The Senate is supposed to provide a check on the power of the House of Assembly.

Because the three members of the Opposition and the three Independent Senators can form a majority over the five Government Senators, legislation other than money bills can be sent back to the House for reconsideration if the Senate considers the legislation to be wrong-headed or drafted with too much haste.

The three Independent Senators also tend to be "wise old heads" who have wide experience in Government outside of politics. That, coupled with the design of the Senate, where members sit around a table rather than face to face as in the House, means that debates tend to be calmer and more measured than "up on the hill".

In theory the Senators appointed by the political parties can also be veteran politicians who can draw on their long experience to bring a calmer and longer view than their colleagues in the hothouse of the House of Assembly.

That is the theory. In practice, the political parties have largely used the Senate as a training ground for younger politicians. That's not wrong, but it has tended to see Senators use the chamber to earn their spurs and raise their profiles before running for the House in a General Election.

Three of Premier Alex Scott's four appointments to the Senate last week continued that tradition. In appointing Raymond Tannock to the Senate, Mr. Scott named a man who only missed election by some 30 votes. Clearly he hopes that the exposure that Sen. Tannock gets in the upper house will propel him to victory in the next election.

And Senators Walter Roban and Larry Mussenden are clearly being groomed for greater things in the House as well.

But with his fourth appointment of Sen. Reginald Burrows, Mr. Scott has nodded in he direction of making the Senate a place for the "great and the good".

Sen. Burrows was an MP for 25 years for Southampton East before his retirement this year and held wide respect on all sides of all the political spectrum for his common sense approach to the issues of the day. Unlike many other MPs, Sen. Burrows only spoke when he had something meaningful to say.

These are qualities that can only serve him and the Island well in the Senate and Mr. Scott deserves credit for an appointment that will add dignity and experience to the Senate.

Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons can do much the same thing. There are a number of experienced United Bermuda Party politicians who either lost their seats in the last election or who withdrew from active politics in the last few years who can perform much the same role on the Opposition benches as Sen. Burrows will on the Government's.

To be sure, Dr. Gibbons will want to reward some of the UBP candidates who just missed the House in July as well, but there is room for a member who is removed from the need to score political points at every opportunity and bring good guidance to Bermuda's legislature as well.

If the "experiment" works well, the Senate can become something more than the "second House". It can be a place where Senators who gained wisdom through experience can give guidance to the Country and can bring a longer view of where Bermuda should be going. Because they are not looking down the road to re-election, they can make decisions without fear of losing an election or of feeling the need to follow the conventional wisdom which is often proven wrong.