complained that Upper Canada was
unfairly treated in regard to legislation and expenditure; that its
public opinion was disregarded, and that it was not fairly
represented. The question of representation steadily assumed more
importance in his mind, and he finally came to the conclusion that
representation by population was the true remedy for all the
grievances of which he complained. Lower Canada, being now numerically
the weaker, naturally clung to the system which gave it equality of
representation.

In all these matters the breach between George Brown and the Lower
Canadian representatives was widening, while he was becoming more and
more the voice of Upper Canadian opinion. When, in the intervals
between parliamentary sessions, he visited various places in Upper
Canada, he found himself the most popular man in the community. He
addressed great public meetings. Banquets were given in his honour.
The prominent part taken by ministers of the Gospel at these
gatherings illustrates at once the weakness and the strength of his
position. He satisfied the "Nonconformist conscience" of Upper Canada
by his advocacy not only of religious equality but of the prohibition
of the liquor traffic and of the cessation of Sunday labour by public
servants. But this very attitude made it difficult for him to work
with any political party in Lower Canada.

In 1853 there was a remarkable article in the Cobourg _Star_, a
Conservative journal, illustrating the hold which Brown had obtained
upon Upper Canadian sentiment. This attitude was called forth by a
banquet given to Brown by the Reformers of the neighbourhood. It
expressed regret that the honour was given on party grounds. "Had it
been given on the ground of his services to Protestantism, it would
have brought out every Orangeman in the country. Conservatives
disagreed with Brown about the clergy reserves, but if the reserves
must be secularized, every Conservative in Canada would join Brown in
his crusade against Roman Catholic endowments." Then follows this
estimate of Brown's character: "In George Brown we see no agitator or
demagogue, but the strivings of common sense, a sober will to attain
the useful, the practical and the needful. He has patient courage,
stubborn endurance, and obstinate resistance, and desperate daring in
attacking what he believes to be wrong and in defending what he
believes to be right. There is no cant or parade or tinsel or
clap-trap about him. He t