Mr. Burns shows very badly beside the responsible officials of
the regular Trade-Unions, who, though often violent in intention, never degenerate into mere frothy Jacobinism. One of his speeches to the Scotch strikers—that made at Glasgow on Sunday—showed this quality in a specially objectionable manner. " They cared too much for law," he told an audience who bad broken their agreements, pelted passing trains and policemen, and molested the men who preferred not to strike. " They must have less respect for manufactured law, this manipulated opinion, this habit of subserviency handed down from shopkeepers, lairds, ministers, and others, who knew nothing of the suffering, labour, and poverty that they had to endure. The men had no choice in this battle. They were the rebels because society, as represented by the Walkers and the Thomsons, had outlawed them. They must take the position of outlaws. They must be nineteenth-century Rob Roys. It was humbug that was being preached to them about not having given notice, having inconvenienced the public, and having been guilty of a legal technical fault in the eye of the law-makers, who were their masters, and who said : You must surrender ; you must cave in." Talk of this sort will not do much harm to a Scotch audience, who, as the laughter which constantly interrupted the speech proves, dislike froth.
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