This thesis is an investigation of the life of James Innes and the significant impact he had on the city of Guelph during the Victorian era. More broadly it is an attempt to show that provincial journalists had an important role to play in the flowering of liberal thought in Canada. It is not, nor does it pretend to be, any sort of comprehensive examination of the development of Canada's liberal society. I argue that Innes, and his kind, were not necessarily opinion leaders. Rather they were messengers bringing word of shifts in ideas and values to the Ontario hinterland. The ideas came most immediately from Toronto and Montreal but originated in the greater metropolitan centres of Britain and the United States. But they were filtered and shaped for local consumption by the small-city editor/publishers.