“I believe I have the reputation of being a hard worker. However this may be, I will say that I have always made it a rule to give painstaking attention to seemingly unimportant details in my legal cases, and have frequently won them on this account. This habit, acquired in my youth, of looking after small matters, has made it much easier for me to take care of the large affairs of my clients and of my party since I have entered politics. I know of no surer road to both general and political success than the obvious highway of hard work, coupled, of course, with common sense.
“While the law is the profession which most naturally leads the young man into the political arena, I always like to see the farmer in politics, for the reason that the latter usually has a certain strong simplicity and a degree of sense that often discounts and renders weak in comparison the learning and polish of the professional man. The farmers will be the dominating class in the development of the Northwest, and I hope to see more and more of them in politics.”
In his contact with his fellow-men Mr. Borden’s manner is marked by a quiet dignity and cordiality that has won him many friends. While he has numerous political enemies, there are few men in the Dominion who are as popular personally. Mr. Borden likes to meet and exchange views with the average citizen. A little story is told of him in his recent campaign which is characteristic. It seems that he was on a night journey on a train and could not sleep. A like wakefulness afflicted a young man in the same car, and at midnight they found themselves together in the smoking compartment. Talk began at once, and throughout the dragging hours these two discussed the great questions of the day. The young man, who had just returned from the States, did not recognize his companion, and the next morning in Montreal he remarked to his friends upon his very interesting fellow-traveler of the night before. He said that they had chiefly talked politics and that his acquaintance had been so convincing that he had been won over to the Conservative party. He described his fellow-passenger, and very much to his astonishment was informed that the latter was Mr. Borden himself.
XLVIII
An Eminent Scholar Advocates the Union of Canada and the United States.
CANADA’S “grand old man” is Professor Goldwin Smith. With all his opinions Canadians do not agree, but they are united in their admiration for his qualities as a man and a scholar. A mention of his name brings an expression of liking and pride to the face of every intelligent resident of the Dominion. A mention of his well-known belief that Canada and the United States will eventually be one brings a smile which well expresses the average Canadian’s feeling that their leading philosopher’s idea of the union of the great commonwealths is too abstract and remote to arouse alarm in the patriotic breast.
In spite of this difference of opinion the people of the Dominion highly appreciate Professor Smith’s notable attainments as a student and a writer. They realize that from his vantage point of long residence in both England and the United States, as well as in Canada, and from his careful and enlightened study of the problems of these countries, his outlook is perhaps broader than that of any other man in Canada. Professor Smith, now in his eighty-first year, lives in an ideal way in his Toronto residence, The Grange. It was here that I called on him.
The Scotch lodgekeeper and his wife, in their quaint little home at the gate, were quite in keeping with the air of dignified calm which enfolds The Grange. The house, standing well back in the grounds, is representative of the best architecture of a century ago. It suggests reminiscence and contemplation. It has the mellow atmosphere of the past. When approaching it along the gravel walk you feel that you have left behind the hurly burly of everyday life; that this is a most fitting abode for one who stands apart from the crowd to watch the currents of life flow by.
As the house is, so is the man. Tall, slender and a trifle bent in figure, with a thin ascetic face, Professor Smith impressed me as a man who contemplates calmly and critically, but with a very kindly eye, as from high ground, the agitations and excitements of the times. I made a remark to him as to the quietude of his surroundings.