At Burnley on Wednesday Mr. Burns delivered an admirable and
timely speech on education and employment. As regards employment, the chief difficulty was that England had a larger number of casual workers than there were in either Germany or France. Unskilled labour ought to be " decasualised." Ninety per cent, of those who applied for work to Distress Committees were unskilled, casual, or general labourers. Too often they were uneducated, resourceless, aimless, and hopeless. The fault he had to find with the working classes was the meanness of their wants, the poverty of their aims, tastes, and ideals. Education was needed to fire them. He himself was not a kill-joy, but be warned his audience against professionalised football. People said : "John Burns has got L'200,000 for the unemployed"; and with that sum they expected him to make a new heaven and a new earth. Why did they not do it themselves with their three millions a week wasted on drink and gambling, and rise to the level of their responsibilities ? We are glad that Mr. Burns has the courage to speak like this. The doctrine of the old economists, which we understand Mr. Burns to be repeating, that the material welfare of the people responds to the standard of comfort which they set before themselves, is as true as ever it was.
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