Robert Laird Borden

Beginnings and career

Borden was born and was educated with Large-Pre, in Nova Scotia, an agricultural community in the north of the Annapolis valley where its great-grandfather (Perry Borden, father) had been installed on grounds Acadie born in 1760. It makes its studies with the Acacia Academy Villa. He considered his father, Andrew Borden, like " a man equipped with great aptitudes and excellent a jugement" , a man " calm, contemplative, of mentality philosophique" ; however, " it missed energy and did not have a great gift for the affaires." His/her mother, Eunice Jane Laird, were more determined: Borden admired " strength of character, remarkable energy, great ambition and aptitudes exceptionnelles." Its ambition was transmitted to its first-born, which applied to its studies while helping his/her parents in the work of farmer that he hated so much.

Of 1869 with 1874, it worked as teacher with Large-Pre and has Matawan, with the New Jersey. Not seeing any future in teaching, it turned over to Nova Scotia in 1874 to be a trainee during four years at a lawyer firm with Halifax (without university formation); it was accepted with the bar of Nova Scotia in 1878, being classified first with the examinations of the bar. Borden went then to Kentville (Nova Scotia) like pertenaire junior of the preserving lawyer John P. Chipman. In 1882, Wallace Graham required of him to return in Halifax to join the preserving lawyer firm directed by Graham and Charles Hibbert Tupper. According to the departure of Graham, which was named judge, and of Tupper who launched out in policy, Borden became the partner senior with the autumn of 1889, at the age of only 35 years. Its ensured financial safety from now on, it married the girl of a quincailler of Halifax, Laura Bond (1863 - 1940), the September 25th 1889. They did not have any child. In 1894, it bought a great property on the southern part of the Quinpool way; the couple baptized their new residence " Pinehurst". In 1893, it gained the first of two causes which it carried before the legal committee of the private Council of the United Kingdom. It represented the majority of the most important companies of Halifax, and belonged to the boards of directors of several Nova Scotians companies, including Bank off Nova Scotia and the insurance company Crown Life. President of Nova Scotia Barristers' Society in 1896, it took the initiative to organize the meetings founders of the Association of the Canadian Bar with Montreal in 1896. When it started to be solicited to launch out in policy, Borden held the largest law firm of the seaboard provinces, and had become very rich.

Political career of 1896 to 1920

Borden was elected Député of a district of Halifax at the time of the federal election of 1896, the same one where Wilfrid Laurier became Prime Minister. Borden took the direction of the Conservative party, becoming chief of the opposition, in 1901. It quietly rebuilds the party, which had lost of its capacity and its influence with the defeat to sir Charles Tupper in 1896. To the elections of 1911, it was carried to the capacity, making countryside against the plan of Bay-tree found the Libre-échange between Canada and the the United States. Borden and the conservatives preached the " rather; preference impériale" , i.e. the use of customs tariffs to decrease the imports coming from the outside of the British Empire.

As a Prime Minister of Canada during the First World War, Borden transformed his government into an administration of time of war, adopting the Loi to the measures of war in 1914. Borden urged Canada required 500.000 soldiers for the effort of war. However, the volunteers were made rare when Canadian realized that there would not be fine a rapid and easy with the war. Borden was given to however respect its engagements: it made adopt the Loi concerning the military service , which led to the crisis of the conscription of 1917, which divided the country on linguistic lines. The unpopular question of the conscription would have surely rung the knell of its government to the election of 1917, but Borden recruited members of the Liberal party (Bay-tree refused) for the creation of a unionistic government. With the election of 1917, candidates of the " gouvernement" (including theunionistic ones) crushed the " liberals of Laurier" opposition to English Canada, which gave a very large Parliamentary majority to Borden.

The war made it possible Canada to be affirmed like independent capacity. Borden wanted to create a single Canadian army, rather than to have soldiers separate and assigned with British divisions. Sam Hughes, the Minister for the militia, made sure that Canadian was well involved and prepared to fight within their own divisions, and the general Arthur Currie was a judicious chief for Canadian divisions in Europe, though they were always under the British command. Nevertheless, the Canadian troops showed that they were among the best in the world, being dissociated with the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele, and especially the Bataille of the peak of Vimy.

As regards international businesses, Borden played a crucial role in the transformation of the British Empire into a partnership of equal states: the the Commonwealth, a term which was discussed for the first time at an imperial conference with London during the war. Borden also introduced the first income taxes, which had at the time being a temporary measurement, but it was never repealed thereafter.

Convinced that Canada had acquired the statute of nation on the battle fields in Europe, Borden required that the country have a seat separated with the conference from peace from Paris. The the United Kingdom was opposed to it initially, but also the the United States of America, which considered that such a delegation would be only one additional vote for the British. Borden retorted that since Canada had lost more men than the United States in the war, it had at least deserved the representation of a minor capacity. British the Prime Minister David Lloyd George ends by yielding, and convincing the reticent Americans to accept the presence of Canadian separate delegations, Australia born, New Zealand and South-African. Not only the persévérence of Borden made it possible it to the Prime Minister to represent Canada with Paris as a nation, it also ensured that each Dominion could individually sign the Traité of Versailles, and separately receive their statute of member to the Société of the Nations.

With the insistence of Borden, the treaty was ratified by the Parliament of Canada. Borden was the last Prime Minister to be made knight: the House of Commons voted so that the practice to decree titles with Canadian is not continued any more in 1919, with the adoption of the Nickle resolution.

This same year, Borden authorized the use of the military force to put an end to the general strike Winnipeg. Between 1914 and 1917, in answer to the xenophobia directed against the citizens of the Empire Austro-Hungarian, result of the First World War, 8.579 Europeans of the east were interned. This includes about 5.000 canado-Ukrainians, from which some had been born in Canada. Eighty thousand people moreover were recorded, removing their basic civil laws. One removed the right to vote in 1917 to them.

The government Borden nationalized the railroad companies Canadian Northern Railway and Grand Trunk Railway to create what was going to become the Canadian National.

Sir Robert Borden resigned of the post of Prime Minister in 1920. He was chancellor of the Queen' S University of 1924 with 1930, and was president of two financial institutions. Borden died in Ottawa the June 10th 1937. It is buried with the Beechwood cemetery, in Ottawa (Ontario). Borden was the last Prime Minister to be born before 1867, the year of the confederation.

It is reproduced on the Canadian ticket of one hundred dollars.

Principal adopted laws

Law to the measures of war ( War Measures Act ) in 1914
Law taxing the profits with businesses in time of war in 1916
Law of the tax of war on the income in 1917
Law relating to the military service in 1917

External bonds

Biography of the '' biographical Dictionnaire of Canada in line ''
federal political Experiment
Monument dedicated to Borden with Large-Pre, with charts and genealogy of the family Borden

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