A remarkable evidence was soon to be given of the solid reputation which he had won for himself in public life. A complete change was made by Parliamentary legislation in the whole system of London's municipal government. The vast metropolis which we call London was up to that time under the control for municipal affairs of the various parish boards and local vestries, each of them constructed on some representative system peculiarly its own, and none of them, it may be justly said, under any direct control from the great mass of the community. The greater part of the West End of London was under the management of a body known as the Metropolitan Board of Works; the City of London was dominated by its own historic Corporation; each other district of the metropolis had its governing vestry or some such institution. Apart from all other objections to such a system, one of its obvious defects was that no common principle was recognized in the municipal arrangements of the metropolis; there were no common rules for their regulation of traffic, for the levying of rates, for the management of public institutions, and a Londoner who changed his residence from one part of the town to another, or even from one side of a street to another, might find himself suddenly brought under the control of a system of municipal regulations with which he was totally unfamiliar. Appeals were constantly made by enlightened Londoners for some uniform system of London government, but for a long time nothing was done in the way of reform. At last, however, it happened—luckily, in one sense, for the community—that the Metropolitan Board of Works, which ruled the West End districts, became the cause of much public scandal because of its mistakes and mismanagement, not to use any harsher terms, in the dealing with public contracts. The excitement caused by these discoveries made it impossible for the old system to be maintained any longer, and the result was the passing of an Act of Parliament which created an entirely new governing body for the metropolis. This new governing body was styled the London County Council, and it was to have control of the whole metropolis, with the exception of that comparatively small extent of municipal territory which we know as the City of London. The members of the new County Council were to be chosen, for the most part, as are the members of the House of Commons, by direct popular suffrage. Some of the foremost men in England became members of the new County Council. One of these was Lord Rosebery, another was Sir Thomas Farrer (who has since become Lord Farrer), a third was Frederic Harrison, one of the most eminent writers and thinkers of his time, and another was John Burns, the working engineer. I mention this fact only to show how thoroughly John Burns must have established his reputation as a man well qualified to take a leading place in the municipal government of London. Since that time he has been elected again and again to the same position.
When the great dispute broke out in London between the dock-laborers and the ship-owners, John Burns took an active and untiring part in the endeavor to obtain fair terms for the workers, and by his moderation and judgment, as well as by his inexhaustible energy, he did inestimable service in the bringing about of a satisfactory settlement. The late Cardinal Manning took a conspicuous part in the effort to obtain good terms for the workingmen, and he was recognized on both sides of the dispute as a most acceptable mediator, and I remember that he expressed himself more than once in the highest terms as to the services rendered by John Burns during the whole of the crisis. Burns made one or two unsuccessful attempts to obtain a seat in the House of Commons—or perhaps, to put it more correctly, I should say that he consented, in obedience to the pressure of his friends and followers, to become a candidate for a seat. In 1892 he was elected to Parliament as the representative of that Battersea district where his life began, and he has held the seat ever since. In the House of Commons he has been a decided success. It is only right to say that the workingmen representatives, who now form a distinct and influential section in the House, have fully vindicated their right to hold places there, and have, with hardly any exception, done honor to the choice of their constituents. John Burns is among the foremost, if not the very foremost, of the working class representatives. He has won the good opinions of all parties and classes in the House of Commons. He has won especial merit which counts for much in the House—he never makes a speech unless when he has something to say which has a direct bearing on the debate in progress and which it is important that the House should hear. He is never a mere declaimer, and he never speaks for the sake of making a speech and having it reported in the newspapers. The House always knows that when John Burns rises he has some solid argument to offer, and that he will sit down as soon as he has said his say.
The first time I had the honor of becoming personally acquainted with John Burns was in the House of Commons, shortly after his first election, and I was introduced to him by my friend Michael Davitt. I could not help feeling at the time that it was a remarkable event in one's life to be introduced to John Burns by Michael Davitt. Both these men were then honored members of the House of Commons, and both had for many years been regarded by most of what are called the ruling classes as disturbers of the established order of things and enemies of the British Constitution. Davitt had spent years in prison as a rebel, and Burns had been at least once imprisoned, though but for a short time, as a disturber of public order. Every one came to admit in the end that each man was thoroughly devoted to a cause which he believed rightful, and that the true and lasting prosperity of a State must depend largely on men who are thus willing to make any sacrifice for the maintenance of equal political rights in the community. I have had, since that time, many opportunities of meeting with Burns in public and private and exchanging ideas with him on all manner of subjects, and I can only say that the better I have known him the higher has been my opinion of his intelligence, his sincerity, and his capacity to do the State some service.
John Burns has made himself very useful in the committee work of the House of Commons. The House hands over the manipulation and arrangement of many of its measures on what I may call technical subjects—measures concerning trade and industry, shipping and railways, and other such affairs of business—to be discussed in detail and put into working shape by small committees chosen from among the members; and these measures, when they have passed through this process of examination, are brought up for full and final settlement in the House itself. It will be easily understood that there are many subjects of this order, on which the practical experience and the varied observation of a man like Burns must count for much in the shaping of legislation. Burns has genial, unpretending manners, and although he was born with a fighting spirit, he is not one of those who make it their effort to cram their opinions down the throats of their opponents. Although his views are extreme on most of the questions in which he takes a deep interest, he is always willing to admit that there may be something to be said on the other side of the controversy; he is ever ready to give a full consideration to all the arguments of his fellow-members, and if any one in the committee can show him that he is mistaken on this or that point, he will yield to the force of argument, and has no hesitation about acknowledging a change in his views. Fervent as he is in his devotion to any of the great principles which have become a faith with him, there is nothing of the fanatic about him, and I do not think his enemies would ever have to fear persecution at his hands. There is no roughness in his manners, although he has certainly not been brought up to the ways of what is generally known as good society; and his smile is winning and sweet. He has probably a certain consciousness of mental strength, as he has of physical strength, which relieves him from any inclination towards self-assertion. I should find it as difficult to believe that John Burns countenanced a deed of oppression as I should find it to believe that he sought by obsequiousness the favor of the great.
John Burns was, it is almost needless to say, an opponent from the very beginning of the policy which led to the war against the South African Republics. When the general election came on, about midway in the course of the war, the war passion had come upon the country like an epidemic, and some of the most distinguished English representatives lost their seats in the House of Commons because they refused to sanction the Jingo policy. Many men who were rising rapidly into Parliamentary distinction were defeated at the elections by Imperialist candidates. Nor were the men thus shut out from Parliament for the time all members of the Liberal party. In some instances, although few indeed, there were men belonging to the Conservative, the Ministerial, side, who could not see the justice of the war policy and would not conceal their opinions, and who therefore had to forfeit their seats when some thoroughgoing Tory Imperialists presented themselves as rivals for the favor of the local voters. So great was the influence of the war passion that even among the constituencies where the workingmen were strong there were examples of an Imperialist victory over the true principles of liberty and democracy. But the Battersea constituents of John Burns remained faithful to their political creed and to him, and he was sent back in triumph to the House of Commons to carry on the fight for every good cause there. He took part in many debates during the continuance of the campaign, and he never made a speech on the subject of the war which was not listened to with interest even by those most opposed to his opinions. He has the gift of debate as well as the gift of declamation, and he knows his part in Parliamentary life far too well to substitute declamation for debate. The typical demagogue, as he is pictured by those who do not sympathize with democracy, would on such occasions have merely relieved his mind by repeated denunciations of that war in particular and of wars in general, and would soon have lost any hold on the attention of the House, which is, to do it justice, highly practical in its methods of discussion. John Burns spoke in each debate on the war when he had something to say which could practically and precisely bear on the subject then under immediate consideration—a question connected with the administration of the campaign, with the manner in which the War Office or the Colonial Office was conducting some particular part of its administrative task, with the immediate effects of this or that movement, and in this way he compelled attention and he challenged reply. I remember, for instance, that when the spokesmen of the Government were laying great stress on the severity and injustice of the Boer State's dealings with the native populations of South Africa, John Burns gave from his own experience and observation instances of the manner in which African populations had been dealt with by British authorities, and demanded whether such actions would not have justified the intervention of some European State if the conduct of the Boer Government, supposing it to be accurately described, was a justification for England's invasion of the Boer territory. Whenever he took part in the debate, he met his opponents on their own ground, and he challenged their policy in practical detail, instead of wasting his time in mere declamatory appeals to principles of liberty and justice which would have fallen flat upon the minds of those who held it as their creed that Imperial England was free to dictate her terms to all peoples of inferior strength and less highly developed civilization.
John Burns has fairly won for himself an honorable place in the history of our time. If he had done nothing else, he would have accomplished much by demonstrating in his own person the right of the workingman to have a seat in Parliament. One finds it hard now to understand how the English House of Commons could ever have been regarded as the representative ruling body of England, when it held no members who were authorized by position and by experience to speak for the working populations of the country. I mean no disparagement to the other representatives of the working classes when I say that I regard John Burns as the most distinguished and the most influential among them. Others of the same order have rendered valuable service, not merely to their own class, but to the State in general since they came to hold seats in the House of Commons; some have even held administrative office in a Liberal Government, and have shown themselves well qualified for the duties. Not any of them, so far as I can recollect, has ever shown himself the mere declaimer and demagogue whom so many Conservative observers and critics used to tell us we must expect to meet if the workingmen were enabled to send their spokesmen into the House of Commons. I do not know whether John Burns has any ambition to hold a seat in some future Liberal Ministry, but I venture to think that if such should be his fortune, he will prove himself more useful than ever to the best interests of his country. He has never sought to obtain the favor and the support of his own order by flattering their weaknesses, by encouraging them in their errors, or by allowing them to believe that the right must always be on their side and the wrong on the side of their opponents. I fully believe that he has good and great work yet to do.
Photograph copyright by W. & D. Downey
SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH