Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament/Thomas Burt
IX.
THOMAS BURT.
"Go far and go sparing;
For you'll find it certain,
The poorer and baser you appear,
The more you'll look through still."
THE results of the general election of 1874 were surprising in many respects, and to many persons, but probably to none more so than Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P. While other prospective legislators were studying or wassailing at Oxford and Cambridge, the honorable member for Morpeth was laboriously ransacking the bowels of the earth in grimy Northumberland for coals wherewith to supply the complex wants of the British public. Like Goldsmith's village preacher, "he ne'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place;" and, when his fellows first advised him of their intention to bring him forward as a candidate for parliamentary honors, he replied in the words of the anti-Utopian, —
"O brothers! speak of possibilities,
And do not break into these wild extremes."
But elected he was to take his seat among his "betters"—among lordlings and millionnaires—in the choicest of West-end metropolitan clubs, and that, too, with an ease which contrasted sharply with the ill success in other constituencies of more widely known "labor candidates."
This effect, however, was not without an efficient cause. Apart from the fact that the Morpeth register was in a condition exceptionally favorable to the return of a genuine working-man, Mr. Burt was in reality, with all his seeming diffidence and meagre presence, an exceedingly formidable candidate. He is able and "canny" to a degree, and conspicuously devoid of those faults that do more easily beset trades-union leaders. He never, for example, speaks on any subject with which he is not thoroughly conversant, and his range of topics is by no means limited. He never tells you on the first occasion that you are alone with him, that every other exponent of the claims of labor, except himself, is a fool or a knave; and, when he makes an engagement, he keeps it with all the punctuality of a good middle-class man of business who knows the value of time. He is, in truth, a singularly fair-minded man, as capable of looking at any issue arising in the labor market from the point of view of the employer as of the employed. From contact and observation he has learned to combine, in a great measure, the characteristic virtues of both classes, while discarding their special vices. His sympathies are, of course, entirely with the working-man; but the impartiality of his judgment saves him from any thing like indiscriminate partisanship.
His workingmanism, too, is of such a catholic kind as practically to obliterate the hateful distinctions of class altogether. It does not stop at hand-workers, but embraces all honest brain-workers as well. It is only with the monstrous army of royal and aristocratic Do-nothings and Eat-alls, which in this England of ours is permitted to such an unparalleled extent to lay waste the harvest of honest industry, that Mr. Burt is at war. In politics he is a very intelligent English Radical, and nothing more. lie is actuated by no Socialistic or subversive passions; and, if he gives the best portion of his legislative attention to the interests of his own class, it is simply because he thinks, and thinks justly, that these are the most neglected at St. Stephen's. We hear of "officers and gentlemen." If he is a workman, he is likewise a gentleman. Like the late Mr. Odger, he has succeeded in completely emancipating himself from the warping influences of class feeling; and by dint of a severe course of reading and reflection he has arrived at conceptions of the public good which may be truly called statesmanlike. There are not many men in Parliament regarding whom it would be honest to aver as much. But the politics of the pit are manifestly more enlightened, more national in scope, than those of church or castle, bar or barrack-room; and, if Mr. Thomas Burt be a fair specimen of "pitmen" politicians, I have no hesitation in saying that it is a misfortune for the country that there are so few of them in the House. Wonderful to relate, he represents his constituents in Parliament, not himself. In the path of such a man, if the truth were told, at least as many snares are apt to be laid at Westminster as at Washington; and, to my certain knowledge, Mr. Burt has, on more occasions than one, resisted the machinations of the tempter with scrupulous fidelity.
Mr. Burt was born at Murton Row, a small hamlet about two miles from North Shields, Northumberland, in November, 1837. His ancestors, needless to say, did not "come over at the Conquest." The fact is not recorded; but I believe they were in England long before that great national calamity. His father, Peter Burt, was an upright, hard-working miner, much addicted in his spare hours, if he may be said to have enjoyed such, to Primitive Methodism, trades-unionism, and reading. He was a "local preacher;" and his literary' tastes, as may be readily imagined, had a strong theological bias. But he was distinctly a superior man, and no mere narrow-minded sectarian. The truly apostolic Channing was among his treasured authors,—an insignificant fact perhaps in itself, but one which helped materially to stimulate the youthful intelligence of his son, and to cast his character in a noble mould.
Thomas Burt's mother was likewise no ordinary person. She possessed a solid judgment and a tender heart; and while she lived she was the angel of the lowly household, which saw many ups and downs before the member for Morpeth reached man's estate.
When Burt was but seven years of age, the great Northumberland strike began; and he thus early tasted something of the bitter fruit of these labor struggles, which he has since exerted himself so strenuously to avert. Burt, senior, being a prominent striker, his family, with many others, was evicted from its humble abode, and might have perished from exposure but for the benevolent intervention of a neighboring farmer, who contrived to accommodate no fewer than three households in two small rooms. At the end of the strike, Burt's father, being a "marked man," and regarding discretion as the better part of valor, retreated to Helton, in the county of Durham, where he found employment for about a year. Subsequently the family moved to Haswell Blue House,—a hamlet midway between Haswell and Sholton Collieries; and in the former of these mines Thomas Burt, M.P., commenced work as a "trapper" on his tenth birthday. His schooling had necessarily been of an irregular kind; and though not without—
"The gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy's brain,
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain,"—
Burt entered the Inferno of Haswell Colliery without having exhibited any conspicuous talent; and, to all appearance, the gates of night closed remorselessly behind him.
It may be of interest to those, if there be any such, who still believe in the luxurious miner of the newspaper legend, with his curious taste in champagne, pianos, and greyhounds, to know something of the honorable member's underground experiences; and these, I may premise, were by no means exceptional. He commenced as a "trapper," at twenty cents per day of twelve hours. A "trapper" is a doorkeeper who sat, or sits, in utter darkness, peering wistfully into the "palpable obscure" for the approach of any mortal with a lamp. Such occupation might suit a notorious criminal of a philosophical turn of mind, but none other. Promotion, however, soon came Mr. Burt's way. He became a subterranean "donkey-driver," and his wages rose eight cents per diem. Then followed "management of an inclined plane" at Sherburn House Pit, between Durham and Thornley, wages from thirty-two to thirty-six cents; and, later, two years' "putting," or pony-driving, at Dalton Colliery, wages from thirty-six to fifty cents per diem. In 1851 the family ceased to sojourn in Durham, and returned to its native Northumberland, settling ultimately for a period of eight or nine j-ears at Seaton Delaval. Here further promotion awaited young Burt. He became a "water-leader," and his wages varied from sixty to eighty-four cents per day. "Water-leading" is not a specially amusing occupation. Before you know where 30U are, you are frequently up to the waist in the subterranean liquid, which has about as much fancy for being "led" as a Tipperary pig. Add to this that the horn's of labor, though nominally twelve, were practically thirteen "from bank to bank," and that the distance to and from home was a good two miles' walk, and it will readily be granted that the honorable member for Morpeth' s opportunities for self-culture were in no way enviable.
At fifteen years of age he had, besides, recklessly cut himself off from the consolation of champagne by becoming a total abstainer; and somewhat later he had to cure an inherited weakness for the cultivation of music, simply because he had no time to spare. In his eighteenth year, however, he graduated as a pitman. He became a "hewer," and his wages rose as high as a dollar or even a dollar and a quarter per diem, the hours of labor sensibly diminishing at the same time.
And so on Mr. Burt went, "toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing," till the autumn of 1865, when he was elected by his brother-workmen general secretary of the Northumberland Miners' Association. Then, after eighteen years of unremitting underground toil, and the usual miners' hairbreadth escapes with his life, Mr. Burt got permanently to the surface; and eight years later his apparition startled the "rich men" at St. Stephen's.
From pit to Parliament is assuredly a long way and an arduous. It may not be a very great or even desirable distinction to be able to write M.P. after one's name; but nobody will deny, that to earn the right, as matters stand, is an achievement of almost fabulous difficulty for a man that has neither birth nor wealth to recommend him. In Mr. Burt's case both these passports to electoral influence were conspicuous only by their absence; yet here he is with perhaps as attached a constituency as any in England behind him. Other members pay vast sums for the honor of being permitted to represent their constituents in Parliament. Here, on the contrary, you have a body of electors who voluntarily tax themselves in order to pay their member a salary of two thousand five hundred dollars a year for representing them. Was there ever a more daring outrage on constitutional propriety? And, what is stranger still, this phenomenal member, whose praises are alike in the mouths of ministerialists and opposition, is an avowed foe of royalty and aristocracy, of "beer and the Bible." There is scarcely an "ism," from republicanism downwards, that he cannot swallow without so much as making a wry face. Since Andrew Marvell's time there has been no such marvel in Parliament as Thomas Burt, the chosen of Morpeth.
At about fifteen years of age he began, all unconsciously of course, to educate himself for the discharge of his present responsible duties. And he educated himself to some purpose. While "his companions slept," this physically feeble but mentally strong Northumbrian miner was "toiling upwards in the night." He eschewed the public-house, and kept the very best society,—the society of Channing, Milton, Emerson, and Carlyle; of Shakespeare, Tennyson, Longfellow, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Burns; of Burke, Grattan, and Curran; of Macaulay, Gibbon, and Hume; of Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot; of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Bastiat, Fawcett, Thornton, and other illustrious intellects. Latin and French he hammered out as best he could from the pages of "Cassell's Popular Educator," while Euclid and shorthand received no inconsiderable share of his attention. And whatever he read he mastered, and assimilated with a rare appreciation of all that he found true and beautiful.
Then came the application of all this acquirement,—a true and beneficent application. He did not wrap his talents in a napkin, but devoted them ungrudgingly to the elevation of his fellow- workmen. He lectured on temperance, trades -unionism, arbitration, co-operation, education, the advantages of mechanics' institutes, politics, and gradually became a clear, judicious, and convincing public speaker. He was a Sunday-school teacher, a day-school secretary, and an organizer of temperance societies. He came to read men, as he had read books, with intelligence and sympathy; and the miners on their part were quick and generous to discern that they had found in their fellow-workman a true friend and able counsellor.
In 1860 the Burts left Seaton Delaval, and settled at Choppington, now a portion of the parliamentary borough of Morpeth; and here it was that the great administrative talents of the honorable member first displayed themselves. He speedily became the delegate of the Choppington men, and ultimately, in 18G5, general secretary of the Northumbrian Miners' Mutual Confident Association.
The union was then under a heavy cloud. There was but one hundred and fifteen dollars in the exchequer, and an extensive strike—the Cramlington—was proceeding. The new secretary was bitterly attacked by "A Coalowner"' in the columns of "The Newcastle Chronicle." He replied with characteristic dignity and spirit. "I was chosen agent for this association," he wrote, "for the purpose of doing the best I could to aid the workmen in securing justice. I did not force myself on the men; they urged me to take the office; and, as soon as they can in office I will do my best to serve my employers. Four months since I was a hewer at Choppington Colliery. As a working-man I was in comfortable circumstances, serving employers whom I respected, and who, I believe, respected me. I had been at that colliery nearly six years, and during that time I had never a wrong word with an official of the colliery. 'A Coalowner' may ask there whether I was a 'demagogue' or an 'agitator.' I left the colliery honorably, and I have no doubt I can get my work again at that place if I want it. If not, I can get work, I doubt not, elsewhere, and under good employers too; for I long since made up my mind not to work for a tyrant. I say this merely to let your readers know that the position I hold is not degrading either to myself or the men who employ me."
Largely as the result of this rare combination of moderation and firmness on the part of the secretary, external aid flowed freely into the coffers of the association. When the strike ended, a surplus of thirtyfive hundred dollars remained over.
By Mr. Burt's advice this sum, instead of being divided among the several collieries in the union, was made the nucleus of a central fund, which in a few years increased to eighty thousand dollars, while the membership of the union was quadrupled.
Though in Parliament, Mr. Burt is still the adviser-general and appellant-judge of the association, whose solidarity and wise counsels have done so much to inspire both employers and employed in Northumberland with feelings of amity and mutual respect. Recently there has been a sensible decline in the membership of the union, owing chiefly to the wholesale depopulation of certain districts consequent on the prolonged depression of trade and the enforced stoppage of the less remunerative pits. Within the last three and a half years the miners of Northumberland, to their credit be it recorded, have expended nearly eighty-five thousand dollars in support of brethren thus thrown out of employment. Indeed, that they should have hitherto been able to face the crisis so manfully and efficiently can only be regarded as another miracle of thrift and self-sacrifice worthy of the men who, by returning Mr. Burt to Parliament as their "paid member," were the pioneers of one of the most necessary and important political reforms of the future.
The circumstances attending the return of the member for Morpeth to Parliament have never yet received the general attention and commendation they deserve. They were most remarkable. Two pitmen, Mr. Robert Elliot (a poet of no mean merit) and Mr. Thomas Glassey, along with two brothers, Drs. James and Robert Trotter, local medical practitioners, did the heaviest portion of the electioneering, which, at the height of the Tory re-action, resulted in 3,332 votes being recorded for Mr. Burt, against 585 for his amiable Tory opponent, Major Duncan. Never was there such unbounded enthusiasm. The prophet of Choppington was indeed honored in his own country. His election expenses were defrayed by public subscription. He had nothing to do but address the electors, and prepare to draw his parliamentary salary, which, if not large, is perhaps amply sufficient for his modest wants and limited desires. At the late general election the Conservatives dared not even challenge his seat.
Well may Morpeth, the borough of the derided "Howkies," with their short lives,—computed to reach an average of only twenty-eight years,—their sore toil and pitiable pay, say to the most virtuous constituency in the kingdom, "Go thou and do likewise."
"Go on until this land revokes
The old and chartered He,
The feudal curse whose whips and yokes
Insult humanity."
And, as for the fortunate member for Morpeth, he has in Parliament, I think, redeemed all the legitimate expectations that were formed of him. His speeches on the County Franchise Bill, on the Employers' Liability for Injury Bill, on the grants to Wales and Connaught, and, above all, his hearty denunciation of the Afghan war, leave nothing to be desired.
With regard to the Medical Bill, he showed somewhat too great a confidence in quack doctors and unlicensed bone-setters; but that is a small matter.
For the rest, as I have said before, his conduct in the House has evoked the praise of all parties. The worst of Tories admit that he is "fair," and herein perhaps lurks a danger for the member for Morpeth. Reformers of great wrongs cannot afford to cultivate this spirit of fairness to excess. Be fair, be fair, be not too fair! "Beware ye when all men speak well of you, for so did they of the false prophets that were before you."