Becomes Labor Leader.
He returned to Europe with a few pounds, and he used all of this in taking a six months' tour of the Continent, devoting his whole attention to the study of social conditions. Burns's real work as an agitator began on his return to England. He had settled down to work as an engineer, but he gave all his spare time to organizing the working people, both into trade-unions and into a new political party. The result was that he lost his job, and for seven weeks he tramped through the country looking for another one.
Shortly after this he was arrested for the part he took in the unemployed agitation, but he conducted his case with such skill that he went free.
The following year, 1887, he was arrested again because of his work during the demonstration of the unemployed, and was sentenced, together with Cunninghame Graham, to six weeks' imprisonment for rioting in Trafalgar Square.
In 1889 the great dock strike occurred, and the part Burns took in it made him known on both sides of the Atlantic. During January of that year he was elected to the London County Council, and two years later he entered Parliament.
Burns's whole work in Parliament was devoted to those subjects with which he was thoroughly acquainted, and his readiness in debate and his willingness to force the issue jarred the dignity of some of the older members.
"The honorable member is not in the London County Council now," suggested a well-known horse-owner and racing enthusiast who had been worsted in argument. "Nor is the right honorable gentleman on Newmarket Heath," replied Burns.
After that the right honorable race-track patron let him alone.