CHEAP POSTAGE IN CANADA. 
Americans are apt to speak of Canadians as rather a slow people, backward in adopting the 
improvements of the age. We are prone to think of our neighbors as somewhat behind the spirit 
of the times, while we consider the great Yankee nation as alive and progressive, ready for all 
improvements that promise good. Our national self-esteem will be somewhat cooled, perhaps, 
when we consider the action of the two governments on the subject of postage. Our law-makers 
are using the power delegated to them to embarrass trade and burden the people with unnecessary 
expense, just to please and enrich the express companies; actually driving the trade from the gov¬ 
ernment into the hands of these corporations, by unnecessarily high rates of postage. Tens of 
thousands of dollars have the Postal Department lost by making the people pay sixteen cents a 
pound on all merchandise and transient papers. It costs now about four cents to send a paper to 
a friend, and we have to pay thirty-two cents a quart for Corn and Beans and such things, more 
than the first cost of the articles. 
Things are not so in Canada. Canadian parliaments are constantly lowering instead of increas¬ 
ing their rates of postage. Canadian law-makers don’t pass laws when they are asleep and then 
excuse themselves because they didn’t know what they were voting for. They do not try to 
introduce the by-gone days of dear postage and light mails. They are neither bought nor duped 
nor dined nor wined by express companies until they are fitted to do their bidding. Canadian 
rulers are not always tinkering at the postal laws in the vain effort to please wealthy corporations, 
and at the same time hoodwink while they cheat the people. They are not always trying to see 
how much meanness the people can be induced to endure. They are trying to give the people 
the benefit of the lowest possible rates of postage, believing this to be for the general good. 
The consequence is, transient newspapers are carried in the mails in Canada at one cent for 
four ounces, and all kinds of merchandise at FOUR CENTS A POUND, while the great 
American nation which, until last winter, was charging EIGHT CENTS A POUND for mer¬ 
chandise, raised its price to SIXTEEN CENTS, and FOUR CENTS for an ordinary paper. 
After such an exhibit, we have not much cause for boasting. 
- — » —- 
THE RETURN TO CHEAP POSTAGE. 
Under the above heading the Rural A T eiv Yorker , of November 5th, gives an interesting and 
valuable article, which we are tempted to copy. It tells the whole story, what the people want 
and what they will have. Officials may try to conciliate the newspapers by reducing rates on 
transient papers, and allowing it to remain as present on merchandise, but this will neither 
deceive nor satisfy the people. They may do this and retain the favor or the pay of the express 
companies, because papers are not carried by express. Indeed, the express companies did not 
ask nor expect transient papers to be included in the advanced rates — that was a blunder, and 
caused the newspapers to denounce the change. That time those in the plot with the express 
companies “caught a Tartar” by mistake, when they were only trying to steal a horse; now they 
would like to let the Tartar go and hold on to the horse, and make believe that this was a great 
concession. The people and the press are too wise to be deceived, and too independent to sub¬ 
mit to this wrong. The Rural speaks as follows : 
It is announced from Washington that the Postmaster-general is opposed to the absolute repeal of the Amend¬ 
ment to the Postal Law passed last winter; but will favor a restoration of cheap postage on newspapers while 
opposing any reduction of rates on other third-class matter. This compromise of the question will not satisfy the 
country. The people have found the cheap rates for carrying plants, seeds, and other small articles so convenient 
that a large and rapidly increasing business was growing up before the postage on such articles was arbitrarily 
doubled for the apparent benefit of nobody but the express companies. Reduction of postage on newspapers to old 
rates would leave the express monopoly unaffected, and that alone is sufficient reason why the restoration of cheap 
rates should apply to everything. There was an active and influential lobby working in Congress for the increase 
of postage rates, giving dinners and spending money freely. That lobby succeeded in effecting its object, and now 
the people demand of Congress that the work thus done shall be reversed, and postage restored to the rates which 
prevailed a year ago. All parties concerned in securing the increased postage have disavowed responsibility for 
the new law. We have been repeatedly told that the Postmaster-general did not demand nor desire the increase, 
and Senator Hamlin says that he did his part in this work through “inadvertence," and the whole thing was an 
accident. If, however, the increased postage be not altogether done away with, it will look very much like one of 
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