The United States merchant selling goods in Canada stood in a better position as regards his correspondence. He was able to post his letters for Canada unpaid, and the letter came into Canada and went to its destination, where the person addressed paid the postage on delivery of the letter. This was made possible by an arrangement between the deputy postmaster general of Canada, and the post office department at Washington, by which the former undertook to collect and pay over to the latter the share of the postage which was due to the United States department, receiving twenty per cent. for his trouble. The arrangement was a purely private one, for which Sutherland did not feel called upon to account to the general post office. What he desired was that there should be some postmaster in the United States who would act as agent for the collection of Canadian postage on letters entering the United States from Canada, and he found the postmaster of Swanton, Vermont, quite willing to act in this capacity. As Swanton was the United States post office through which all correspondence passed from Lower Canada into the United States, the postmaster was well situated for this duty. The only difficulty was about the commission of twenty per cent., which would have to be paid to the postmaster as compensation. It was necessary to obtain the consent of the British post office to this arrangement, as the deputy postmaster general had no power to make abatements in the postage due to Canada, without the authority of the postmaster general. But this consent the postmaster general was not disposed to give.[185] Besides the objection that the Canadian post office would receive only eighty per cent. of the postage due on letters going to the United States, the secretary suggested to the postmaster general that it would seem inadvisable, politically, to encourage unlimited correspondence between all sorts of persons in the two countries, without possibility of restriction or of learning (should it be necessary) with whom any particular person was in correspondence. Indeed, the secretary had his doubts as to the legality of the arrangement by which Sutherland acted as agent for the collection of the United States postage on letters coming from that country into Canada. The rates of postage, said he, are distinctly specified in various acts of parliament, and the Canadian post office had no power to demand more than the sum required by the statutes. If it were thought advisable to have Canadian postmasters collect United States postage, a new legislative provision would have to be made, which would lead to similar applications from other countries, and the result would be confusion and loss of revenue.