Review of Reviews, 20/3J06. 



Character Sketches, 



263 



By that time John Burns was a made man. He 

 did not need the eclat of the second prosecution and 

 the aurecle of the prisoner to mark him out as one 

 of the leaders of the people. From the day when 

 he jumped upon a kmoiiade box in Battersea Park 

 to expound the Wage Workers'" Gospel to a miscel- 

 laneous crowd down to the time when he kissed 

 hands as a member of the King's most honourable 

 Privy Council, his career was one of almost un- 

 broken success. It had its ups and downs, but the 

 downs were of short duration, and were always fol- 

 lowed by a rapid rise. His imprisonment for in- 

 stance, was immediately followed by his election to 

 'the County Council, and his unpopularity as a pro- 

 Boer opponent of the Siouth African war was fol- 

 lowed by his selection as the first working man who 

 was called to the Cabinet. 



He is not yet fifty years of age, but he has been 

 three months in gaol, fourteen years in Parliament, 

 and seventeen years in the London County Council. 

 He is now, as President of the Local Government 

 Board, at the head of the local administration of 

 England and Wales. It is a tolerably proud posi- 

 tion for a man who, until his mates subscribed 

 to allow him ^5 a week while he looked after 

 their interests in the County Council and in Par- 

 liament, earned his living as a working engineer, 

 and who is ready to earn it in the same way again. 

 For John Burns is a working man who is as proud 

 of his order as any patrician. When he addressed 

 his fellow-citizens of Battersea after his appointment, 

 he told them that he had been aided in his upward 

 march by " a strong physique, a sober mind, and, 

 better than all, the untainted instincts of the work- 

 ing classes." That there are many working class 

 leaders who are jealous of him is true. A man who 

 suddenly becomes Minister of the Crown with a 

 salary of ^1500 a year presents too shining a 

 mark for envy and detraction to spare their shafts. 

 But on the whole there has been very little enmity 

 expressed. His old colleagues of the Social Demo- 

 cratic Federation shake their heads and shoot out 

 their tongues. Some of the Independent Labour 

 party bemoan, " Another good man gone wrong." 

 But on the whole there is an astonishing unanimity in 

 the chorus of acclamation which hailed the appoint- 

 ment of Burns of Battersea to a seat in the Cabinet. 

 He received, on the appointment I)eing announced, 

 no fewer than four thousand telegrams from all sorts 

 and conditions of men at home and abroad, and in 

 none of them was n single word of reproach or of 

 regret. It was, as he said, the most overwhelming 

 triumph of his life. But even this deluge of con- 

 gratulatorv telegrams is less significant than the fact 

 that his name is cheered almost as heartily at Tory 

 demonstrations as at Liberal meetings. " Good old 

 Burns !" followed by rounds of cheers, interrupted 

 iXIr. Balfour when he named the President of the 

 Local Government Board at the Queen's Hall at a 

 meeting packed from floor to ceiling with his own 



partisans. The popular tribute is well deserved. 

 For John Burns is an honest man, a good man, an 

 able man, and one who to the uttermost of his 

 ability has spent his life in the service of the State. 



Yet John Burns is a Socialist. He has always 

 been a Socialist, since the day when as a lad in 

 his teens he read John Stuart iMill's dissertation 

 against Socialism. Before that book came his way 

 he said he had Socialistic leanings, but '" I lingered 

 trembling on the brink, and feared to launch away. 

 But when 1 had read all that so able a writer as 

 Jrlill could allege against it, I saw I had no further 

 reason to shrink from taking the plunge. I became 

 a Socialist, and am a Socialist to this day." His 

 first bias in the direction of Socialism came from 

 his early devotion to the writings of Robert Owen, 

 the founder of New Lanark, a pioneer in Co-opera- 

 tion and Spiritualism, whose merits have never been 

 adequately recognised by mankind. John Burns 

 took kindly to Owen's Co-operation Socialism, but 

 he passed by his Spiritualism on the other side. 

 Mr. Burns confines his outlook within the horizon 

 of the grave. This liaiitation he possibly owed to 

 a still earlier teacher, at whose feet he sat meta- 

 phorically in hio early youth. Thomas Paine's 

 " Age of Reason " was one of the first books that 

 influenced him. In my book of Autographs he 

 wrote that the saying which had most influenced 

 him during his life was Paine"s famous dictum, 

 •' The world is my country ; to do good is my re- 

 ligion." Beyond that point John Burns has never 

 budged. His fine voice led to his engagement in 

 the Church choir when he was a lad, but since then 

 John Burns has not often darkened the door of the 

 Church. 



The books that influenced him most were Paine's 

 " Age of Reason," Owens " Co-operation," Cabbell's 

 " Weekly Register," Mill's " Dissertation," and the 

 writings of Ruskin and Carlyle, But for his physi- 

 cal development, he always asserts that he owes 

 most to a life of Charles the Twelfth, which he 

 bought for a pennv at a second hand bookstall in 

 the East of London. The hero who perished at 

 Pultowa is well-nigh forgotten, but his heroic resolu- 

 tion to rise sujx'rior to all physical weakness and 

 suff^ering fired the imngination of the London born 

 Scot. " What he dVl that I may do also " was the 

 moral he drew fron the story of the gallant Swede, 

 and the result proved that he was right. John 

 Burns' mind stands no nonsense from John Burns' 

 l)odv. It was early given to understand that it had 

 to obev orders, as its owner would stand no non- 

 sense. He h^s treated 't without mercy. He spent 

 a year in the malarious West Coast of .Africa, and 

 came off scot fr<n\ In th^^ bitterest weather he 

 refuses to wear anv but his usual blue serge suit. 

 When he struck a blizzard in America twelve 

 vears ago he did not feel he needed to wear 

 the top coat with which some kind friend had pro- 

 vided him against the rigours of the Northern w'n- 



