In the meantime, the petition was easily answered. The practice, argued the secretary, was not illegal as it was founded on an act of parliament empowering the postmaster general to give to certain of his officers the right to distribute newspapers by post. This right had been in existence since the first establishment of a post office and of a newspaper in the colony. Consequently the petitioners, in entering upon the business of publishing a newspaper, must have been aware of the charges to which the publishers would be liable. The imperial bill of 1834, together with the draft bill prepared by the post office for the acceptance of the provinces reached the lieutenant governors of the provinces in January 1835. The object of the plans, it will be remembered, was in effect to have the stamp of legality placed on the existing arrangements, by obtaining for them the sanction of the several provincial legislatures. On the adoption by the legislatures of the several bills, which were identical in form, the postmaster general would relinquish the powers he had until that time exercised over the revenues of the provincial system, and allow the surplus, if any should arise, to be distributed among the provinces, leaving it also with them to make up the deficit in case the expenditure exceeded the revenue. The proposals of the postmaster general were received characteristically by the different provinces. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had no fault to find with the existing arrangements. So far from objecting to the irregular emoluments of the deputy postmaster general for the Maritime provinces, they recommended, when the question arose, that his emoluments be increased. Whenever the lieutenant governor or the legislature of either of the provinces desired the extension of the postal system into sparsely settled and unremunerative districts, the local governments without demur took the deficiencies on themselves, and did not ask why the profits from the more populous districts were not devoted to meeting these shortages. When the imperial scheme for settling the difficulties of the colonial postal system was laid before the legislatures of the Maritime provinces, it found them quite unprepared to discuss it. Until then, they had apparently not realized that any such difficulties existed. The thirteen years controversy between the British post office and the assemblies in Upper and Lower Canada appears to have excited no attention in the lower provinces. When the proposition from the British post office was submitted to the assembly in New Brunswick, it was put aside until the following session, and then, as it appeared not to suit the views of the assembly, it was dropped.