Editorial: Burns, P.C., M.P., L.G.B.., L.C.C. (1906)

Editorial from the January 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

In regard to the appointment of Burns to the Local Government Board, we have just a few words to say, A considerable bulk of nonsense has been spoken and written on the subject by those who claim to represent Labour, mostly to the effect that it is desirable to suspend judgment on the man until he has had a chance to show what he is prepared to do. Now these Labour representatives must know quite as well as we know, why Burns has been selected for the position and the conditions of the appointment. He is selected because be is a “safe” man, because he has acted jackal to the Liberal Party for years, and because he has rarely, if ever, during the course of his Parliamentary career, raised his voice in championship of the interest of the class from which he sprang, but has, on the contrary, always been at the disposal of his capitalist friends to defend any act, even acts of palpable atrocity, committed by them. His association with that cold-blooded mediocrity, Asquith, in the murder of the Featherstone miners, and his plea for the use in such cases of the deadliest bullets obtainable, placed him for ever without the pale so far as we are concerned. But notwithstanding his record, his proletarian origin has given him a standing with the ignorant working class which the entire capitalist press has endeavoured, successfully, it must be admitted, to strengthen. To reward him with a well remunerated post was therefore to secure a large measure of working class support which the pressure of adverse economic conditions and the inability of capitalist governments to touch even the fringe of the trouble were tending to alienate. These are the reasons for Burns’ elevation. The conditions are that he shall do what may with safety be done to ensure the continued support of the working class to the Liberal Party. There is no question about this at all. Everyone who understands the working class position understands that this is the only condition upon which a capitalist government would consent to the inclusion of an ex-working man in their counsels. Knowing this we do not require to wait for what Burns may do. We know what he will do and why he will do it—just as the Tory St. James Gazette knew when, in commenting upon his appointment, they asserted that he could be relied upon to deal with the “whining wastrelism” known as the unemployed.