The government party, on the other hand, always ready to fight for things as they were, did not accept the argument of the Baldwin committee. They held that the post office was an institution necessary to commerce, and, as such, it was not placed by the acts of 1778 and 1791 under the jurisdiction of the provincial legislature. They did not believe that the provincial post office furnished a revenue sufficient to cover the expenses, but if it should be shown that they were wrong, and that the post office yielded a surplus, they were convinced that the imperial government had no desire to retain the surplus for its own purposes. Colborne, the lieutenant governor, was in general agreement with the government party. But he believed that, having regard to the great distances between Quebec, and the rapidly rising settlements in the remoter parts of Upper Canada, an administrator, having his headquarters at Quebec could never understand the necessities of the new districts, and that it was indispensable that there should be stationed at Toronto an officer with powers nearly, if not quite, equal to those of the deputy postmaster general at Quebec. In the sessions of 1832 and 1833, the subject was warmly debated.[219] The views of the reformers were presented by Duncombe and Bidwell. They were opposed by the attorney general (Henry John Boulton), the solicitor general (Christopher Hagerman), and Burwell, who was postmaster at Port Burwell. It was one of the complaints of the reformers that there were in the house of assembly a number of postmasters who voted not according to their own convictions, but according to the orders of Stayner. As the result of the discussion, it was resolved to present an address to the king, asking that an annual statement of the revenue and expenditure of the department be laid before the legislature; that newspapers should be distributed throughout the province free of postage; that the correspondence of the members of the legislature should pass free during sessions; and finally, that in the event of a surplus being obtained, the postage rates should be reduced, or that the surplus should be devoted to the improvement of the roads. Stayner, in sending to the postmaster general, copies of the addresses from Upper and Lower Canada, expressed his gratification that the assemblies in both provinces appeared to have dropped the idea of independent provincial establishments, and gave it as his opinion that the legislatures would look for nothing further than such reasonable modifications of existing laws and regulations as the imperial government might determine.