The rates of postage on letters were, according to present day standards, exorbitant. But they were no higher than those charged in England; and after all the post office was but little used by the masses of the people. It is doubtful if the post office were employed in 1830 any more freely than the telegraph is to-day. In their contention that it was a violation of constitutional guarantees to send the surplus post office revenue to England, the assemblies were undoubtedly correct, but loyal people bear many things of that kind easily. At this time, however, the question was taken up by a body to whom the postage rates were a personal grievance, and who at the same time possessed the means of successful agitation. In the beginning of 1829, a number of newspaper publishers in Lower Canada approached the governor general, Sir James Kempt, with a request that they might be relieved of the payment of postage on the newspapers which they sent to subscribers.[214] They did not ask that the postage be remitted altogether. All they desired was that the postage should be collected from the subscribers and not from themselves. They also suggested that the charge might be fixed at one penny per copy. Stayner declared that he had no power to enter into such an arrangement. The publishers thereupon changed their request, and asked that they might be put on the same footing as the newspaper publishers in England stood, and be thus entirely exempt from postage on their newspapers. British publishers had enjoyed this concession since 1825, but as they still had to pay a heavy excise duty on the paper they used, they could not be regarded as free from public charges. In Canada there was no stamp duty on paper. This difference between their situation and that of their brethren in England was pointed out to the publishers, but the explanation failed to satisfy. One of the publishers, who had some inkling of the fact that the newspaper postage did not go into the public revenue, but formed part of the emoluments of the deputy postmaster general, observed that with as much consistency a toll keeper might insist on farmers paying high charges to him, because they paid no tithes.