The several provinces took over the post offices within their territories in 1851, Canada on the 6th of April, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick three months later. The postmaster general of Canada was made a member of the executive council--the provincial cabinet--from the beginning. The postmaster general of Nova Scotia was never a member of the council, but administered the department as a subordinate official. In New Brunswick, the department was administered on the same plan until 1855, when the postmaster general was made a member of the government. During the period of separate provincial administrations, which continued until 1867, when they were merged in the post office department of the dominion of Canada, the record is on the whole one of steady uneventful progress. Postal accommodations were extended, always as occasion demanded, and seldom as immediate prospective revenues warranted, with the result that the expenses generally outran the revenues. This condition, however, caused little or no discontent, as the provincial governments realized, as the British government could not, that on the efficiency of the postal service depended in no small measure the welfare of their people. Stayner, in his valedictory to the postmasters of Canada, took credit for the thriving and effective state in which he left the post office. He believed that the improvements had fully kept pace with the growth of the country during the period of his administration. In that period, he pointed out, the increase in the number of post offices, amount of revenue, and in the number of miles annually travelled with the mails was more than six hundred per cent., a measure of progress not exceeded by any public institution within the province. Stayner's words contained no more than the truth. When he entered on the office of deputy postmaster general he brought with him considerable experience as a subordinate in the service. He gained early, and retained to the end, the esteem and confidence of his superiors in England, and if he lost popularity for a period in this country, it was because he saw the folly of trying to serve two masters. No one perceived more keenly than Stayner the inadequacy of the accommodation he was permitted to extend to the rapidly expanding settlements of the country; and no one could be more persevering in bringing the facts to the attention of the postmaster general. The contrast between the mail service on the north and south side of lake Ontario affected him, as it did the people of Kingston and Toronto, and he risked the regard of St. Martins-le-Grand by expressing sympathy with the general feeling. The postal accommodation, which did not hold out the prospect of, at least, self-maintenance, the authorities there did not desire to have brought to their notice.