Chapter XX

The post office in Newfoundland.

The position of Newfoundland, as regards postal requirements, was very similar to that of the other colonies situated on the Atlantic seaboard. The social and commercial relations of the island were almost exclusively with the mother country, and the trade was from an early period very considerable. A number of vessels sailed each year from the ports of Great Britain to those of the colony, which provided the means for the interchange of correspondence.

On this side but one thing was needed—a fixed place in St. Johns at which letters for despatch by outgoing vessels could be deposited, and at which captains on their arrival could deliver the letters with which they had been entrusted in Great Britain.

The first post office was established in 1806 by Sir Erasmus Gower, who appointed Simon Solomon postmaster. The governor communicated with the secretary of the general post office, who though not prepared to include Newfoundland in the British postal system, promised to forward all letters addressed to the island, by the first outgoing vessels. Three years later, the number of merchants settled at Brigus, Harbour Grace and Carbonear on Conception Bay made necessary an arrangement, by which the letters reaching St. John for any of those places were forwarded to their destination by any vessels which might be going thither.

The charge on letters passing through the London post office to Newfoundland was one shilling and threepence, if conveyed to Halifax by packet, and eightpence, if sent by private vessel, to which sums was added the postage from the place in Great Britain at which the letter was deposited, to London. There can be little doubt that but a small proportion of the correspondence passing between Newfoundland and Great Britain was exchanged by these expensive means. Advantage would be taken of the departure of any vessel, to place the letters in charge of the captain, who would collect the sum of a penny or twopence for each letter from the person to whom he delivered them at the port of arrival.

The course of post within the island was also very expensive. The owners of sailing vessels running between St. John's and ports on Conception Bay collected a shilling for each single letter they delivered.

Governor Cochrane, in 1826, appealed to the postmaster general in London to establish a regular post office in St. John's, in order that his despatches from the colonial office might reach him with security. Failing that, he asked that the despatches might be sent, to a company in London, which was in constant communication with Newfoundland.

The chamber of commerce of St. John's, in 1836, presented a memorial to the colonial office, asking that the sailing packets running between Falmouth and Halifax might call at St. John's on their voyages. But the governor, in forwarding the memorial, deprecated the application, on account of the fogs and gales which prevail on those coasts, and the ignorance of the sailing masters regarding the localities. The admiralty refused to entertain the application.

With the establishment in 1840 of the Cunard steamship line to run between Halifax and Liverpool, and the inauguration of the scheme to make the Nova Scotia port the distributing centre for the mails for all parts of North America, provision was made for a sailing vessel of not less than 120 tons to leave Halifax for St. John's in connection with the steamer arriving at Halifax, and the post office at St. John's was incorporated into the imperial system. The postmaster, Simon Solomon, who had died in December 1839, was succeeded by his son, William Lemon Solomon, and the latter was placed on the pay-roll of the general post office with a salary of £100 per annum.

Governor Prescott gave his attention to the inland post office and endeavoured to have established a regular colonial system, but the assembly to which he directed his recommendation did not act upon it. The governor had, however, managed to secure to the postmaster some regular compensation for his services in attending to the exchanges on the island.

There was at this period a communication every second day with the ports of Brigus, Harbour Grace and Carbonear, by a sailing vessel, which carried passengers and letters. The postmaster received a payment of sixpence each upon all letters, and twopence on all newspapers received from other places, and twopence each upon letters despatched from his office. This brought him an income of between £30 and £40 a year.

The establishment of the post office and its peremptory intervention in the exchange of communications between the merchants of St. John's and their correspondents abroad was a novelty, which was not wholly welcomed in that city. Although the post office had been at their service for thirty-five years, it was without official authority to claim exclusive right to the transmission of correspondence. The merchants could use it or not as suited their convenience.

There were few communities that could dispense with the benefits of a post office more easily than St. John's. The merchants all did business on Water Street, and their warehouses looked out on the harbour; consequently the arrival or departure of a vessel was known to every person interested, and letters could be placed in the hands of an outgoing captain or received from one who had just arrived, with the least possible inconvenience. They could be delivered up to the last moment before the vessel left the harbour, and received as soon as it had been made fast at the docks.

The necessary formalities of a post office proved inexpressibly irksome to the merchants of St. John's, and Solomon was made to feel the irritations of their impatience. He seems to have been one of those officials who make much of the functions of their offices. He delighted in the parti-coloured pencils, which his regulations prescribed. He was indignant with the merchants, who could not be made to understand why he used a red pencil to indicate that a letter had been prepaid, and a blue one to show the receiving postmaster in England that the postage had not been paid. All the trappings dear to the accountant's soul, were to them merely hindrances to the prompt posting and receiving of their letters.

Then there were difficulties of another sort. One of the merchants was notified that there was a packet in the post office for him, on which postage to the amount of five shillings and threepence was due. He, at first, refused to accept the packet, declaring that it could only contain newspapers, but, yielding to curiosity, he took it, and finding his surmise to be correct, endeavoured to return the packet to the postmaster, declining to pay the postage. The postmaster reported the case to England for instructions. He was told that the acceptance of the parcel carried with it the necessity on the part of the merchant of paying the postage, but whether the postmaster succeeded in bringing the recalcitrant merchant to a sense of his obligation is not recorded.

The postal situation in Newfoundland remained unchanged until 1848, when Elgin, the governor general, of the British North American provinces announced to the government of the island, that the British government had decided to grant autonomy to the several administrations in the colony, and called a conference in Montreal to settle the questions arising from this concession.

Newfoundland was not represented at the conference, but the decisions adopted and the course taken by the other colonies stimulated the Newfoundland government to establish a postal system within the island. On April 26, 1850, a committee of the assembly was appointed to inquire into the subject. That the question had been fully discussed before this action was taken by the assembly is evident from the fact that three days later the report of the committee was presented to the house.

The interval between the time of its appointment and the date on which it made its report precluded the committee from making anything like exhaustive inquiries. They were satisfied, however, from the information they had obtained as to the volume of correspondence passing to and from the ports of Conception Bay, that a scheme would be practicable for establishing a system, which should carry postal facilities to the principal settlements as far north as Twillingate and as far as Gaultois on the south-west coast. They were encouraged to make the proposition by the rapid progress made by the post office at St. John's during the eight years of its operation. The revenue of this office had increased from £595 in 1841 to £1545 in 1849.

The committee proposed as an interim measure that the stipendiary magistrates in the ports at which post offices should be established, might be called upon to act as postmasters in those places. The foundation of the service to the north would be a conveyance by messenger from St. John's to Portugal Cove. From this point, a sailing vessel would carry the mails to Brigus, Harbour Grace and Carbonear; from Carbonear, a messenger would cross the peninsula to Heart's Content on Trinity Bay; a sailing vessel would serve Trinity and Catalina on the other side of the bay, and from the latter point a messenger would continue the transmission to Bonavista. From Bonavista, the mails would be carried to the outermost points of the system, Greenspond, King's Cove, Cat Harbour, Fogo and Twillingate, by vessel and messenger. It was estimated that the several services within this part of the system would cost £575 a year.

To the south, there would be couriers down the coast to Trepassey, serving Ferryland on the way; and to Placentia, by way of Salmonier and St. Mary's; thence on to Gaultois with stopping places at Burin and Garnish. The southern route should be covered for £325 a year. These routes would displace services by vessel to Placentia, Bonavista and Fogo, as well as couriers to Ferryland and St. Mary's, which with expenses for the incidentals were a charge of £520 upon the colony. It was expected that the improved services proposed would provide travelling accommodation for the judges, school inspectors and other officials, and by the savings thus effected, the increased outlay for the postal system would be largely made up.

In the following year (1851) an act was passed by the legislature providing £1000 for the establishment and maintenance of the inland post office proposed by the committee. The appointment of all postmasters was vested in the governor, and the management of the system was to be placed in the hands of the postmaster of St. John's. His salary was to be £75 a year (doubtless in addition to the £100 sterling, which he held under his imperial appointment), the postmasters of Harbour Grace and Carbonear were to receive, each, £15 a year, and the other postmasters £10.

The postage on letters passing anywhere within the island was fixed at threepence per half ounce; and on books, twopence where the weight did not exceed six ounces, and threepence on greater weights up to sixteen ounces. The scheme outlined came into operation on October 15, 1851.

The first report of the postmaster general was a serious disappointment. The total receipts for the year amounted to no more than £52 2s. 11d., and this amount was received entirely from St. John's and the three offices on Conception Bay. Letters, on which postage somewhat under £6 was due, were sent to other offices, but not one penny was collected upon them. The committee of the assembly which examined the accounts inclined to the opinion that the postal system might, for the time, be restricted to the offices on Conception Bay.

Solomon was rather alarmed by these expressions of the committee, and in his next report he dealt, in some fulness, with the peculiar difficulties that attended the establishment of a postal system in the colony. No very great regularity, he declared, could be anticipated while the couriers were retarded by the marshy and swampy nature of the roads on the most important lines. Under the most favourable circumstances, their journeys were made over mere tracks or footpaths, while the less frequented routes lay through wilds where neither roads nor paths had been formed and where unbridged rivers and streams had to be crossed, the couriers being often obliged to wade to a considerable depth, exposed to strong, rapid currents.

The postmaster general acknowledged that it was on his advocacy of the system that Delaney, the chairman of the committee, introduced the subject into the assembly. He was under no illusions as to the rapid growth of the revenue; his object was to secure to the inhabitants, who were excluded for the greater part of every year from the advantage of communication with the capital, a ready means of maintaining intercourse with the centre of the social and commercial life of the island. He was encouraged by the increasing revenue to believe that his efforts were being crowned with success.

The step the committee feared might be forced upon them was not taken. On the contrary, the postal system was extended liberally in every direction in which it seemed to be required, in adherence to the principle which guided the postmaster general in advocating the inland service.

In 1858, the colony, having decided on the desirability of direct communication with the mother country, sent to England two delegates—Little, the attorney general and Lawrence O'Brien—to confer with the government and leading shipowners on the subject of a steam service from a British port to St. John's. When the delegates made their first report, they had not succeeded in their objects, but they were encouraged by the recognition accorded to the scheme by the British government and by the promise of a subsidy of £3000 a year to any satisfactory service the government of Newfoundland might arrange for.

It was not long before plans were submitted for their consideration. In the same year, the North Atlantic Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company laid before Little a proposition for a regular service between Liverpool, St. John's and a port in the United States. The company were prepared to undertake a contract for trips of a frequency of not less than one every four weeks, with additional trips during April, July and August, for £10,000 a year. A contract was made on this basis, the understanding being that the British government would contribute £3000 of this amount. But the British government, being satisfied from earlier experiences with the personnel of this company that they could not be depended upon to fulfil their arrangement, declined to sanction the contract, and the arrangement fell through.

In intimating to the Newfoundland government their refusal to endorse the contract, the British government expressed their willingness to assist in procuring a competent contractor; and in October of the same year, an agreement was made with the Atlantic Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company, known more generally as the Lever or Galway Company, for a service of virtually the same frequency as that provided for in the earlier contract, between Galway, St. John's and a United States port. The rate of compensation was to be £13,000 a year, of which the British government was to contribute £4500 a year.

Though for political reasons, this company enjoyed an unusual degree of favour on the part of the British government, it failed entirely to satisfy the conditions of the contract, and after a short period of futile effort, it ceased altogether. It was not until 1872 that an arrangement with the Allan line provided the first direct communication with Great Britain.

In 1860, on the death of Solomon, John Delaney, who had made the postal service his special care while a member of the assembly, was appointed postmaster general. His first measure was to provide for St. John's what he described as a penny delivery service. After consultation with the chief post office inspector in Canada, he submitted his scheme to the legislature. He proposed to divide the city into two sections, to each of which he proposed to appoint a letter carrier to deliver the letters from door to door, not gratuitously as at present, but for a compensation of a penny for each letter delivered. The plan was put into operation on September 1, 1863, but it had little success at the time.

Steps were also taken in 1863 to improve the accommodation to the outports by substituting a steam vessel for the sailing boats, by which the exchange of mails was effected. In November 1860, a contract was made with Aaron DeGraw, of New York, for a service north and south from St. John's. The steamer "Victoria" was to run twice in each month to Twillingate on the north, and to La Poile on the south-west coast, calling at all the post offices en route. The consideration was £3750 a year.

The contract provided for the service for five years. But a few months after it went into operation, the contractor represented that he was unable to continue, unless the terms were modified. He asked that the trips on the northern section might be reduced from fortnightly to monthly during the winter, and that he might omit certain of the ports of call; or, if the legislature were unwilling to lower their requirements, that he might have his compensation increased by £1500 a year.

The application of DeGraw was not entertained by the legislature, and the contractor dropped his service shortly after. Recourse was had to the sailing vessels until 1863, when a more satisfactory arrangement was concluded with Robert Grieve on June 2, 1863. The contract stipulated for fortnightly trips in each direction, and the compensation was fixed at £4500. The "Ariel" was the steamer employed by Grieve for the service.

The coastal service, thus satisfactorily established from St. John's down the east and along the south coasts as far as La Poile, was extended to Port aux Basques on the south-west corner of the island by a sailing vessel. This completed the postal communications on the southern shore of the island.

The west coast was still to be comprised in the system. In 1873, arrangements of an experimental nature were made to send mails from Port aux Basques (or Channel as the post office was called) to St. George's Bay, Bay of Islands and Bonne Bay on this coast. A courier service was also set in operation to provide communications to those settlements during the winter, but many difficulties were encountered owing to the inacquaintance with the country on the part of the couriers, who had to pass on their way between Channel and these bays.

The arrangement thus experimentally entered upon continued until 1881, when the sailing craft, which carried the mails to Bonne Bay was withdrawn, and the steamer "Curlew," by which Channel post office received its mails from St. John's, extended its trips up the north-west coast as far as Bonne Bay.

The conveyance of the mails up this coast was carried on to the top of the island in the following year. Two trips were made by couriers from Bonne Bay to Flower Cove at the gulf entrance to the straits of Belle Isle. From Flower Cove, the journey of the courier ran along the shore of the straits to Pistolet Bay at the northernmost point of the island, and thence on the Griquet which looked from the north of the island on the Atlantic, and down the Atlantic coast to St. Anthony.

Another courier set out from Flower Cove and travelling due east across the island carried the mail to Conche, which served the settlements on Hare Bay. At the same time that the process of encirclement was proceeding from the western side, the settlements of Western Cove, Mings and Coachman's Cove on White Bay, the northernmost of the series of great bays by which the Atlantic coast is indented, were having the benefits of communication extended to them from Bett's Cove, in Notre Dame Bay.

The benefits of these trips were so greatly appreciated by the fishermen in the northern parts of the island that the department arranged for regular fortnightly services during the winter from Bonne Bay along the west coast to the top of the island, and thence down the east coast as far as Canada Bay. On the other side the steamers which carried the mails northward from St. John's to the settlements on Notre Dame Bay, also conveyed bags for the settled districts in White Bay. These were sent forward monthly from Bett's Cove. Thus was completed the system of coastal service by which every part of the island was brought into communication with the capital of the colony.

On the larger and more thickly settled bays, it was obviously impossible for the steamers which sailed from St. John's to stop at any but the more populous villages, and within each of these bays smaller craft plied to the less important settlements. In 1881, there were eight such sailing vessels in the service of the post office: one each in Bonavista and Trinity Bays, three in Placentia Bay, two in Fortune Bay, and one which effected the exchange of mails at Harbour Breton. In Conception Bay, where there were two towns and several villages a steamer was employed.

But though the settlements in Newfoundland were at this period practically all on the coasts, and depended mainly on seacraft for the means of communication, the conveyance of mails to the northern settlements was in the winter one of great danger and difficulty.

As early as 1863, it was determined to make the experiment of serving these settlements by couriers who should travel over an overland route. In February of that year, Smith McKay undertook the delivery by land, so far as that was possible, to Greenspond, on the stretch of coast between Bonavista and Notre Dame Bay, and to Fogo and Twillingate, islands in Notre Dame Bay. The success attending this trip induced the postmaster general to make a contract for three trips each winter.

The government also planned the construction of a road, which would make communication easier between the northern outports and St. John's. The work was entered upon with vigour, the reports of progress making an interesting feature of the annual papers of the legislature. In 1868, a serviceable road was constructed to Gander Bay, an inlet of Notre Dame Bay, whence the mails were conveyed to the important villages of Twillingate and Fogo by sailing vessel.

In 1870 the road was complete. It was estimated to be 210 miles in length. There were six relay stations on the route, and ten men employed in the conveyance. The course pursued by the courier took him from Harbour Grace, his starting point, down the shore of Conception Bay; thence along the isthmus separating Trinity from Placentia Bay, serving the settlements on each side of the isthmus. From the top of the isthmus, the road maintained a northerly direction, running generally parallel with the Atlantic coast, as far as Greenspond, from which point it turned westward across the country to Gander Bay.

The postal accommodation on the peninsula of Avalon was greatly augmented by the completion of the railway between St. John's and Harbour Grace in 1884. On January 1, 1885, all the principal offices at the bottom of Conception Bay were supplied with mails daily, and Heart's Content and other offices on Trinity Bay had their mails three times a week. The extension of the branch to Placentia in October 1888 gave that village the benefit of an expeditious service three times a week.

The northern settlements were given the benefit of the more speedy service afforded by the railway. The winter arrangements were expedited and extended. In 1870, when this service was put on a settled footing, ten couriers were employed. In 1890, their number was increased to fifty-four. The mails for the northern districts were despatched from St. John's by railway to Broad Cove station, where they were taken over by the couriers. Their greater number enabled the couriers, not only to shorten their relays, but to establish a trunk line to the settlements of Hall's Bay and Little Bay on Notre Dame Bay, with branch lines running to the more important settlements to the east and west. The overlapping of the western and northern courier systems at White Bay gave the dwellers in those remote regions the opportunity of replying to their letters without loss of time.

Communication was established with the settlers on the Labrador coast in 1875. Previous to that time, mails were sent as the opportunity was afforded by sailing vessels visiting that coast. In that year, a regular fortnightly service was put in operation, the steamer by which the mails were carried connecting with the steamer on the northern route.

The "Ariel," which was first employed on this route having been lost in September of the same year, its place was taken by the "Walrus," whose work gave much satisfaction to the department. In 1881, an arrangement was made by which the steamer running on the northern route from St. John's extended its trip to Battle Harbour, where it was met by the Labrador vessel, which served all the settlements as far north as Nain.

A money order system was an early adjunct to the primary functions of the post office. In 1862 the postmaster general of Prince Edward Island proposed on exchange with Newfoundland, on the basis of the arrangement between that colony and Canada. The postmaster general, Delaney, was eager to accept the proposition, but there were delays, and it was not until 1864 that an exchange was adopted. This exchange was not with Prince Edward Island, however, but with Great Britain.

At the beginning of 1865 exchanges were established with Canada, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and in 1867 with New Brunswick. In 1866 a domestic exchange was set on foot, the system embracing the twelve leading post offices besides St. John's.

Delaney endeavoured to come to an arrangement of the same character with the United States, but the department at Washington was unable to adopt the proposition at the time, and it was only in 1876 that arrangements were completed for an exchange through the intermediation of the Canadian service.

The comparative lack of banking facilities in the island gave the money order system an unusual utility. At the end of 1865, the amount of the money orders exchanged was $13,112. In the first ten years the business expended to $58,712; in twenty years, its volume had increased thirteen-fold, being $174,740.

Though a steam vessel could make the voyage from the shores of Cape Breton to the south-west coast of Newfoundland in a few hours, the course of communication between the island and Canada and the United States was lamentably infrequent. As late as 1895, mails were exchanged with these countries no more frequently than once a week.

The completion, however, of the railway across the island in the autumn of 1896, changed the aspect of affairs. Trains travelled from St. John's to Port aux Basques, three times a week, touching in their course the bottoms of the great bays, which mark the coast lines on either side of the island. On each of the bays, steamers plied in close connection with the trains, thus giving all the settlements of the island the maximum of benefit to be obtained from a single line of railway. A steamer ran from the western end of the line at Port aux Basques to North Sydney in Cape Breton, and by a night's voyage, Newfoundland was brought into connection with the system of communications on the continent of North America.

The exchange of mails between Canada and Newfoundland remained at a frequency of three times a week until 1914 when it was increased to a daily service each way; and the inland service has been so improved that there is no district in the island, however remote, has not at least a weekly communication with the capital, while nearly all the towns and villages of any importance exchange mails with St. John's every day.

In the sphere of telegraphy the progress has not been less marked. Unlike Canada and the United States, but as in the mother country and most other countries, the telegraphs are under the control of the government, and administered by the postmaster general. Until 1901, this was not the case. By a concession granted by the legislature in 1854, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company obtained the exclusive privilege of communicating abroad by telegraphy, and of erecting and operating lines within the colony.

The system established under this privilege was naturally confined to the more populous districts, and indeed, it covered little beyond the peninsula of Avalon. The outlying parts of the island, embracing all the settlements on bays north of Trinity, and west of Placentia Bays were, in general, without the means of communicating with the capital by telegraph.

The company turned a deaf ear to all appeals which did not promise an augmentation of their profits. They had no objection to the government running lines to the remoter regions, as such messages as would be sent to St. John's from those parts must pass over the company's lines when they came within the system marked out by the company for themselves in virtue of their monopoly. The government would, in that case, bear the loss entailed by the maintenance of these lines, and the company would absorb the additional revenue arising from the transmission of these extra-territorial messages over their lines.

With the development of the fishing, mining and lumbering industries in all parts of the island, the extension of the means of telegraphic communication beyond the peninsula of Avalon became a necessity, and the government had no option but to provide these means, wherever the importance of the districts seemed to demand it.

Thus there grew up two systems, an inner and an outer one, the latter depending on the former for the means of access to the capital of the island. All messages to and from the outer system were subject to a double charge, for transmission over both systems. While messages circulating within the peninsula of Avalon had the advantage of the moderate charge of twenty-five cents for ten words, messages from outside the peninsula were subject to double that rate.

The government were helpless in the matter. They endeavoured vainly to come to terms with the company by which they might erect a line of their own from St. John's to Whitbourne, a village about sixty miles from St. John's, at which the lines of the outer system connected with those belonging to the company. The company, however, stood firmly on the letter of the bond, and it was not until the approach of the time when the monopoly, which was for a period of fifty years, would expire, that they became at all unbending.

An event of far-reaching importance took place in November 1901 in the arrival of Marconi to experiment as to the possibility of opening communication across the Atlantic by his wireless system of telegraphy. Early in December, he caught at his station on Signal Hill near St. John's some signals sent out from the Lizards in Cornwall, thereby establishing a new agency for conducting communication between Europe and America. When he had assured himself of the success of his experiments, he set about obtaining a site for a permanent station on Cape Spear. But no sooner had the Anglo-American company become aware of his intentions than they notified him that his proposed measures would be an infringement of their monopoly.

Thus blocked, Marconi resolved to return to England, but an opportune invitation from the Canadian government led him to turn his attention to the advantages that might be obtained on the eastern coast of Cape Breton. He was not long in selecting a site at Table Head, near Glace Bay, where he erected a station, and has demonstrated the feasibility of wireless communication across the Atlantic for commercial purposes.