The Masques of Ottawa | Page 9

the war one doubts that Sir Robert would ever
have won any title to fame.
The man's whole makeup is a sort of righteousness. He had no use for
the mirror more than to adjust his necktie and his hair, of which a
woman writer said:
"That wonderful hair of his must have brought the unctuous fingers of
many masters, spiritual and otherwise, down upon it in commendatory
pats. . . . I daresay that it was his mother's pleasure in it and the way she
enjoyed running her fingers through it that made him
realize--subconsciously at least--that his hair was a very magnificent
asset." The writer also described the garden of the Premier--his
wonderful roses; how he talked about the personalities of the wild
flowers so dear to his soul, and the perversities of the wild
cucumber--but amiably declined to say a word about the destinies of
nations.
Laurier had his flute. Borden should not be denied his wild garden. I
used to think, watching the Premier in the House, that he would make a
splendid bronze bust of an Egyptian god.
But the man never could dress for the part of leader. He needed too
much grooming. He must always be immaculate. A trifle of neglige
would have ruined his career.
We never heard of his "iron hand within the velvet glove." He had
neither the hand nor the glove. He was an influence; never a power.
Even when the stage was all set for a show Sir Robert could not take

the spot-light. He did not abhor the calcium; he merely did not know
what to do when it was on. During the tour which preceded the
triumphal election of 1911 he was strong enough to win the country
and weak enough to pose for oratorical photographs of Sir Robert
swaying a crowd--on the roof of a Toronto hotel. Those photographs
were published as authentic pictures of the Premier in action.
But real action seldom happened to Premier Borden. He never could
invent occasions. He had no craft to play the game, no intuition to
penetrate into the conscience of a lukewarm supporter or of a man
whose policies and programmes might bedevil the union of the party.
On his tour in 1915 when, after seeing and hearing more of the realism
of war than any other man in the country, he undertook to translate his
emotions to crowds of people here, he was compelled to use the
tomtom-on-the-Midway performances of R. B. Bennett, at a time when
dominating men of both parties put their political makeups into their
pockets in order to do honour to the tragic cause of which on behalf of
the nation he was the spokesman.
Political history is very largely a chronicle of stupendous noises, of
pageants and tumults and shoutings, of strategies and manoeuvres,
secret conclaves and cabals, of sinister intrigues and specious platitudes
in parliament to cover them up, and of occasional great episodes when
the leader feels called to vindicate himself and his followers. Most of
these emotional experiences seem to have been denied to Sir Robert.
I daresay it was mainly his lack of imagination. Borden must, "work for
the night is coming." The day's work was often bigger than the man.
His advent to the leadership was a moral makeshift. His defeat of
Laurier in 1911 was not a triumph for anything that might be called
Bordenism. His conduct of the political side of the war was creditable,
at times splendid, never consummately wise, never heroic. His exit was
as uneventful as his advent. Sir Robert had more than finished his
work.
The Conservative party as such carries no indelible imprint from the
man who for nearly a quarter of a century led it. He led it by going

alongside. He was not a great partisan. He had no overwhelming and
audacious bigotries.
Borden was the first Conservative leader of note who never could play
the ace of Quebec. The Laurier Cabinet knew how to play politics by
imagination. Borden had nothing but a demoralized remnant, which the
Liberals pillaged when they discarded Free Trade, helped themselves to
a high, virtually protective, tariff for revenue only, took a reef out of
the Tory "old flag" monopoly by establishing the British Preference
and sent a contingent to the South African War in the name of Empire.
Laurier was master in Quebec, in the new West whose two new
Provinces he created, in immigration, in great railways, in a deeper St.
Lawrence, in flamboyant adventures with great harbours, in the Quebec
Bridge. Borden as yet was master of nothing. Such brilliance and
success had never been confronted by such a demoralized party and so
much drab common sense in a leader.
Sir Robert's Premiership was a desperate inheritance. The direct plunge