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Sir Robert Borden

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Sir Robert Borden Sir Robert Borden By SIR JOSEPH CHISHOLM' BY the death of the Right Honourable Sir Robert Although I have been the recepient of Borden on June 10, 1937, Canada lostane of its many degrees, I never attended a uruvernity. For five years I was principally engaged in greatest statesmen. While the news of his passing teaching, but I endeavoured during that occasioned deep regret. not only in Canada but period to give myself the equivalent. One throughout all British countries and elsewhere. to studying with such a purpose, if endowed the members of the Institute of Public Affairs it with a certain earnestness and persistence absorbs lessons that are never for~otten was an especial loss (or he was the first president and especially an intense appreciation of of the Institute and he took a deep interest in its the value of time. So. the handicap, res purpose and success. When the Institute was angusta dvtn;, which deprived me of the formed, the question of selecting a president came university education that I so greatly desired was perhaps not without its com~ up for consideration and it was thought desirable pensations. But on the other hand, I was that the most prominent living Nova Scotian. who without the aid that comes from close and happened also to be one whose activities were so constant association with keen fellow stud~ closely connected with public affairs in Canada, ents and the inestimable advantage of the influence and leadership that emanates from should be inviL..."'d to accept the post. The desire of great teachers. the promoters was communicated to him and in a Jetter dated February 6, 1937, he graciously accept~ From Horton Academy young Borden went to ed the offer. Glenwood Institute in New Jersey to teach and he This writer has been asked tel contribute a few humourously stated that there he was immediately page£ dealing with some features of Sir Robert's dignified with the title of Professor. A few years: busy life. It was his good fortune to have been ago, the editor of a Glenwood newspaper asked Sit associated and to have almost daily contact with Robert (as he had become), for an article giving Sir Robert during the seventeen years immediately recollections of his teaching days in Glenwood. pi"eceding his removal from Halifax and thus was and he courteously consented by furnishing a given an opportunity of seeing him at close range detailed relation of the events of that part of his and of becoming familiar with the strong notes career. He was able to recall the names of many ofa really greatman. Itis not proposed to attempt of his pupils. and it appeared that several of those an ything like an extended or exhaustive sketch whose training he had directed were still living of his life or of the important measures in which he and watching with pride the achievements of their took part; this is rather intended to be a brief old-time teacher. account of some of the incidents of a variEd and Mr. Borden returned to Nova Scotia to study interesting career. for the bar. There was no law school then in the Sir Robert's life may con\"eniently be divided in­ Province and the student had to acquire his know­ to two parts.-the first being antecedent to 1896, ledge of law in the office of a lawyer and by private the years of his early edccation, his study for reading. He studied in the office of Weatherbe admission to the bar and of his successful practice and Graham. both partners of which finn were of his profession; the second embraces his public afterwards appointed to the Bench and succeeded life as a Member of Parliament, the leadership of to tbe position of Chief Justice of the Supreme his party, his Premiership and his life after he had Court of Nova Scotia. In 1878, Mr. Borden was retired from Parliament. admitted to the bar and he practiced for a few years He was born at Grand Pre on June 26, 1854, in Kentville as partner of the late Judge John P. and as a lad attended the Horton Academy, then Chipman. He then came to Halifax to be a member a good private school ofwhich he gives some account of the law finn of Graham, Tupper and Borden. in a notable address delivered in 1932 at Acadia Thenceforward he devoted himself assiduously to University. His progress as a pupil was so rapid the practice of his profession and soon became a that he was made an assistant teacher in the school leader of the Nova Scotia bar. His fine intellect. in his fifteenth year. For a few years following he his wide reading in law and in general literature. continued the work of teaching. his robust honesty. his kindliness of heart and his He never attended a univern:ty but he was all dignified and gracious bearing give him a command~ his life an earnest and diligent student. Speaking ing position in the profession and in the community. of his early life as a teacher and his lack of university He won and securely held the confidence of a largo training he said: clientele. He was on one side or another of every important case argued in the courts of his native .EDJTOR·S NOTE: The Honourable Sir Joseph Chil­ holm, B.A.,LL.D., II Cbtef Justice of Nova Scotia. Province and he became a familiar figure in tho 6 PUBLIC AFFAIRS Supreme Court of Canada and before the Judicial He was returned and from 1896 to 1900 he was a Committee of the Privy Council. An excellent tower of strength to his party in the House of raconteur he could entertain his friends for hours Commons. He was again elected in 1900. After with amusing incidents which occurred in the Courts the election Sir Charles Tupper decided to resign and in intercourse with clients and witnesses. An ac­ the leadership of his party and the matter of electing 'Countof the important cases in which he was counsel a new leader emerged. Mr. Borden neither sought would expand this article to too great a length. nor desired the honour. The year 1896 was a ttiming point in Mr. In assuming the leadership, he stipulated that Borden's life. Up to then his exclusive mistress he would lead for one Parliament only and that was the law. He had taken no part in politics; at the end of that term another should be chosen. he was not known to have made one political But circumstances over·ru1ed his desire. He was speech. As a young man he was classed as a defeated in Halifax in 1904. In that election all moderate Liberal, but as he afterwards disclosed the Conservative candidates in Nova Scotia were he had voted in the Repeal election of 1886 with the defeated. The next year, he was elected for the Conservatives as he did also when Commercial County of Carleton in Ontario and in 1908 he was Union and Unrestricted Reciprocity became a returned for both Carleton and Halifax and resigned part of the policy of the Liberal party. Shortly the former seat. lprior to the Dominion electinn of 1896, a prominent Mr. Borden and his party, reinforced by an Conservative Member of Parliament came to important section of the Liberal party. strongly Nova Scotia to rally the Conservative forces and opposed the Taft-Fielding Reeiprocity pact in 1911 in conversation with one who was a Conservative and before their assaults the government of Sir candidate in another county, he pointed out that WiJfred Laurier fell. A new administration was the Conservatives of Nova Scotia had been repre­ formed with Mr. Borden as Prime Minister, an sented in the House of Commons ever since Con­ office which he held continuously unW July 1920, federation by men of outstanding ability-by Sir when by reason of impaired health, brought on by CharlesTupper, Joseph Howe, Sir Adams Archibald, his strenuous work in the years of the great War, A. W. McLellan, Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, he resigned the Premiership, and retired from Thomas E. Kenny and Sir John Thompson-and active political life. The magnitude of the tasks it was highly desirable that the record should be imposed upon Sir Robert during the War years, the maintained. He said: "We must nominate Mr. anxieties through he lived. the urgency of each day's Borden as candidate in Halifax with Mr. Kenny. work, cannot be fully realized. He was in a sense An able Conservative lawyer is needed on the a war casualty. The success which attended his Conservative side and Mr. Borden is the man". unceasing efforts to achieve the great end is demon­ This organizer, however, did not himself approach strated by the fact that in Britain and the Domin­ Mr. Borden. One afternoon shortly after, two ions he was the only Prime Minister who held office prominent local men, the late McCallum Grant, continuously from the beginning to the end of the who succeeded the late Hon. David McKeen as Great War. The others for one reason or another Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, and the late had to give up the command but he continued on Hector McInnes, whose recent death we lament the bridge directing the ship of state. He attended entered the law office and asked for Mr. Borden. meetings of the British Cabinet in 1915, was a They were closeted with him a considerable time member of the Imperial War Cabinet and of the and then left as solemnly as they had entered.
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