Approximately 40 volumes of addresses given between 1939 and 1967 to audiences both within and outside McGill cover a wide range of educational and social topics. Press releases, obituaries and messages (e.g. for Old McGill) are included. The unbound addresses cover James' pre- and post-retirement years. The first category is largely concerned with education, including McGill history. This category also contains information files used for preparing speeches. The post-retirement category focuses on broader subjects, such as the nature of the university and the work of OXFAM.

Fonds consists of originals, copies, printed materials and photographs pertaining to every aspect of James’ education, private life, and career.

Series consists of 1) Private and Autobiographical Records; 2) General; 3) Research; 4) Teaching; 5)
Addresses; 6) Pictorial Materials; and 7) Miscellaneous Materials.

Approximately one-fifth of these papers consist of general files of correspondence and informational material. These files cover James' career from the Wharton period until his death. Different file sequences appear at different stages of James' life, but there are chronological overlaps.

Files from the Wharton period (approx.1 m) largely concern his research, academic affairs at the University of Pennsylvania, and relations with personal friends.

Three meters of files arise from his McGill years. They contain correspondence of a non-administrative nature, for example, invitations to speak or dine, from McGill departments, organizations and individuals, but also include James' inaugural addresses as Principal and papers pertaining to seminars conducted by Lord Cobbold at McGill in 1961. Other correspondents include learned societies (for example, American Academy of Political and Social Sciences), individuals writing to him in his capacity as economist or international educationist, people requesting articles and speeches, and friends and members of his family, including his wife. Some personal financial materials are intermingled. Supplementing this series are bound volumes of non-administrative correspondence from 1937 to 1948. For the most part, these letters are of a private or family nature, but there are surprising incursions of official McGill business, e.g. a letter from John Fraser declining Deanship of Medicine (1944), and a curriculum vitae and press release on the appointment of James Sutherland Thomson as Dean of Divinity at McGill.

The character of his post-retirement files is three-fold. Personal materials comprise letters from family and friends (some going back as far as 1938), papers concerning domestic finances and associations of which James was a private member. Most of the McGill section consists of correspondence with old university associates on their and his current activities, McGill affairs and Canadian politics. There are letters to and from Stanley Frost, Lorne Gales, Bertie Gardner, H. Rocke Robertson, E.A. Collard, Dorothy McMurray and many others. However, this series also contains a few important items from an earlier period, e.g. correspondence with Vincent Massey, Lester Pearson, Mackenzie King, Winston Churchill (concerning the painting of the Québec Convocation), Principal Lewis Douglas and Sir Edward Beatty (concerning salary and pension), as well as a file on James' proposed visit to the People's Republic of China (1960-1964). There are also communications with the McGill University Archives and with the McGill Society of Great Britain. Finally, a large percentage of these files arose from James' active involvement in associations. Administrative correspondence with the International Association of Universities, particularly with its secretary H.M.R. Keyes, concerns membership, programs, conferences, and the study of international educational exchanges. A separate run of files contains information on education in various countries visited by James in his official capacity. Other educational associations in this series include colleges of which James was a fellow or trustee, the International Association for a Federal Union, the International Social Sciences Council, the Royal Society of Canada (concerning scholarships) and various inter-university bodies. Approximately 1.7 m of OXFAM files complete this series.

Miscellaneous materials include citations, visitors' books, calling cards and printed matter. Papers given to James by W.H. Birks comprise 2 cm of letters documenting his involvement in McGill affairs, eg. (Graduates' Society, Y.M.C.A.) from 1900 to 1938, and include letters from William Peterson and Stephen Leacock. Chancellor Sir Edward Beatty also gave private files to James concerning the Medical Faculty and government aid to hospitals.

Snapshots taken by James or his family and friends during his University of Pennsylvania years illustrate Philadelphia scenes, fellow students and friends, and voyages to Europe and South America. Photographs of a summer vacation in 1944, the Convocation dinner of 1949 and a journey to Hong Kong and Japan in the early 1960s round off this part of the collection. The greater part of these photographs are formal or professional pictures. These include prints from the press and NFB photographs of McGill convocations during World War II, scenes of student life (1959 and 1961) and McGill buildings (1945), McGill scenes (1962), the dedication of the Morgan Arboretum (1949), the High Altitude Research Project, the closing ceremonies of Dawson College, special events, and visitors to the campus. There are also formal portraits of James and his wife, including a series of studies done for the McGill News in 1962, and photographs taken at convocations conferring honorary degrees on James.

James created two formal records of his life: an incomplete autobiography and approximately 95 cm of personal diaries for the years 1936-1962. From 1939 onwards, his diary is also a running office record of his activities as Principal. James' personal notes are handwritten, but the office copy was typed by his secretary, Dorothy McMurray. While working on his autobiography following his retirement, James interfiled the two. Apart from descriptions of his activities and reflections, the James diaries contain minutes,
memoranda, letters, essays on countries visited by James, speeches and poetry. There is a separate series of pocket appointment diaries from 1919 to 1972, and gardening diaries from 1949-1959 and 1963-1969.

Juvenalia and student materials consist of two albums (1905 and 1907) of postcards; a schoolboy commonplace-book of extracts, news clippings and reflexions on religious topics (possibly digests of sermons); six volumes of secondary school notes on economic history; approximately 24 cm of examination papers, essays and notes from James' London School of Economics days; and notes for a course on the Law of Prize from the University of Pennsylvania (1925). Three volumes of personal scrapbooks cover the period 1917-1939: the first (1919-1931) includes school and university reports of standing, while the remaining two consist of newspaper articles by and about James, invitations, letters concerning his speeches and publications, and telegrams and correspondence concerning James' appointment to the School of
Commerce at McGill.

Private financial records include two volumes of day-books (1952-1954), two ledgers (1962-1970), bank statements (1937-1962), correspondence concerning investments, pensions etc. (1941-1969), and papers relating to his real estate in England.

Most of James' research papers stem from his Philadelphia period. The bulk of this material is research files. Approximately 7.5 m of general research files contain notes, extracts, printed materials, correspondence and some teaching materials, largely on economic history with special emphasis on banks, but also including some papers from the 1940s on education and war-time problems. A second category (approximately 1 m) is devoted to the history of banking. Again, these consist largely of notes and extracts, including extensive typed extracts from the business papers of Chicago banker James B. Forgan (active 1900-1917), but there is a component portion of original materials, for example, office correspondence of Pinkerton's Detective Agency (1870s-1880s) and essays and addresses by consulting economist William Wallace Goforth (approximately 1930s). A third category comprises about 15 cm of notes on research methods. Finally, James created three large card-files: one a bibliography-index on economic topics, history and institutions, the second a chronology of 18th and 19th century economic history, and finally a series of larger, more discursive note cards on economic history. There are manuscripts and typescripts of the various drafts and revisions of many of James' publications, particularly The Economics of Money, Credit and Banking, Growth of Chicago Banks, England Today and The Road to Revival. There are also copies of his M.A. and Ph.D. theses, as well as drafts of about half a dozen articles, largely on shipping, from ca 1925 to ca 1933.

Most of the materials pertaining to James' work as an economic consultant are from the post-war period. These include 12 cm of speeches, correspondence and reports on post-war economic issues, 5 cm of draft reports and briefs for the Tremblay Commission (1953), 30 cm of correspondence, notes and reports pertaining to the Conseil d'Orientation Economique du Québec (1961-1962), and documentation illustrating James' involvement in the appraisal and re-organization of the Wharton School (1956-1957).

Materials relating to James' teaching career fall into two chronological categories, the Wharton period and the McGill period. The Wharton period is illustrated by office files (1927-1939) containing incoming and outgoing correspondence, reports and memoranda concerning the administration of the school and professional matters. There are also lecture notes for James' courses in finance (1926-1927), money and credit (1924-1949), theory of money and banking (ca 1939), statistics, and life insurance. The McGill material comprises lecture notes for introductory economics (1944-1949), together with some worked examination papers and approximately 15 cm of correspondence regarding the course, as well as James' relations with Québec economic groups; there are also lecture notes for a course in economic history (1940, 1954-1959).