devil 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 an