I am sure it will not be within my lips to find fault with the departure from the ordinary custom into which this House has fallen this evening. The remarks which have been made with regard to the Senate I sympathize with most cordially. I think it is an advantage to the Senate to have in it members of the Cabinet who are able with authority to communicate to this House the views and the principles which actuate the Government in carrying on the business of the country. With reference to the number of them, and with reference to the diminution in that number, and to the nature and extent of the business which the Senate has recently been doing, I think there is much to be said and thought of that the Senate has not yet fully considered. To my mind, the Senate to some extent is in a transition state. At first its functions were not, perhaps, thoroughly well understood. We had Ministers here who ruled over large spending departments, and who were obliged to seek their resources from the people by the medium of deputies, or agents, or representatives in the other House, not being in a position to speak directly to those who held the purse, and give the requisite information as to what they proposed to do with the money. I do not feel at all satisfied that this House is the proper place for those who rule over the great spending departments. I think that is very doubtful, and that this House has functions which have not yet been by any means exercised to the utmost. It is, as every one may see who has heard what has been said this evening, free from all rancorous party feeling; it is animated by a desire for the progress and success of the country, and altogether guided by a wish to perform its duty in directing and carrying forward legislation in the best possible form in the interests of the country. That seems to me to be recognized as one of the truly important functions of the Senate. It has the right of inquiry, like the other House, and it has been using of late that right of inquiry by prosecuting investigation into matters of the greatest importance to the country. That is another of the important duties of the Senate, and one that can be exercised by us, apart from the influence of that kind of party feeling which must necessarily to some extent, attach to almost every step in a House largely governed by party considerations. As to its legislation, we have already on a former occasion discussed that subject at considerable length and I think every hon. member has recognized that this Houses possesses a wide field for its labours in legislation. Its seats are garnished by men from every profession and business in the Dominion, and from the most experienced men among them in every section of Canada, and if valuable opinions on banking, law, and business of all kinds, are required in any detail of legislation -- and they are invariably needed, as everyone knows -- they can be found on the benches of this House, I venture to say, in as great perfection and efficiency as in any assembly in this Dominion. It appears to me, therefore, that with these two great functions and others analogous to them, this Senate has plenty of work before it. I never despaired of the Senate; never thought there was any danger of its functions not being appreciated by the people, if it were only true to itself; and what we have to do now, as I think we are emerging from our state of transition, is to prove to the people that we possess powers equally important and exercise them in a manner equally beneficial to the country in our own departments to those that are possessed and exercised by other branches of the Legislature in theirs.