Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, and Canada itself, were honoured across the Pond in London on this date in 1921. Meighen was in the British capital to attend that year’s Imperial Conference and was honoured by receiving the Freedom of the City of London in a special ceremony. I’ll let the press of the day describe Meighen’s address of thanks after being so honoured. It is important to note that Prime Minister Meighen described the independence of Canada within the British Empire.
“Speaking at the quaint but brilliant function in the historic Guildhall on July 15, when Mr. Meighen was given the Freedom of London, he offered an interesting view of the relations of the Dominions to the Empire: ‘In our political institutions (in Canada) we are indeed replicas of this country. The head of these institutions is the Sovereign common to us all and revered by us all. In that fact, what I may call that momentous similarity, are wrapped up the sense of our common mission on earth and the secret of our unity.’
‘But I doubt if there is any other respect in which the Dominions are replicas of the Motherland. Our geography is different, our neighbourhood is different, our racial composition is different. The assets stored by nature in our soil are also different. No two nations of this Empire have the same path to travel. Each encounters difficulties and enjoys advantages all its own.’”
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.