BURNS, JOHN ), English politician, was born at Vauxhall, London, in October 1858, the second son of Alexan der Burns, an engineer, of Ayrshire extraction. He attended a national school in Battersea until he was ten years old, when he was sent to work in Price's candle factory. He worked for a short time as a page-boy, then in some engine works, and at fourteen was apprenticed for seven years to a Millbank engineer. He con tinued his education at the night-schools, and read extensively, especially the works of Robert Owen, J. S. Mill, Paine and Cobbett. He ascribed his conversion to the principles of Socialism to his sense of the insufficiency of the arguments advanced against it by J. S. Mill, but he had learnt Socialistic doctrine from a French fellow-workman, Victor Delahaye, who had witnessed the Commune. After working at his trade in various parts of England, and on board ship, he went for a year to the West African coast at the mouth of the Niger as a foreman engineer. His earnings from this undertaking were expended on a six months' tour in France, Germany and Austria for the study of political and economic conditions. He had early begun the practice of outdoor speaking, and his exceptional physical strength and strong voice were invaluable qualifications for a popular agitator. In 1878 he was arrested and locked up for the night for addressing an open-air demonstration on Clapham Common. He was again arrested in 1886 for his share in the West End riots when the windows of the Carlton and other London clubs were broken, but cleared himself at the Old Bailey of the charge of inciting the mob to violence. In November of the next year, however, he was again arrested for resisting the police in their attempt to break up the meeting in Trafalgar Square, and was condemned to six weeks' imprisonment. In 1884 he joined the Social Democratic Federation, which put him forward unsuccess fully in the next year as parliamentary candidate for `Vest Not tingham. His connection with the Social Democratic Federation was short-lived ; but he was an active member of the executive of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and was still working at his trade in Hoe's printing machine works when he became a Progressive member of the first London County Council, being supported by an allowance of L2 a week subscribed by his con stituents, the Battersea working men. He introduced in TRn/ motion that all contracts for the County Council should be paid at trade union rates and carried out under trade union conditions, and devoted his efforts in general to a war against monopolies, except those of the state or the municipality. In the same year (1889) in which he became a member of the County Council he acted with Ben Tillett as the chief leader and organizer of the London dock strike. He entered the House of Commons as mem ber for Battersea in 1892, and was re-elected in 1895, 1900 and 1906. In parliament he became well known as an Independent Radical, and he was included in the Liberal cabinet by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in December 1905 as president of the Local Government Board, and retained the office in Mr. Asquith's gov ernment. His policy at the Local Government Board was thought to be too conservative even by some members of the Conservative Party, and early in 1914 he was promoted to the presidency of the Board of Trade. He left the Government in the following August, as he disagreed with the Cabinet's decision to join in the World War. He resigned without making any public statement of his reasons, and took no further active part in Parliament. At the general election of 1918 he desired to stand again for Batter sea in the Labour interest. As, however, he refused to join the Labour Party he was unable to get local support.