588 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [PART III 
Dominion it was agreed that it should not be perpetuated, 
and the Upper House was accordingly made a nominee body. 
As a nominee body it has failed, as every Upper House in 
North America has failed, to command the respect of the 
people! Certain differences of opinion arose between the 
two Houses when Sir John Macdonald’s Ministry went out 
of office in 1873, and the Liberal Opposition came into 
power with only seven members, of whom three were 
doubtful, in the Senate ; for example, the two Houses took 
different views as to the conduct of Mr. Luc Letellier de 
St. Just, the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, in 1878, and 
the proposal for the building of the Esquimalt-Nanaimo 
Railway.2 Harmony was restored by the recovery of power 
by Sir John Macdonald in 1878, and the amicable relations 
of the two Houses were not disturbed until the defeat of 
Macdonald’s successor in 1896, when the strong disparity 
between the two Houses became obvious, the Senate con- 
sisting almost entirely of members nominated? at one time 
or another by Sir John Macdonald, as was inevitable in view 
of the facts that he had twice held office and that senators 
were nominated for life. In 1897 and 1898 there was some 
friction ; several Bills were altered against the wish of the 
Lower House, the Bills for an extension of the intercolonial 
railway to Montreal and for a railway to the Klondike were 
rejected * and a redistribution measure was blocked. Pro- 
posals for reconstructing the Upper House on an elective 
basis have been aired from time to time, and the former 
Secretary of State for the Dominion, Sir Richard Scott, on 
going out of ministerial office introduced a Bill into the 
Senate to secure its reform.> No serious step, however, 
t Goldwin Smith, Canada, pp. 163 seq. 
! Canada Sess. Pap., 1876, No. 41, p. 2. 
* On strictly party lines: Sir J. Macdonald only once, it is said. nominated 
a Liberal, and Sir W. Laurier never a Conservative. 
* See Senate Debates, 1897, pp. 735 seq. ; 1898, pp. 280 seq. 
* See a summary of the 1908 debates in Canadian Annual Review, 1908, 
pp. 34-6 ; House of Commons Debates, 1909, p. 1473. It was discussed at 
great length again in 1910, see Debates, 1909-10, pp. 2040 seq., and in 1911, 
Debates 1910-1, pp. 2738 seq. ; Review, 1910, pp. 255, 256.