ve must act
only through his advisers on all Canadian matters was maintained.
There was nothing in the available records in 1876 to explain why the
term 'governor-general' instead of 'governor-general in council' was
employed.[5] It is, {77} however, an unassailable principle that the
control of the crown over the Canadian provinces can be exercised only
through the federal authorities.

When the conference had accepted the outline of the federal and
provincial constitutions the danger points might reasonably have been
considered past. But there remained to be discussed the representation
in the federal parliament and the financial terms. These were the
rocks on which the ship nearly split. Representation by population in
the proposed House of Commons had been agreed upon at Charlottetown;
but when the Prince Edward Island delegates saw that, with sixty-five
members for Lower Canada as a fixed number, the proportion assigned to
the Island would be five members only, they objected. They were
dismayed by the prospect, and when the financial proposals also proved
unsatisfactory, their discontent foreshadowed the ultimate withdrawal
of the province from the scheme. The other provinces accepted without
demur the basis of representation in the new House of Commons.

The composition of the Senate, however, brought on a crisis. 'We were
very near broken up,' wrote Brown in a private letter on {78} October
17, '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.' The difficulty seems to have been to select the
members of the first Senate with due regard to party complexion, so as
not to operate in Upper Canada, as Brown felt, unfairly against the
Liberals. Finally, an agreement was arranged on the basis that the
senators should be drawn from both parties; and this was ultimately
carried out.

A far more important point, whether the second chamber should be
nominated or elected, caused less debate. Macdonald opened the
discussion with his usual diplomacy:

With respect to the mode of appointments to the Upper House, some of us
are in favour of the elective principle. More are in favour of
appointment by the crown. I will keep my own mind open on that point
as if it were a new question to me altogether. At present I am in
favour of appointment by the