time had come for him to speak out. He felt that he must make a fair
start with the new government, and have a clear understanding at the
outset. A new general election was approaching, and he thought that
the issue of separation of Church and State must be clearly placed
before the country. In an article in the _Globe_ entitled "The
Crisis," it was declared that the time for action had come. One
parliament had been lost to the friends of religious equality; they
could not afford to lose another. It was contended that the Upper
Canadian Reformers suffered by their connection with the Lower
Canadian party. Complaint was made that the Hon. E. P. Tache had
advised Roman Catholics to make common cause with Anglicans in
resisting the secularization of the clergy reserves, had described the
advocates of secularization as "pharisaical brawlers," and had said
that the Church of England need not fear their hostility, because the
"contra-balancing power" of the Lower Canadians would be used to
protect the Anglican Church. This, said the _Globe_, was a challenge
which the friends of religious equality could not refuse. Later on,
Mr. Brown wrote a series of letters to Mr. Hincks, setting forth
fully his grounds of complaint against the government: failure to
reform the representation of Upper Canada, slackness in dealing with
the secularization of the clergy reserves, weakness in yielding to the
demand for separate schools. All this he attributed to Roman Catholic
or French-Canadian influence.

CHAPTER V

THE CLERGY RESERVES

The clergy reserves were for many years a fruitful source of
discontent and agitation in Canada. They had their origin in a
provision of the Constitutional Act of 1791, that there should be
reserved for the maintenance and support of a "Protestant clergy" in
Upper and Lower Canada "a quantity of land equal in value to a seventh
part of grants that had been made in the past or might be made in the
future." It was provided also that rectories might be erected and
endowed according to the establishment of the Church of England. The
legislatures were to be allowed to vary or repeal these enactments,
but such legislation was not to receive the royal assent before it had
been laid before both Houses of the imperial parliament.

Did the words "Protestant clergy" apply to any other body than the
Church of England? A vast amount of legal learning was expended on
this question; but there can be little doub