Addressing themselves first to the question of postage rates, the committee at Halifax decided, though with some misgivings, to recommend for adoption the rates proposed by the commission approved by Sydenham to investigate the affairs of the post office. These rates were based on the principle of charging according to the distance letters were carried. The preference of the committee was for a single uniform rate. But they were prepared to waive it, and adopt the rates proposed by the commission, "because those suggestions had already received the sanction of able men well acquainted with the subject, because they believed their adoption would involve very great benefits to the people of this colony, and because they believed those suggestions were more likely to be concurred in by the authorities in England, and by the other colonies, than would be any that proceeded directly from themselves." The concurrence of the legislatures of the other provinces should be obtained in the recognition of common principles, and of the necessity for an independent authority placed in one of the colonies, whose function it should be to organize and centralize the department within certain limits to be prescribed and defined. The report of the committee was submitted to the assembly of Nova Scotia on the 29th of March, and was adopted on all points, except the important one of the rates of postage. The house was not disposed to concur in the continuation of a system of postal charges, which had been definitely abandoned in Great Britain and the United States, and which had been condemned by every public body in the colonies, which had considered the subject. The assembly substituted for the rates proposed by the committee the uniform rate of threepence, and were prepared to face such deficits as should result. The lieutenant governor was requested to send the resolutions to the other colonies, with the earnest desire that they would be pleased to give them consideration. On the 30th of June, the Nova Scotia resolutions were laid before the Canadian legislature, and no time was lost in carrying into effect the suggestion of a conference between representatives of the colonies on the mainland. Wm. Cayley, the inspector general of Canada (in practice the minister of finance), J. W. Johnston, the solicitor general of Nova Scotia and R. L. Hazen, of the executive council of New Brunswick, were appointed representatives of their respective provinces. These representatives of three of the four provinces met in Montreal, on the invitation of Elgin; and in October, the result of their deliberations was presented to the governor general.[287]