On the question of the comparative advantages of the Halifax and Boston routes there was practical unanimity in Canada. All classes of the mail-using public were agreed as to the superiority of the Boston route. The editors of newspapers complained that the British newspapers on which they depended for their foreign news--newspapers which were transmitted by way of Halifax--were useless by the time they reached Canada, as the news they contained had been received from New York or Boston several days earlier. As for the objection to having the exchange of mails between Great Britain and Canada carried on through a foreign country, the publishers made light of it. The mails from England for India, were carried across the Continent through France and Italy; and there was no reason why the mails from England for Canada should not be carried through the United States. These views were strongly presented by Stayner, and reinforced by the secretary of the post office, who laid them before the postmaster general. The Cunards also rendered assistance to the same end. They represented to the postmaster general that the service proved to be much more expensive than they had anticipated when they undertook the contract, and that the steamer on the St. Lawrence was a very heavy burden. In discussing the question of an increased subsidy, the company expressed their willingness to regard relief from the river service as equivalent to L10,000 a year. These concurrent appeals, together with the fact that the change in the seat of government from Kingston to Montreal, established the governor in the city which would derive the maximum of benefit from the Boston connection, decided the government to make Boston the landing port for the Canadian mails; and the British minister at Washington was instructed to open negotiations for an arrangement by which the British mails would be permitted to cross the territory of the United States.[260] It had long been an object of desire with the United States government to retain the hold its geographical situation has given it upon the correspondence between Great Britain and Canada. Before steam service was a practicable scheme, the president in a message to congress suggested that, to that end, the sailing packets should be put under post office regulations, and a greater degree of security to the mails thereby effected.