Note 319 — II THE RATE FOR NEWSPAPERS

"There was good reason for the enactment of the old law that made the rate for the carriage of newspapers a cent a pound, and there never was even a semblance of sense or reason or any request for the repeal of that law. The truth is that its repeal was a mere whim of a gentleman of the Senate, who, anxious to pose in the niche of personal popularity, jollied through Parliament a measure that has cost this country in postal rates millions of dollars, creating a big deficit in the spending department, which has stood in the way of reform every time a reform was proposed."—Mr. Ross Robertson, Parl. Debates, Canada (Commons), 13th May 1898.