It fell to Borden’s friend, colleague Arthur Meighen, the 9^th Prime Minister of Canada, to write the book’s Foreword. Meighen did so on October 1, 1938.  You can read Meighen’s tribute to his fallen friend below.

An Introduction to Sir Robert Borden’s Memoirs

By Arthur Meighen

There has at times been comment on the reluctance, or at any rate on the failure, of Canadian public men to write books. Statesmen of other countries, and particularly of Great Britain, have added much to general information by compiling in the form of autobiography or historical review an account of the times and events in which they themselves played a part. Some, indeed, of the more gifted have in that way made permanent contributions to literature. In Canada, whether from lack of inclination or because of a too limited area of readers and of market, the practice has made little headway.

Sir Robert Borden has, in this as in other respects, set an example. His Memoirs put together in the last years of a long and exceedingly toilsome life are now offered to the public. Few there will be who will not be disposed to welcome with generous hospitality this final evidence of his insatiable industry and devotion to his fellow countrymen.

The broad features or divisions of Robert Laird Borden’s career are well known—the birth and rearing on the Grand Pré farm in Nova Scotia; the urge to learning from an extraordinary mother; the early qualifications as teacher; the law studies and law practice; the House of Commons adventure; the War premiership; the empire statecraft; and, throughout all, that solid success with which by intense concentration he crowned every stage before the next was reached; these things are familiarly known in this and other lands. What is most worth noting is that there was lying in his path, either as a boy or man, no adventitious fortune. Latent in him throughout all the long journey from a humble childhood to the height of his great achievements there was a firm conviction that he and he alone was master of his destiny and that no one could assist him much and no one thwart him long …

Something which was always well understood by Sir Robert’s friends and colleagues becomes known to everybody in these pages—though politics was in overwhelming degree his life work, and though he earned therein an enduring place in our history and in the history of the British Empire, it was by no means the kind of life he wanted, and certainly not the kind of life he loved. To Sir Wilfrid Laurier the House of Commons was an arena designed and appointed to his taste. It was the home of his intellect and he liked it. To Sir Robert Borden the House of Commons was a workshop and little more. He had capacities which made him extremely useful, sometimes incomparably useful, in that chamber, but he had not the faculties which would enable him to grace all occasions and drink delight therefrom.

He was weighty but not a happy warrior. The futilities of ill-considered discussions irked him. Waste of time in Parliament or in Council was a burden for him to endure. When he came to a conclusion as to what was in the public interest, he wanted that thing done and was impatient of restraints imposed by the clamourings of what the press calls “public opinion” …

It is interesting to examine the qualities which account for the advance to high place and high achievement of one to whom the atmosphere of his life work was uncongenial. The key, of course, was toil—ceaseless, indomitable toil. But toil requires willpower, and as well it must be directed by a mind of native strength, a mind of resources and vision, able to adjust itself to emergencies. Sir Robert entered Parliament at 42. Already he had attained a credible standard of scholarship and had moved steadily and irresistibly to the forefront of the Canadian bar. A student and lawyer he remained throughout his life. Never did he cease to gratify his love of literature, not only is his own language, but in German and in French, and to an extraordinary extent in the ancient classics.

And in the House of Commons or at the table of the Privy Council those of us who listened over many years of his elaborations of policy and disquisitions on all manner of subjects never failed to recognize in action the thoroughly trained and abundantly stored legal mind. His pre-eminence was reached only when his responsibilities became immense. Then it was that he proved himself not only the consummate lawyer, comprehending clearly the manifold implications of diverse courses opening out before him, but the businessman with an organizing brain, meeting new conditions with new methods, selecting his pivotal officers and fearing not to change them, keeping his perspective true and striving toward a long range of objectives in the order of their consequence.

His mind was essentially constructive, but he was able to see the reverse as well as the inviting side of any project and to weigh its advantages and disadvantages the one against the other. The soundness of his judgment will, as time goes on, be more and more impressed on the student of that harrowing period when he was at the head of affairs. It is not too much to say that there stands against him on the ledger of Canadian public service no major error, the penalty of which now weighs down upon us. If he made mistakes, they were more of manner and method than of business statesmanship.

There will be those who differ from the author of these volumes in views expressed and comment offered on some pages. It is quite understandable that Sir Robert, in setting down his impressions and recollections at the close of a long career, may not have felt himself under the same necessity to exhaust all pains in making certain that his opinions thus recorded were wholly justified, as he had always considered himself to be under when, upon his decisions, depended the welfare of his country. Whatever criticisms may be sincerely directed against his public conduct, this at least can never be said: that at any time in the discharge of the terrific responsibilities which crowded upon him through the most critical period in Canada’s history, he failed to give to every duty the maximum of thought and care. It may be doubted if any political leader ever exercised such scrupulous supervision of the written record. Evidence to support his conclusions was documented and preserved with admirable system. Caution born of two decades of lawsuits was always with him. At no time did he himself find embarrassed by mis-statements of the past…

This Dominion has produced few, if indeed it has produced any, who would be entitled to a place in the front rank of public speakers. To such distinction the subject of this sketch would not at all lay claim. He was a competent speaker on the hustings, a still more competent Parliamentary debater, and the basis of his competence was at all times discernible. He knew with admirable thoroughness the subject he was undertaking to discuss: he knew just where he was going, never by any chance beyond his depth, and never venturing on a flight above the natural level of his eloquence. The construction of his addresses was almost invariably good. His memory was capacious and dependable, something of a value beyond calculation on the floor of Parliament. On the other hand, Sir Robert lacked a certain versatility of expression, a power of illustration, an instantaneous command of phraseology—gifts rare indeed but necessary to the justly pre-eminent. He was by nature and by training under complete self-control—so much so that his hearers caught the same spirit. Knowing their leader was at his best when aroused, his followers would find great joy if only the enemy would bait him, and one can remember being happy when word went round that “the angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow.”

Once he entered the lists he feared no foe; he stood to his part in form worthy of a leader’s role; but his highest title to the esteem of his countrymen will be his record as a man of action.

During the Great War and for a time thereafter, relations of the British dominions with the United Kingdom were more intimate than they had been before or have been since. Conferences under various titles were frequent; they were burdensome in length and grievous in agenda. The heads of states, assaulted daily for four long years with news of poignant gravity, confronted in sombre succession with all kinds of unprecedented exigencies, were literally tried as by fire. Among those who were not found wanting was the prime minister of Canada. As he grew in the confidence of his associates, special tasks were assigned him, and all were discharged with notable ability. Some, particularly at the Peace Conference (at Versailles), he was compelled to decline. Mr. Asquith, and more importantly, Mr. Lloyd George came to depend much on his prudence and sagacity. When in 1921 it was decided that statesmen from a dozen leading nations should meet at Washington to reshape on more enlightened principles the foundations of world security, there was sincere satisfaction expressed at Westminster that Sir Robert Borden was named to attend on behalf of Canada. His friends will ever be proud to remember that he took a laborious and distinguished part in the most practically useful international gathering of this twentieth century.

There are those whose desire it is to bid farewell to the things of earth in the full flush of their everyday activities, to drop, as it were, beside the forge. Others plan their journey in the hope of a restful eventide when the weary but rewarded traveller can stroll leisurely along the glades, conscious of having wrested something of victory out of life, and looking back in unspoken pride on the storm-torn terrain over which he has fought and toiled.

It cannot be said that Sir Robert Borden chose to be of the latter class, but such was the disposition of fate. An overwrought nervous system, which an iron will had held to the post of duty through heavy, torturing years, at last gave definite signals which could not go unheeded. As the summer of 1920 opened, retirement became inevitable. Thereafter, with a slow restoration of health to a point where to live had meaning once again, he was privileged for seventeen years to enjoy a serene and honoured but by no means idle repose and to survey from the vantage ground of an unrivalled experience the puzzling transformations of what he had confidently believed would be a better world.

Throughout this whole period he, himself, never ceased to contribute as best he could. In the League of Nations he had the deepest interest. In the formulations of its covenants, he had taken a not inconspicuous part. It was the expression and embodiment of that spirit of international cooperation which, in his view, alone could keep mankind at peace. To the advancement of the League’s mission in Canada he gave generously in many ways, but best of all he gave leadership. One is saddened indeed to think that within the space of his own fast fleeting years he should witness the inexorable receding of the horizon on his hopes, and that before his eyes should close, the very soul of the new dispensation should have been surrendered.

To the last his passion for work and aptitude for affairs never left him. The texture of his mind equipped him for a place of commanding usefulness in business, and where such responsibilities were entrusted to him, as they were in three important spheres, he devoted himself to his duties with unstinted energy and as if to the manner born. On at least one occasion he was sought from across the seas for a very difficult mission in Ireland, but for this he did not feel himself in the best position to ensure success. Within his own country, though, for which he had laboured long, and which he truly loved, he told himself at all times be prepared to assist every good cause and to respond to every worthy appeal. A series of lectures was prepared and delivered in the University of Toronto, and in the University of Oxford—lectures which have become textbooks in their fields. Many—very many—came to seek his counsel, some from the care-laden seats of statecraft, some with other troubles, and, we may be certain, they never failed to get the best that was in him, whether former friends or former foes.

Happy indeed are they who, as the night of life approaches, find that the inner vision does not fade. Happier still are they who, as the shadows lengthen, have full assurance that they bore with head unbowed a strong man’s measure of the heat and burden, who are conscious that they enjoy the undimmed confidence of everyone who shared with them their struggles and anxieties, and who have just cause to hope that when all is over there will be heard from their fellowmen the simple but sincere benediction: “He served his country well.” Of these was Sir Robert Borden.[caption id="attachment_538649" align="alignleft" width="350"] Sir Robert Borden[/caption]Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.