Another point is the extraordinary amount of time and labour given to the constitution of the senate. "The conference proceedings," wrote Mr. Brown, "get along very well, considering we were very near broken up on the question of the distribution of members in the Upper Chamber of the federal legislature, but fortunately, we have this morning got the matter amicably compromised, after a loss of three days in discussing it." During the latter years of the union, the elective system had prevailed in Canada, and Mowat, Macdougall and others favoured continuing this practice, but were overruled. Brown joined Macdonald in supporting the nominative system. His reasons were given in his speech in the legislature in 1865. He believed that two elective chambers were incompatible with the British parliamentary system. The Upper Chamber, if elected, might claim equal power with the Lower, including power over money bills. It might amend money bills, might reject all legislation, and stop the machinery of government. With a Conservative majority in one House, and a Reform majority in the other, a dead-lock might occur. To the objection that the change from the elective to the nominative system involved a diminution of the power of the people, Mr. Brown answered that the government of the day would be responsible for each appointment. It must be admitted that this responsibility is of little practical value, and that Mr. Brown fully shared in the delusions of his time as to the manner in which the senate would be constituted, and the part it would play in the government of the country. A rupture was threatened also on the question of finance. A large number of local works which in Upper Canada were paid for by local municipal taxation, were in the Maritime Provinces provided out of the provincial revenues. The adjustment was a difficult matter, and finally it was found necessary for the financial representatives of the different provinces to withdraw, for the purpose of constructing a scheme. On October 28th the conference was concluded, and its resolutions substantially form the constitution of Canada. On October 31st Brown wrote: "We got through our work at Quebec very well. The constitution is not exactly to my mind in all its details--but as a whole it is wonderful, really wonderful. When one thinks of all the fighting we have had for fifteen years, and finds the very men who fought us every inch, now going far beyond what we asked, I am amazed and sometimes alarmed lest it all go to pieces yet. We have yet to pass the ordeal of public opinion in the several provinces, and sad, indeed, will it be if the measure is not adopted by acclamation in them all. For Upper Canada we may well rejoice on the day it becomes law. Nearly all our past difficulties are ended by it, whatever new ones may arise."