British Political Leaders Part 3

Meanwhile he has ample work on hand even for his energy and perseverance. He is just finis.h.i.+ng his life of Gladstone, and is to take charge of the magnificent library which belonged to the late Lord Acton, the greatest English scholar and book-lover of our time. Mr. Carnegie's gift of this great library, lately bought by him, to John Morley, is an act which does honor to the intellect as well as to the heart of the generous donor. Whatever positions, honors, or responsibilities maybe yet before John Morley, it may be taken for granted that he has already won for himself a secure place in the literature and the political life of his country, and that his name will live in its history.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph by William Notman & Son

THE EARL OF ABERDEEN]

THE EARL OF ABERDEEN

The Earl of Aberdeen will always be a.s.sociated in my mind with a most hopeful season of our political life, a season none the less cherished in memory and none the less auspicious because its hopes were doomed to temporary disappointment. That bright season was the time when Mr.

Gladstone was endeavoring to carry out his policy of Home Rule for Ireland. I need hardly tell my American readers that Gladstone's policy was condemned to failure, partly because of a secession of Liberals who went over to the Conservative ranks for the purpose of opposing the measure, and then because of the att.i.tude taken by the House of Lords, who, thus encouraged, rejected the bill after it had pa.s.sed the House of Commons. The season, therefore, which I am now recalling to memory was that which came between Mr. Gladstone's promulgation of his Home Rule policy and the rejection of his second measure of Home Rule. The interval was one full of the brightest hopes for all true British Liberals and all Irish Nationalists. For the first time during my recollection, British Liberalism and Irish Nationalism were in true companions.h.i.+p and concord. We fraternized as English and Irish politicians had probably never fraternized before. On both sides we were filled with the fond belief that the disunion of Great Britain and Ireland was soon to come to an end, and that the true and lasting union of the two peoples would be accomplished by Gladstone's policy of giving to Ireland her national self-government. It was a season of much festivity in London, and the Irish Nationalist members of Parliament were welcome guests in all the great Liberals' houses. No figures are more thoroughly a.s.sociated in my memory with that time than those of Lord Aberdeen and his gifted and n.o.ble-minded wife.

Lord Aberdeen is the grandson of that Earl of Aberdeen whose coalition ministry, a luckless effort at a temporary compromise between hostile political forces, came to a disastrous end during the Crimean War. The present Earl succeeded to the t.i.tle in 1870. He was educated at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, and afterwards at University College, Oxford. Lord Aberdeen was a Conservative in his political principles when he entered the House of Lords. But he had too much intellect and too much independence of mind to remain long in subserviency to the traditional creed of a mere party. He differed from his leaders on several important questions before he had fully seen his way to take up his position as a recognized member of the Liberal organization. Most of us who had followed his career thus far with any attention felt sure that the Conservatives would not long be able to keep such a man among their slow-going and unenlightened ranks, and no surprise was felt on either side when he took his natural place as a follower of Mr. Gladstone. Lord Aberdeen became an earnest advocate of the Home Rule policy, and all the n.o.ble influence that he and his wife could bring to bear publicly and privately was exerted in support of the cause. Then it was that I first came to know Lord and Lady Aberdeen. I have before me just now a book called "Notables of Britain," described on its t.i.tle-page as "An Alb.u.m of Portraits and Autographs of the Most Eminent Subjects of Her Majesty in the Sixtieth Year of Her Reign." This book was published at the office of the "Review of Reviews," and was understood to be the production of Mr. W. T. Stead. It contains an excellent full-length photograph of Lord Aberdeen, who, I may say, has a face and figure well worthy to be preserved by painter and photographer for the benefit of those who in coming days are interested in the notables of Britain. The portrait, like all the other portraits in the volume, is accompanied by an autograph line or two. Lord Aberdeen's written words seem to me peculiarly characteristic of the writer's bright and hopeful spirit. I quote his words--the writing is clear and well formed:--

I think this is a good motto: "_Transeunt nubes--manet caelum._"

ABERDEEN.

The temper in which Lord Aberdeen conducted all his political intercourse during this period of promise was one of unchanging courage and hopefulness. He was one of the most active and ready among the supporters of Mr. Gladstone, and he found an untiring and invaluable companion in his charming wife. At that time we used to hold political gatherings in private houses as well as in public halls, and I have taken part in more than one Home Rule demonstration held in the private dwellings of some of Mr. Gladstone's colleagues in office. We used to have many social meetings for the purpose of bringing Englishmen and Irishmen into close a.s.sociation. Even Parnell himself was prevailed upon to abandon for the time his rule of seclusion from society, and to meet Mr. Gladstone and Lord Spencer and other leading Englishmen at private dinner parties. Lord Aberdeen was one of the most conspicuous and one of the most attractive figures in these political and social gatherings, and I could not, indeed, recall that period to memory for a moment without finding his figure photographed prominently in it. It was an interesting sight during all that time to see some of the most extreme and most aggressive members of the Irish Parliamentary party mingling in social life with British peers and magnates who only a few years before would probably have regarded those Irish members as traitors to the Queen and fitting inmates of the prison cell. On the other hand, too, it must be said that only a very few years before the Irish Nationalist member who was known to make his appearance in the London drawing-rooms of English aristocracy would have been set down by the majority of his countrymen as a flunkey in spirit and a traitor to his cause. There was a time not long before when an Irish Nationalist member would have needed some courage to enable him to meet his const.i.tuents on election day if the local papers had made it known that he was in the habit of showing himself in the drawing-rooms of English peers. All this sudden and complete change had been brought about by the genius and policy of Gladstone when he came to see the true meaning and the true claims of the demand for Irish Home Rule. My memory goes back with a somewhat melancholy pleasure to those days of hope and confidence when the true union of Great Britain and Ireland seemed actually on the verge of consummation. Nor have I the slightest doubt that the lessons taught during that season will have their full influence once again when the period of reaction is over, and that Gladstone's policy of 1886 will come to life again before very long and will accomplish its work once for all.

In that year, 1886, Gladstone appointed Lord Aberdeen to the office of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The position was given to Lord Aberdeen with the frankly proclaimed purpose that he was to be the Lord-Lieutenant of a Home Rule policy, and, indeed, on no other conditions would Lord Aberdeen have consented to accept the office. Lord Aberdeen's short term of rule in Ireland was a complete success. There was not much that the most Liberal Lord-Lieutenant could do in the way of positive administration for the benefit of the island. There was already in existence a whole code of repressive legislation compiled during successive ages of despotic government, and this existing code it was not in the power of Lord Aberdeen or any other Viceroy to abolish or even to modify. All that the new Lord-Lieutenant could do in the way of political relief to the Irish people was to discourage as much as possible the too frequent application of the coercive laws and to make it known that the sympathies of the new Government were in favor of political freedom for Ireland, as well as for England and Scotland. Lord Aberdeen fulfilled this part of his public duty with a brave heart and with all the success possible to the task. Every one who had any acquaintance with the state of Ireland at the time must have known what difficulties were likely to be set in the way of Lord Aberdeen's endeavor to mitigate the severities of the coercion system. The most serious of those difficulties would in all probability have come from the permanent official staff in Dublin Castle. American readers in general can have but little idea as to the peculiarities of that singular inst.i.tution Dublin Castle, the center and fortress of Irish government. It has become, from generations of usage, a very bulwark against the progress of Irish national sentiment. The fresh current of feeling from the outside seems to make little impression on its stagnant and moldy atmosphere. It is ruled by tradition, and to that tradition belongs the rule of hostility to every popular feeling and every national demand. Lord Aberdeen had to encounter all the resistance which the dead weight of Dublin Castle's antiquated systems could bring to bear against his liberal and enlightened efforts at the pacification of the country. He carried out his purpose with unflinching resolve and unruffled temper, and, so far as the existing laws allowed him, he mitigated the harshnesses of the system under which Ireland had been governed since the Act of Union. But there was, of course, much more within Lord Aberdeen's capacity to accomplish than the mere mitigation of existing laws which it was not in his power to abolish. His presence and the entire conduct of his viceroyalty were as a proclamation to the Irish people that the whole sympathies of the Gladstone Government went with the national demands.

Then, indeed, a strange sight was to be seen in Dublin--the sight of a thoroughly popular welcome, a national welcome, given to the representative of English rule in Ireland. A new chapter in Irish history seemed to open, and the heart of Ireland was filled with hope.

It is told of Swift that when Carteret, Earl Granville, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland--Swift afterwards became one of Granville's close friends--he exclaimed in his sarcastic fas.h.i.+on that he could not understand why such a man should be appointed to such an office, and he thought the Government ought to keep on sending its bullies and blockheads just as before. A satirical Nationalist might have been expected to break forth into a similar expression of wonder when a man like Lord Aberdeen was sent to Ireland to carry on the rule of Dublin Castle. Lord Aberdeen and his wife made themselves popular everywhere among the Irish people, showed a living and a constant interest in everything that concerned the welfare of the population, and did all they could to break down the long-existing barricades which made England and Ireland hostile nations. When Mr. Gladstone failed in carrying his Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons and his Government came to an end, Lord Aberdeen took his leave of Ireland amid demonstrations of popular regard, affection, and regret which must have deeply touched his generous heart. In 1893, when the Liberals were again in power, Lord Aberdeen was made Governor-General of Canada, and he held that position until 1898. His term of service in Canada was as successful as might have been expected, and the French as well as the other provinces looked up to him with admiration and grat.i.tude. Then, for the time, his official career came to an end. In the interval between the Irish and the Canadian appointment Lord Aberdeen and his wife made a tour round the world, visiting on their way India and most of the British colonies.

The name of Lady Aberdeen is a.s.sociated with all great movements which have to do with the education and the general advancement of women, and with many good works undertaken for the benefit of the Irish peasantry.

Lady Aberdeen, it should be said, is the youngest daughter of the first Lord Tweedmouth, and is sister of the Lord Tweedmouth who, as Edward Marjoribanks, was so well known for a long time as one of the leading Whips of the Liberal party. Lady Aberdeen's name is Ishbel Maria, and I may ask my American readers not to make the mistake, sometimes made even in England, of a.s.suming her name to be the more familiar one of Isabel.

She has always been one of the most prominent, influential, and graceful figures in English society, and every charitable a.s.sociation which deserves her support has the advantage of her help, her protection, and her guidance. I know from my own experience what valuable and untiring service she has given to the promotion of the lace-making and the cottage industries of Ireland. I had the great honor of being a.s.sociated with her in some of these efforts, and I never can forget her unsparing devotion to the best interests of every such effort. I have among my books a series of large and handsome volumes devoted to a record of the proceedings which took place at the International Council of Women held in London during July of 1899 and presided over by the Countess of Aberdeen. This series, published by Mr. Fisher Unwin, is edited by Lady Aberdeen and has an introduction written by her. I may quote the closing paragraph of the introduction:--

It is a great inspiration to be bound together in the pursuance of high ideals; it is also a grave responsibility--and during our recent Council meeting both these thoughts have been made very real to us. I pray G.o.d that they may abide within the hearts of all who, in every country, are the guardians of the honor of our Council, so that it may prove true to the lofty profession it has made.

The series contains seven volumes, every one of which has been carefully edited by Lady Aberdeen, and is enriched with many commentaries of her own. One can easily imagine the amount of time and trouble which such a work must have imposed on a busy woman, and those who know anything of her will know the thought and care and devotion which she must have given to such a labor of love.

Not a few persons are still apt to a.s.sociate the idea of a woman advocating the advancement of women with something unfeminine, ungracious, self-a.s.sertive, and overbearing. When Lady Aberdeen first began to be known in social movements, the memory of the late Mrs. Lynn Linton's diatribes about "the Shrieking Sisterhood" was still fresh in the public mind, and much prejudice yet lingered against the women who publicly devoted themselves to the advancement of their s.e.x. Lady Aberdeen might have seemed as if she were specially created to be a living refutation of all such absurd ideas. No fas.h.i.+onable woman given up to social success and distinction in drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, b.a.l.l.s, and Court ceremonials could have been more feminine, graceful, and charming in her ways and her demeanor than this n.o.ble-hearted woman, who was not afraid to advocate the genuine rights of women, and who stood by her husband's side in all his efforts for political reform. One might adopt the words which Sheridan has made the opening of a song in "The Duenna," and proclaim that a pair was never seen more justly formed to meet by nature than Lord and Lady Aberdeen. Such an impression was a.s.suredly formed in Ireland and in Canada, and indeed in every place where Lord and Lady Aberdeen were able to a.s.sert their unostentatious and most beneficent influence.

Lord Aberdeen succeeded to the t.i.tle and its responsibilities at too early an age to allow him any opportunity of proving his capacity for Parliamentary life in the House of Commons. His elder brother was drowned on a voyage from Boston to Melbourne, and the subject of this article then became Earl of Aberdeen, with, as a matter of course, a seat in the House of Lords. There is nothing like a real Parliamentary career to be found in the House of Lords. A man of great natural gifts can, of course, give evidence even there that he is born for statesmans.h.i.+p and can command attention by his eloquence. Lord Aberdeen made it certain even in the House of Lords that he was endowed with these rare qualifications. But the House of Lords has no influence over the country, unless, indeed, when it exerts itself to stay for the time the progress of some great and popular measure. Even this is only for the time, and if the measure be really one of national benefit and deserving of public support, it is sure to be carried in the end, and the Lords have to give in and to put up with their defeat. But the hereditary chamber is not even a commanding platform from which an eloquent speaker can address and can influence the whole country, and the temptations there to apathy and indolence must often be found to be almost irresistible. On rare occasions, two or three times in a session, perhaps, there comes off what is popularly called a full-dress debate, and then the red benches of the House, on which the peers have their seats, are sure to be crowded, and the galleries where members of the House of Commons are ent.i.tled to sit and the galleries allotted to strangers are also well occupied. The Lords have even the inspiriting advantage, denied to the House of Commons, of open galleries where ladies can sit in the full glare of day or of gaslight, and can encourage an orator by their presence and their attention. In the House of Commons, as everybody knows, the small number of ladies for whom seats are provided are secreted behind a thick grating, and thus become an almost invisible influence, if, indeed, they can hope to be an influence at all. Yet even this inspiration does not stir the peers to anything more than the rarest attempts at a great debate. On ordinary occasions--and these ordinary occasions const.i.tute nearly the whole of a session--the peers sit for only an hour or so every day, and then mutter and mumble through some formal business, and the outer public does not manifest the slightest interest in what they are doing or trying to do.

There are many men now in the House of Lords who proved their eloquence again and again during some of the most important and exciting debates in the representative chamber, and who now hardly open their lips in the gilded chamber, as the House of Lords has been grandiloquently t.i.tled. A rising member of the House of Commons succeeds to the family t.i.tle and estates, and as a matter of course he is transferred to the House of Lords, and there, in most cases, is an end to his public career. Or perhaps a rising member of the House of Commons has in some way or other made himself inconvenient to his leading colleagues who have now come into power and are forming an administration, and as they do not know how to get rid of him gracefully in any other way, they induce the Sovereign to confer on him a peerage, and so he straightway goes into the House of Lords. Perhaps, as he had been an active and conspicuous debater in the House of Commons, he cannot bring himself to settle down into silence when he finds himself among the peers. So he delivers a speech every now and then on what are conventionally regarded in the House of Lords as great occasions, but his career is practically at an end all the same. I have in my mind some striking instances of this curious transition from Parliamentary prominence in the House of Commons to Parliamentary nothingness in the House of Lords. I know of men who were accounted powerful and brilliant debaters in the House of Commons, where debates are sometimes great events, who, when, from one cause or other, translated to the House of Lords, were hardly ever heard of as debaters any more. Probably there seemed no motive for taking the trouble to seek the opportunity of delivering a speech in the hereditary a.s.sembly, where nothing particular could come of the speech when delivered, and the new peer allows the charms of public speaking to lose their hold over him, to pa.s.s with the days and the dreams of his youth.

Lord Aberdeen would in all probability have made a deep mark as a Parliamentary debater if the kindly fates had left to him the possibility of a career in the House of Commons. He has a fine voice, an attractive presence, and a fluent delivery; he has high intellectual capacity, wide and varied culture, and much acquaintance with foreign States and peoples. Probably the best services which Lord Aberdeen could render to his country would be found in such offices as Ireland and Canada gave him an opportunity of undertaking; viceroyalty of some order, it would seem, must be the main business of his career. But I must say that I should much like to see his great intellectual qualities, his varied experience, and his n.o.ble humanitarian sympathies provided with some opportunity of exercising themselves in the work of domestic government. I may explain that I do not call the administration of Ireland under the old conditions a work of domestic government in the true sense. The vice-regal system in Ireland is a barbaric anachronism, and the abilities and high purposes of a man like Lord Aberdeen were wholly thrown away upon such work. There is much still in the social condition of England which could give ample occupation to the administrative abilities and the philanthropic energies of Lord Aberdeen. The work of decentralization in England is rapidly going on.

The development of local self-government is becoming one of the most remarkable phenomena of our times. Parliament is becoming more and more the fount and origin of national rule, but it is wisely devoting its energies to the creation of a system which shall leave the working out of that national rule more and more to localities and munic.i.p.alities. At one time, and that not very long ago, it was believed even by many social reformers that, while self-government might easily be developed in the cities and towns, it would not be possible, during the present generation at least, to infuse any such principle of vitality into the country districts.

Of late years, however, it is becoming more and more apparent that the principle of local government is developing itself rapidly and effectively in the rural districts, and that the good old times when the squire and the rector could manage by divided despotism the whole business of a parish are destined soon to become a curious historical memory. The system of national education, established for the first time in England by Gladstone's Government in 1870, has naturally had much to do with the quickening of intelligent activity all over the British Islands. A new generation has grown up, in which localities are no longer content to have all their business managed for them by their local magnates, and the recent statutes pa.s.sed by Parliament for the extension everywhere of the local government principle are a direct result of the legislation which has made education compulsory in these countries. All over the agricultural districts we now find county boards and parish councils conducting by debates and divisions the common business of each district, just as it is done in the great cities and towns. It seems to me that this spread of the principle of local self-government opens a most appropriate field for the intellect and the energies of such statesmen as Lord Aberdeen. Only in recent times have great n.o.blemen condescended to trouble themselves much, so far at least as their Parliamentary careers were concerned, with munic.i.p.al or other local affairs. A peer, if he happened to have any taste or gift for Parliamentary and official work, was willing to become Foreign Secretary, Viceroy of India, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or Governor of a Colony. Not infrequently, too, he consented to devote his energies to the office of Postmaster-General. But he was not likely to see any scope for a Parliamentary career in the management of local business. In his own particular district, no doubt, he was accustomed to direct most of the business in his own way and might be a local benefactor or a local mis-manager, according as his tastes and judgment qualified him. But the general business of localities did not create any Parliamentary department which seemed likely to deserve his attention. The condition of things is very different now, and Lord Aberdeen is one of the men to whom the country is mainly indebted for that quickening and outspreading of the local self-governing principle which is so remarkable and so hopeful a phenomenon of our national existence at present. In every movement which pretends to the development and the strengthening of that principle Lord Aberdeen has always taken a foremost part.

I am not myself an unqualified admirer of that part of the British const.i.tutional system which makes the House of Lords one of three great ruling powers. I should very much doubt whether Lord Aberdeen himself, if he were set to devise a const.i.tutional system for these countries, would make the House of Lords as at present arranged a component part of our legislative system. But I am quite willing to admit that, since we have a House of Lords and while we have a House of Lords, a man like the Earl of Aberdeen does all that can be done to turn the existing const.i.tution to good account and make it in some degree worthy of national toleration. While there exists an aristocracy of birth, even the most uncompromising advocate of democracy and the equal rights of men might freely admit that a career like the political and social career of Lord Aberdeen does much to plead in defense of the system.

Lord Aberdeen has always proved that he thoroughly understands the responsibilities as well as the advantages of his high position. Not one of the Labor Members, as they are called, of the House of Commons--the chosen representatives of the working cla.s.ses--could have shown a deeper and more constant sympathy with every measure and every movement which tends to improve the condition and expand the opportunities of those who have to make a living by actual toil. Lord Aberdeen has yet, I trust, a long and fruitful career before him. The statesmans.h.i.+p of England will soon again have to turn its attention to the social movements which concern the interests of the lowly-born and the hard-working in these islands. If a better time is coming for the statesmen of England, whether in office or in opposition, who love peace and who yearn to take a part in measures which lead to genuine national prosperity, we may safely a.s.sume that in such a time Lord Aberdeen will renew his active career, to the benefit of the people whom he has served so faithfully and so well.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph copyright by W. & D. Downey

JOHN BURNS]

JOHN BURNS

John Burns stands out a distinct and peculiar figure in the House of Commons. He is the foremost representative of that working cla.s.s which is becoming so great a power in the organization of English political and industrial life. "Be not like dumb driven cattle," says Longfellow in his often-quoted lines--"Be a hero in the strife." The British workingmen were until very lately little better than dumb driven cattle; in our days and under such leaders.h.i.+p as that of John Burns they have proved themselves capable of bearing heroic part in the struggle for great reforms. I can remember the time when the House of Commons had not in it any member actually belonging to the working cla.s.ses. At that time the working cla.s.ses had no means of obtaining Parliamentary representation, for it may be said with almost literal exactness that no workingman had a vote, or the means of obtaining a vote, at a Parliamentary election. The conditions of the franchise were too limited in the const.i.tuencies to enable men who worked for small daily or weekly wages to become voters at elections. In order to become a voter a man must occupy a house rated at a certain yearly amount, and he must have occupied it for a specified and considerable s.p.a.ce of time, and there were very few indeed of the working cla.s.s who could hope to obtain such legal qualifications. In more recent days the great reformers of these islands have succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng what may be fairly described as manhood suffrage in these countries, and have also secured a lodger franchise; have established the secret ballot as the process of voting; and by these and other reforms have put the workingman on a level with his fellow-citizens as a voter at Parliamentary elections. My own recollection goes back to the time when the law in Great Britain and Ireland insisted on what was called a "property qualification" as an indispensable condition to a candidate's obtaining a seat in the House of Commons. I have known scores of instances in which clever and popular candidates got over this difficulty by prevailing on some wealthy relative or friend to settle legally on them an amount of landed property necessary to qualify them for a seat in the House. It was perfectly well known to every one that this settlement was purely a formal arrangement, and that the new and nominal possessor of the property was no more its real owner than the child who is allowed for a moment to hold his father's watch in his hand becomes thereby the legal owner of the valuable timepiece. In our days no property qualification of any kind is needed either for a vote at a Parliamentary election or for a seat in the House of Commons, and therefore the workingmen form an important proportion of the voters at Parliamentary elections and are enabled in certain const.i.tuencies to choose men of their own cla.s.s to represent them in the House of Commons.

I have thought it well to make the short explanation of the changes which have taken place in the condition of the British workingmen during recent years as a prelude to what I have to say concerning that foremost of British workingmen, John Burns. It is only fair to say that the workingmen of these countries have made judicious and praiseworthy use of the new political powers confided to them, and have almost invariably sent into Parliament as the representatives of their cla.s.s men of undoubted ability and of the highest character, men who win the respect of all parties in the House of Commons. Of these men John Burns is the most conspicuous. He has never, indeed, held a place in an administration, as two, I think, of his order have already done; but then John Burns is a man of resolutely independent character, and it would not be easy thus far to form even a Liberal Government which should be quite up to the level of his views on many questions of domestic and foreign policy.

John Burns would hardly be taken personally as a typical representative of the British workingman. He is short in stature, very dark in complexion and in the color of his hair, and a stranger seeing him for the first time might take him for an Italian or a Spaniard. His physical strength is something enormous, and I have seen him perform with the greatest apparent ease some feats of athletic vigor which might have seemed to demand the proportions of a giant. His whole frame is made up of bone and muscle, and although he is broadly and stoutly built, he does not appear to have any superfluous flesh. If I had to make my way through a furious opposing crowd, I do not know of any leader whom I should be more glad to follow than John Burns. But although Burns is physically made for a fighting man, there is nothing pugnacious or aggressive in his temperament. He is by nature kind, conciliatory, and generous, tolerant of other men's opinions, and only anxious to advance his own by fair argument and manly appeals to men's sense of humanity and justice. I have seen him carry a great big elderly man who had fainted at a public meeting and take him to a quiet spot with all the ease and tenderness of a mother carrying her child. But if I were an overbearing giant who was trying his strength upon a weaker mortal, I should take good care not to make the experiment while John Burns was anywhere within reach. He is an adept at all sorts of athletic sports and games, skating, rowing, foot-racing, boxing, cricket, and I know not what else. He is essentially a man of the working cla.s.s, and has, I believe, some Scottish blood in his veins, but he is a Londoner by birth, and pa.s.sed all his early life in a London district. He was born to poverty, and received such education as he had to begin with at a humble school in the Battersea region on the south side of London.

Now, I should think that a boy born in humble life who had in him any gift of imagination and any faculty for self-improvement could hardly have begun life in a better place than Battersea. The Battersea region lies south of the Thames, and is a strange combination of modern squalidness and picturesque historical a.s.sociations and memorials. The homes of the working cla.s.s poor stand under the very shadow of that famous church in Old Battersea where Bolingbroke, the high-born, one of the most eloquent orators known to English Parliamentary life, and one of the most brilliant writers who adorn English literature, lies buried, and where strangers from all parts of the world go to gaze upon his tombstone. Everywhere throughout the little town or village one comes upon places a.s.sociated with the memory of Bolingbroke and of other men famous in history. Cross the bridge that spans the Thames and you are in the Chelsea region, which is suffused with historical and literary a.s.sociations from far-off days to those recent times when Thomas Carlyle had his home in one of its quiet streets. To a boy with any turn for reading and any taste for history and literature, all that quarter of London on both sides of the Thames must have been filled with inspiration. John Burns had always a love of reading, and I can easily fancy that the memories of the place must have been a constant stimulant and inspiration to his honorable ambition for self-culture. His school days finished when he was hardly ten years old, and then he was set to earn a living, first in a candle factory and afterwards in the works of an engineer. Thus he toiled away until he had reached manhood's age, and all the time he was steadily devoting his spare hours or moments to the task of self-education. He read every book that came within his reach, and studied with especial interest the works of men who set themselves to the consideration of great social problems.

Burns naturally became very soon impressed with the conviction that all could not be quite right under a political and social system which made the workingman a mere piece of living mechanism and gave him no share whatever in the const.i.tutional government of the country. At that time there was no system of national education in England, and the child of poor parents had to get his teaching through some charitable inst.i.tution, or to go without any teaching whatever. So far as the education of the poorest cla.s.ses was concerned, England was at that time far below Scotland, below Germany and Holland, and below the United States.

As regards the political system, a man of the cla.s.s to which John Burns was born had little chance indeed of obtaining the right to vote at a Parliamentary election, which was given only to men who had certain qualifications of income and of residence not often to be found among the working cla.s.ses. The English system of national education is little more than thirty years old, and the extension of the voting power which makes it now practically a manhood suffrage is likewise of very modern date. It was natural that an intelligent and thoughtful boy like John Burns should, under such conditions, become filled with socialistic doctrines and should find himself growing into a mood of impatience and hostility towards the rule of aristocrats, landlords, and capitalists, by which the country was then dominated. Soon after he had reached his twenty-first year he obtained employment as a foreman engineer on the Niger in Africa, and there he had his first experience of a climate and a life totally unlike to anything that could be found in the Battersea regions. I have often heard it said that during his employment in English steamers on the Niger he was known among his British companions as "Coffee-pot Burns," in jocular recognition of his devotion to total abstinence principles. He spent about a year in his African occupation, and during that time he had managed to save up a considerable amount of his pay, a saving which we may be sure was in great measure due to his practice of total abstinence from any drinks stronger than that which was properly contained in the coffee-pot. When he left Africa, he invested his savings in a manner which I cannot but regard as peculiarly characteristic of him, and which must have given to such a man a profitable return for his investment--he spent his savings, in fact, on a tour of several months throughout Europe. Thus he acquired an invaluable addition to his stock of practical observation and a fresh impulse to his studies of life and of books. He settled down in England as a working engineer, and he soon began to take a deep interest and an active share in every movement which had for its object the welfare of the cla.s.ses who live by daily labor.

Obviously, there are many improvements in the condition of such men which could only be brought about by legislation, and John Burns therefore became a political agitator. His voice was heard from the platforms of great popular meetings held in and around London and in many other parts of the country, and he was one of the leaders of the great agitation which secured for the public the right of holding open-air meetings in Trafalgar Square. John Burns was meant by nature to be a popular orator. He has a physical frame which can stand any amount of exertion, and his voice, at once powerful and musical, can make itself heard to the farthest limit of the largest outdoor meeting in Hyde Park or Trafalgar Square. But he is in no sense whatever a mere declaimer. He argues every question out in a practical and reasonable way, and although he has some views on political and industrial subjects which many of his opponents would condemn as socialistic, there is nothing in him of the revolutionist or the anarchist. His object is to bring about by free and lawful public debate those reforms in the political and industrial systems which he regards as essential to the well-being of the whole community. The Conservative party in this country used to have for a long time one particular phrase which was understood to embody the heaviest accusation that could be brought against a public man. To say that this or that public speaker was endeavoring to "set cla.s.s against cla.s.s" was understood to mean his utter condemnation in the minds of all well-behaved citizens. We do not hear so much of this accusation in later days, partly because some of the very measures demanded by those setters of cla.s.s against cla.s.s have been adopted by Conservative Governments and carried into law by Conservative votes. But there was a period in the life of John Burns when he must have found himself denounced almost every day in speech or newspaper article as one whose main endeavor was to set cla.s.s against cla.s.s. John Burns does not seem to have troubled himself much about the accusation. Perhaps he reasoned within himself that if the endeavor to obtain for workingmen the right of voting at elections and the right to form themselves into trades-unions for the purpose of bettering their lives were the endeavor to set cla.s.s against cla.s.s, then there is nothing for it but to go on setting cla.s.s against cla.s.s until the beneficent result be obtained. So John Burns went on setting cla.s.s against cla.s.s, with the result that he became recognized all over the country as one of the most eloquent, capable, and judicious leaders whom the workingmen could show, and his unselfishness and integrity were never disparaged even by his most extreme political opponents.

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 munic.i.p.al government. The vast metropolis which we call London was up to that time under the control for munic.i.p.al 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 ma.s.s 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 inst.i.tution. Apart from all other objections to such a system, one of its obvious defects was that no common principle was recognized in the munic.i.p.al arrangements of the metropolis; there were no common rules for their regulation of traffic, for the levying of rates, for the management of public inst.i.tutions, 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 munic.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sing 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 munic.i.p.al 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 munic.i.p.al 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 s.h.i.+p-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 const.i.tuents. John Burns is among the foremost, if not the very foremost, of the working cla.s.s representatives. He has won the good opinions of all parties and cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses as disturbers of the established order of things and enemies of the British Const.i.tution. 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, s.h.i.+pping 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 pa.s.sed 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-a.s.sertion. 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion that even among the const.i.tuencies where the workingmen were strong there were examples of an Imperialist victory over the true principles of liberty and democracy. But the Battersea const.i.tuents 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 subst.i.tute 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph copyright by W. & D. Downey

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH]