John Burns stands out a distinct and peculiar figure in the House of Commons. He is the foremost representative of that working class 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 leadership 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 classes. At that time the working classes 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 constituencies 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 space of time, and there were very few indeed of the working class who could hope to obtain such legal qualifications. In more recent days the great reformers of these islands have succeeded in establishing 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 constituencies to choose men of their own class to represent them in the House of Commons.