John Morrison Davidson

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”