provinces et d'[^e]tre rapidement inform['e] des man[oe]uvres de ses ennemis.... L'institution cr['e]['e]e par Louis XI pour son usage exclusif ['e]tait donc identique dans son but, sinon dans ses moyens, [a'] la course publique des Romains."--P. Jaccottey, op. cit., p. 7. See also D. Macpherson, op. cit., vol. i. p. 695.

[184] A. Belloc, _Les Postes francaises_, Paris, 1886, pp. 43 and 46.

[185] Regulation of 26th October 1627.

[186] See Charles Bernede, _Des Postes en G['e]n['e]ral, et particuli[e']rement en France_, Nantes, 1826.

[187] L['e]on Cazes, _Le Monopole Postale_, Paris, 1900.

[188] Edict of 8th December 1703.

[189] Decrees of 26th-29th August 1790.

[190] P. Jaccottey, op. cit., p. 287. Cf. _Le Moniteur Universel_, 18 ao[^u]t 1791, p. 954.

[191] Law of 27th December 1795.

[192] P. Leroy-Beaulieu, _Trait['e] de la Science des Finances_, Paris, 1899, vol. i. p. 612.

[193] Law of 15th March 1827.

[194] Law of 3rd June 1829.

[195] "Citoyens repr['e]sentants, puisque l'honorable d['e]fenseur de l'inter[^e]t du tr['e]sor a port['e] [a'] cette tribune un mot, je ne le nie pas; il est vrai qu'au comit['e] des finances j'ai dit que cette loi ['e]tait une loi d'amour; je le r['e]p[e']te, et j'adresse de sinc[e']re remerciements [a'] la monarchie, pour avoir laiss['e] [a'] la R['e]publique le soin de donner cette loi au pays."--Le Citoyen Goudchaux, Ministre des Finances, Assembl['e]e Nationale, 24 ao[^u]t 1848 (_Le Moniteur Universel, Journal Officiel de la R['e]publique Francaise_).

[196] "La question que j'appelerai sociale est la premi[e']re qui se presente [a'] mon esprit ... Je dis done, que, au point de vue sociale, la diminution de la taxe des lettres, loin d'[^e]tre favorable uniquement aux n['e]gociants, aux gros banquiers, comme on l'a suppos['e] toute [a'] l'heure, sera favorable aussi au plus grand nombre des citoyens ...

"Quant [a'] l'avantage moral qui r['e]sulterait de l'accroissement de ces correspondances, je crois inutile de m'appesantir sur ce c[^o]t['e] de la question. Est-il douteux, en effet, que les enfants auront toujours [a'] profiter des conseils d'un p[e']re, d'une m[e']re? Est-il douteux que les liens de famille so resserreront davantage, lorsque les r['e]lations seront plus fr['e]quentes?"--Le Citoyen Goudchaux, Assembl['e]e Nationale, 24 ao[^u]t 1848 (ibid.).

[197] The total is made up thus:--

Local letters in towns of the departments 14-1/2 millions Local letters in Paris 10 " Foreign letters 7-1/2 " Letters passing between different towns 23 " ------ 55 "

[198] See _Le Moniteur Universel, Journal Officiel de la R['e]publique Francaise_, ao[^u]t 1848.

[199] "Je concevrais quo le Gouvernement ['e]tabl[^i]t un imp[^o]t sur tout autre chose pour favoriser celle-l[a'], mais qu'il ['e]tablisse un imp[^o]t, sur celle-l[a'], cela me parait contradictoire. Tous les jours nous votons des taxes pour faciliter la locomotion des hommes et des choses, nous construisons des routes, des canaux, des chemins de fer dont nous livrons gratuitement l'usage au public, et ensuite nous entravons par des taxes la transmission des id['e]es! Je dis quo le Gouvernement ne doit pas faire des profits sur ce service. C'est l[a'] un principe qui s'est ['e]tendu sur presque toute l'Europe. En Angleterre on est compl[e']tement entr['e] dans cette voie. Aux Etats-Unis le Gouvernement fait des frais et des frais ['e]normes pour en ['e]pargner [a'] ceux qui veulent correspondre."--Le Citoyen Fr['e]d['e]ric Bastiat, Assembl['e]e Nationale, 24 ao[^u]t 1848, ibid.

[200] "Les frais de la poste sont [a'] peu pr[e']s de 30 millions. Qu'est-ce que la poste nous porte? Qu'est-ce qu'elle distribue? Elle distribue trois natures d'objets; d'abord une multitude de journaux, et remarquez-le bien, ces journaux sont soumis [a'] la m[^e]me l['e]gislation que je propose aujourd'hui pour les lettres; car, telle est la puissance de l'habitude, ce qui vous a paru fort extraordinaire se pratique sous nos yeux, tous les jours pour les journaux; et cependant aujourd'hui vous trouvez singulier qu'on le propose pour les lettres. La poste transporte done des journaux dont le poids, si je ne me trompe, est de 900 kilogrammes.