Canada’s own Sir Robert Borden, the great First World War leader who had left office in 1920, was at the table as the League of Nations was crafted at Versailles after the peace was achieved. It is therefore not surprising that members of the League of Nations Society of Canada invited Sir Robert to address them on this date in 1930. He did so and described for the society’s members his experiences as the head of Canada’s delegation at League discussions in Geneva earlier that fall.
Despite the challenges the young international organization was facing, our past PM remained optimistic. “If the League were dissolved tomorrow, it would still be justified of its works,” he said. “What would you propose as a substitute?”
Sadly, and despite Borden’s confidence in the League, Europe would again lead the world into a great and bloody war less than a decade after the 9th Prime Minister’s speech.
You can read his concluding remarks to his Canadian audience below.
Sir Robert Borden: The admirable work of the League in the framing of conventions for the support and strengthening of its purpose is all to the good and must receive our earnest and thankful sympathy and commendation. But neither treaties, covenants nor force can insure world peace. A flash of the poet's thought illuminated love; "It is to be all made of faith and service." And so is the peace that will endure.
It may be that I am obsessed with vain idealism but I still proclaim my conviction that our ultimate and enduring hope rests in the domain of the spirit. So, my experience at Geneva confirmed me in the belief that the League's supreme service is in the inti mate association of the member states, in the broadening of their outlook, in their training in the habit and practice of peaceful arbitrament and generous co-operation, in the mutual trust that gradually grows and strengthens among these child-states still in the kindergarten. Perhaps many decades must elapse before they shall have fully learned the essential lesson of truth and trust. But let us take courage.
There is still the miracle of fifty-two nations, many of them estranged by centuries of conflict, antagonism and hatred, meeting at Geneva in intimate discussion and in striving for the benison of peace. If distrust sometimes lingers, who will dare call the League a failure? Remember that the centuries of discord and war have been followed by but ten years of the Covenant. The Third British Empire (as it is sometimes called) was a hundred years in the making. If the League were dissolved tomorrow, it would still be justified of its works. What would you propose as a substitute?
Let us then be thankful for what has been accomplished; let us maintain undaunted hearts and hold high hope as to what the future may have in store. The conditions of unemployment, the fierceness of the struggle for existence, the restlessness and de- pression that prevail-all the critical conditions of the present- these may indeed test the influence of the League during the next twelve months...
I return from Geneva with renewed and strengthened confidence in the League's service and influence. Finally, let us ever be mindful that it is with the people of the world and not with the Governments alone that the future rests. I have proclaimed without ceasing the thought of individual responsibility. Upon each of us, within the measure of his influence, rests the future peace of the world. See to it that no careless indifference shall mar our support of the purpose to which our country is consecrated by its membership in the League.”