These arguments were ineffective, and a rate which averaged half a cent a copy was imposed. In 1875 the rate was modified, and made a bulk rate of 1 cent a pound, an extremely low rate. The average weight of newspapers at that time was so small that, in the case of certain typical papers selected by the Government for the purpose, it was found that the numbers required to make up a pound were from ten to fifteen. In 1874 the total yield under the old rate had been only some $36,000. The new rate was therefore likely to yield only some $6,000 a year, and the advocates of free transmission argued that as such a small sum would hardly be worth the trouble of keeping the accounts, the Government, having gone so far, might well have taken a step further and abolished altogether the postage on newspapers. The Government defence was that the rate proposed was the lowest possible, and to mail free the papers published in the various parts of the Dominion would be to impose too heavy a burden upon the public treasury.[318] The Canadian people had only to wait a few years for the boon. In 1882 an Act was passed "to provide for the free transmission of Canadian newspapers within the Dominion." No discussion on the measure took place in Parliament, and authoritative statements of the reasons inducing the adoption of so generous a policy are not to be obtained;[319] but in well-informed quarters it is held that, in general, the leniency shown to newspapers is not due solely to the acceptance by Parliament of the arguments usually advanced in their favour, plausible and convincing as they probably are to many minds, but has always been dictated more or less by fear of the political power wielded by them; or, what is really the same thing, as a result of direct pressure at Ottawa by the newspaper proprietors, based on their influence with the electors or the chiefs of parties, and exercised in their own interests.[320] In this view, the ultimate step taken in 1882 marked no concession to popular sentiment, but the climax of the power of the newspaper interest, and a consummation for which they had long striven. At the same time the total abolition of postage on newspapers was in accord with the widespread feeling, which had from an early period found expression in the Legislatures of the Canadian provinces: the feeling that newspapers are of great educational value, especially in new countries and in countries with an extended franchise, such as had been the Canadian provinces almost from their first organization; that in such countries it was necessary to educate the sovereign people; and that newspapers afforded the best and most practicable way.[321]