Having now become acquainted with some of the FATHERS of Reform, it is desirable to cast a momentary glance at the material which went to the composition of the Reform Party generally. That material was of the most heterogeneous character imaginable. It included a few U. E. Loyalists of advanced opinions, and their descendants; but the bone and sinew were made up of more recent immigrants from Great Britain and the United States. The organization of the party, such as it was, was of too recent a date at this time to admit of any absolute unanimity of opinion on all questions of public policy having been arrived at among so numerous a body. On one cardinal point, however, all were agreed: it was in the highest degree desirable that the Canadian constitution should be more closely assimilated to that of the mother-country, and that the Executive Council should be made responsible to the popular branch of the Legislature. True, there was a small element--almost entirely made up of immigrants from across the border--who held republican theories, but no class of the community clamoured more loudly for Responsible Government than did the advocates of republicanism, very few of whom regarded their opinions as coming within the domain of practical politics in Upper Canada. On the question of the Clergy Reserves there was less uniformity of sentiment. Many sincere Reformers disapproved of the voluntary principle, and believed in a State provision for the Clergy,[66] though very few of them went so far in that direction as to defend the exclusive pretensions of the Church of England. On this and other important public questions, however, the diversity of opinion henceforth became less and leas from year to year. In point of numbers the adherents of Reform principles constituted a majority of the inhabitants of the Province.