Throughout this period he was not always on the side of Brown and the Opposition stalwarts. On the important question of the tariff he voted with the government. In 1858 Cayley had introduced a budget with additions to existing duties. He was bending to the drift of opinion in favour of protection for the juvenile industries of Canada, and was also in search of increased revenue. Galt, who became finance minister in 1858, was influenced by similar considerations. He imposed duties of 20% and 25% on manufactured goods, with the aim of seeking more public revenue and incidentally providing protection to Canadian manufacturers. To George Brown and his followers who had absorbed the free trade doctrines of British liberalism Galt's protective principles were heresy. Brown's organ, the Toronto _Globe_, thundered against them as pernicious. But McGee, a frank protectionist, championed them as necessary for the development of industrial as well as agrarian activity. "Where there were no producing cities as well as consuming cities, there had been no prosperity--the urban and the rural population must bear some adequate proportion to each other before security and safety could be established." This creed was similar to that preached in the same period by Horace Greeley in the republic to the south. It has continued since to have an influence on Canadian and American statesmen. In the four years that McGee sat on the opposition benches, the gravest question facing the United Canadas was the fate of the union. Largely on the recommendation of Lord Durham and Lord Sydenham, the two provinces had been united in 1841. But, contrary to Durham's intention, little attempt had been made to merge into one the two peoples, the French of the lower province and the British of the upper. Complete fusion was perhaps impossible. In any case it had been made difficult by the provision of the Union Act that equal representation should be conceded to each province. The two sections of the country thus being recognized as distinct units, the members of the legislature, as representatives of one or the other unit, contended for sectional advantages. At the outset the population of Lower Canada had been larger by 150,000, but in the passage of a few years the situation was reversed. The Upper Canadian members now became sensitive that their province was not receiving benefits commensurate with their numbers. In George Brown they had an eloquent and fearless advocate. In his opinion, the union was a complete failure because it did not succeed in creating a united people. In addition he considered that it upheld an injustice, for it allowed one community to govern another more numerous. His case was stated emphatically in the _Globe_ "It must be obvious to every intelligent man that to accomplish the great ends contemplated by the union, and to draw closer the bonds of sympathy uniting the people of