Borden attends a British Cabinet meeting

On 14 July 1915 the Prime Minister of Canada, Robert Borden, took part in a meeting of the British Cabinet in London. He had been invited by the Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith. Dispatches from London reported the news the same day, and the next day the “Daily Mail” wrote that Borden’s presence “creates a precedent of the greatest importance”. According to the paper, the objections of the theorists had given way before the hard lessons of war, and the Empire had come a step closer to political federation.

First, but with reservations

The press of the time presented Borden as the first prime minister of an overseas Dominion to sit at the British Cabinet table. That is how the event was remembered. It is worth remembering, however, what it was and what it was not. The heads of the Dominion governments had met British ministers before, at the Imperial Conferences and in the Committee of Imperial Defence, an advisory body on military matters. Borden himself, in July 1912, had attended a meeting of that committee chaired by Asquith, together with other Canadian ministers. What was new was his admission to the Cabinet, the body in which political decisions were taken. Borden came, however, as a guest. He did not become a member of the government and gained no right to attend further meetings.

The “Daily Telegraph” wrote that the visit had revolutionised the theory and practice of governing the country that had held for more than a century and a half. Two days later Lord Alfred Milner, one of the leading advocates of closer imperial unity, went further. At a banquet in London he declared that Britain should have an Imperial Cabinet to which the Dominion prime ministers would be invited “not as guests, but by right”.

The Canadian Prime Minister’s visit

Borden had arrived in Britain at the beginning of July. It was his first journey to Europe since the outbreak of war. He wanted to see the Canadian soldiers and, above all, to talk to the British government about the conduct of the war. Canada had already sent to Europe the 1st Division, which in February had crossed to France and in April had suffered heavy losses at Ypres. At a reception given in his honour in those days, presided over by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur Balfour, Borden said that Canada had 75,000 soldiers overseas and as many again in training. When he added that Canadians were not a military people, Balfour replied that neither were the British, the Australians, the New Zealanders or the South Africans, but these were unmilitary peoples who knew how to fight.

In the following weeks Borden visited Canadian camps in England and hospitals with the wounded. According to Canadian sources he went round more than 50 of them and called these visits the most moving experience of his life. Around 20 July he spent two days as the guest of Field Marshal John French at the front in France. On 29 July the City of London conferred its Freedom on him. Returning home in August, he declared in a farewell message that his talks with ministers had convinced him that everything had been done to ensure victory for the army.

Courtesy without influence

Behind the scenes Borden was less satisfied. Asquith’s government received him warmly, but had no intention of sharing with Canada its decisions on the conduct of the war or of passing on much information. The Canadian Prime Minister often learned of important decisions, including those concerning Canadian soldiers, from the newspapers. Borden’s biographers believe that this journey changed his view of Canada’s relations with the Empire. At the beginning of 1916 he wrote bitterly that Canada, which was raising hundreds of thousands of soldiers, would not accept being treated as “toy automata”.

Real change had to wait until 1917, when the new Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, invited the Dominion leaders to London and created the Imperial War Cabinet. Borden sat in it no longer as a guest, but as a member.