1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 271 of the numerous imperial activities which resulted in a clash between the interests of Great Britain and those of the colonies ; but ex pede Herculem is a true word, and in the ignorance and stupidity shown by imperial officials in this case one sees signs of the mental and moral attitude which lost one empire, and was in a fair way to lose another, before the change brought about by the Durham Report. Until 1710 arrangements with regard to their postal system were made by the legislatures of the several colonies ; but the post office act of that year established rates of payment and dealt with the question of surplus revenues without giving the colonies a voice in the matter. Nor was the grievance merely one of theory, for the rates of postage were greatly increased. An ounce letter cost 3s. to carry from New York to Philadelphia and 4s. from New York to Boston. Whereas, under the old system, captains of ships had carried letters across the ocean for Id. or 2d., the minimum charge, under the new act, was Is. In this state of things it is a matter for wonder that from Virginia alone there seems to have come any open protest against the new system. The explanation is probably to be found in the fact that the attempts made by the colonists to evade the post office monopoly met with striking success. A piquancy is given to the narrative by the coincidence that Benjamin Franklin, the champion of American rights, was also, till 1774, the representative of the British post office in America ; and, as such, at any rate so far as the surplus revenue was concerned, was the administrator of a system of ' taxation without representation '. It is interesting also to note in the improvements made by Franklin the influence of a first-class mind upon a system that had worked in a narrow groove. With the loss of the American colonies, a new problem was presented to the British post office. On the one hand, there was the difficulty and cost of setting on foot a postal system in a vast and sparsely settled country, and the anxiety to obtain a surplus revenue ; on the other, was the political need for the development of Upper Canada and the political inconvenience of being, in great measure, dependent upon the United States. As was at the time natural, the narrower views prevailed. When Heriot, the agent of the post office in Canada, directed the post-master at York (Toronto) to apply the surplus revenue from the west part of the province to improving the arrangements in that part of the colony, the secretary of the general post office announced the disapproval of the home authorities. Meanwhile The lowest possible postage from London to York fifty years ago was forty-one cents and that would carry not more than one sheet of paper weighing less than an ounce. ... If the letter weighed an ounce . . . the charge for it coming from London to York would be one dollar and fifty- two cents. Finally, if this ounce letter was sent by the All-Red route, i. e. by the British packet to Halifax and thence over British soil to York, the postage charge would be four dollars and forty-eight cents. Imperial sentiment must have rivalled wit in economy of expression in those days. Nor was it merely that the working of the system gave rise to practical inconvenience ; it was more than doubtful how far it was legal. Kates were charged exceeding those prescribed by the imperial acts which alone gave the system its legal warrant ; and, in spite of the solemn undertaking
