In considering the question of the establishment of an independent management within the provinces, thus taking over the functions of the general post office so far as they related to the colonies, the delegates discussed the relative advantages of a scheme of a central department for the four provinces with united revenue and management such as then existed, or of one that would place the management of the postal arrangements in the hands of the local governments of each province, with no greater central control than should be necessary for securing imperial and inter-colonial interests. The former of the two alternatives was rejected, as open to practically all the objections that had arisen from the control being continued in England. There was the further consideration that the most practical security against an imprudent excess in postal accommodation would be found in the consideration that undue encroachments on the general revenue for the benefit of the postal service would diminish the means required for other and not less valuable purposes. This motive, powerful when confined within the limits of a single province, might lose much of its force, were the postal revenues of the four provinces gathered into one fund. The other alternative appeared free from the objections mentioned. The delegates, therefore, recommended that the post office departments in the several provinces should be separate and distinct from one another, and under the control, each, of its own provincial government, which should appoint all officers, make arrangements for mail service, pay all expenses, and retain all collections, except the balances due to Great Britain on packet postage. For expenditures common to all the provinces, there should be an office of central audit in Canada of which the postmaster general of Canada should be the head. The duties of the office were to audit the accounts of the several provinces, returns of which should be presented annually to the different legislatures; to collect and transmit to England the balances due from the four provinces on the packet service; and, in concert with the postmaster general in each province, to make all necessary arrangements for the transmission of the mails along the chief or central route from Canada to Halifax and between Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. This office was anomalous in character, implying the inability of the several independent provincial departments to make all necessary business arrangements among themselves, and when the provinces assumed control of their post offices, it was not established.