THE GOVERNMENT OF THE DOMINIONS 203
may be given to generous "benefactors of party funds. Chapter.
or to business men whose presence there is expected __1
by some great corporation to further their interests in
legislation. Appointments are purely party; Sir J.
Macdonald once deviated from this rule, Sir W. Laurier,
Sir E. Borden, and Mr. Bennett never.
The purely partisan character of the Senate has re-
sulted in the rule that it accepts the legislation of the
party without serious dissent, and that it attacks when
there is a change of regime the legislation sent up to it
with a vigour which dies away as the members, usually
old, die off and are replaced by nominees of the new
government. Hence in 1913 the Senate destroyed the
proposal of Sir R. Borden to contribute 35 million
dollars in emergency to the British Navy as retribution
for the defeat of Sir W. Laurier in 1911. In due course
the majority became Conservative and the Liberals
suffered retribution. Not content with rejecting a
money bill as in 1913, the Senate set up the claim and
exercised it successfully to amend such bills. It rejected
in 1922 and 1924 the proposal to build branches of the
Canadian National Railway, which it doubtless cor-
rectly deemed a mere bait to the electorate, and in
1925 it drastically amended the bill making appropria-
tions to relieve the sufferers from the disaster affecting
the Home Bank, and the lower house had perforce to
acquiesce. Many other measures both financial and
general have since been examined critically though
not so drastically by the Senate, which delayed for a
long time the relief of the establishment of a divorce
court desired by Ottawa in lieu of divorce by Act of
Parliament, a proceeding in which the Senate had
taken upon itself the business of examining the justice