Charles Marcil
Liberal
Mr. MARCIL (Bonaventure):
Montreal is now a very large city and it includes many outlying municipalities. When a special delivery letter, bearing a twenty-cent stamp in addition to the usual postage stamp, is brought into the post office it is handed over to a boy who is paid eight cents to deliver the letter in any part of the city which is served by the Montreal general post office. The government has received twenty-three cents from this letter and pays only eight cents to the messenger for its delivery. By common knowledge in the Montreal post office these messenger boys are the worst paid in the service, and I would ask the minister even if he cannot reduce the taxation on letters to at least give some encouragement to these messengers and grant them a better remuneration than they are receiving at the present time. Because these boys may have to go, in the course of their journeys, to almost the extreme end of the island of Montreal to deliver one of these letters for eight cents; they spend practically the best part of the forenoon and afternoon and are even employed late in the evening, at this work. If the ordinary postage rate is going to be reduced, at any time, from three to two cents, I would ask the government to consider whether it would not be possible to revert to the old rate of ten cents for special delivery letters from the present rate of twenty cents, and thereby increase the use of this facility which is not as well resorted to at the present time as it used to be in the old days. I hope the minister will give his atten-
Supply-I mmigration
tion to these matters and see if something cannot be done along the lines indicated to improve the service.