by machinery, and led by the hand of man, as most of our readers perhaps know. The Committee then put to Joseph Foster the fol lowing questions, and received the following

answers :

Q. "Are the Committee to understand that you attribute the insufficiency of your remuneration for your labor to the introduction of machinery?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you consider, therefore, that the introduction of machinery is objectionable?

A. We do not. The weavers in general, of Glasgow and its vicinity, do not consider that machinery can or ought to be stopped, or put down. They know perfectly well that machinery must go on, that it will go on, and that it is impossible to stop it. They are aware that every implement of agriculture or manufacture is a portion of machinery, and, indeed, everything that goes beyond the teeth and nails (if I may use the expression) is a machine. I an authorized, by the majority of our society, to say, that I speak their minds, as well as my own, in stating this."

If all, or if a large majority of the workingmen of our country had come to the same sound opinions as Joseph Foster, we should not take the trouble, because it would be needless, now to address them. But when we hear on all sides, that misguided men are violating the laws by which the rights of all are protected; that they are wickedly and ignorantly

destroying the property of the farmer and the manufacturer, in the belief that machinery can be stopped or put down; that they do not know as the poor weavers of Glasgow did know, that machinery must go on, will go on, and that it is impossible to stop it; we think it our duty, having the means of appealing to their reason and to their regard for their own interest, to endeavor to bring their minds to the same conclusions as those of the respectable weaver, whose words we have repeated. He felt that, although he was in his own person a sufferer from the improvement of machinery, it was utterly out of his power, because it was contrary to his reason, and to the reason of all thinking people, whether working-men or not, to resist the progress of that improvement. There are many working-men who entertain the same sound opinions, which they have come to, probably, by an accurate and dispassionate observation of the facts which are within their own view. To such men we hope to offer many new facts to strengthen their opinions; and we rely greatly upon their influence to point out their errors, either to those who are violating the laws, or to those who think the violators of the laws have justice on their side. For the benefit of you all, the informed as well as the uninformed, we address you as men capable of reasoning. We give you a great body of facts to reason upon. We offer nothing to your passions or your prejudices. We shall attempt to make you feel, by bringing before you the same sort of facts by which

that sensible man, Joseph Foster, convinced his own mind, that although your individual labor may be partially displaced, or unsettled for a time, by the use of a cheaper and a better power, which power is machinery, you are great gainers by the general use of that power. We shall strive to show you, that through this power you possess, however poor you may be, many of the comforts which make the difference between man in a civilized and man in a savage state; and further that, in consequence of machinery having rendered productions of all sorts cheaper, and therefore caused them to be more universally purchased, it has really increased the demand for that manual labor, which it appears to some of you, reasoning only from a few instances, it has a tendency to diminish. If we make out these propositions, we think you will agree with Joseph Foster, that the introduction of machinery is not objectionable.

The difference between those of you who object to machines, and the persons who think with Joseph Foster, is, as it appears to us, a want of knowledge. We desire to impart to you that knowledge. Now, how shall we set about the business of imparting it? You are many in number, and are scattered over a large extent of country; some of you are sorely pressed, as we conceive, by the evils that result from a want of knowledge, which make it the more necessary that we should address ourselves to you speedily; and some of you are poor, and therefore have not much to spare, even

for what you may believe may do you good. You, therefore, want this knowledge to be given to you, extensively, quickly, cheaply. It would be out of our power to impart this knowledge at all without machinery: and, therefore, we shall begin by explaining how the machinery, which gives you knowledge of any sort by the means of books, is a vast blessing, when compared with slower methods of multiplying written language; and how, by the aid of this machinery, we can produce a book for your use, without any limit in point of the number of copies, with great rapidity, and at a small price.

It is about 350 years since the art of printing books was invented. Before that time all books were written by the hand. There were many persons employed to copy out books, but they were very dear, although the copiers had small wages. A Bible was sold for thirty pounds in the money of that day, which was equal to a great deal more of our money. Of course, very few people had Bibles or any other books. An ingenious man invented a mode of imitating the written books by cutting the letters on wood, and taking off copies from the wooden blocks by rubbing the sheet on the back; and soon after other clever men thought of casting metal types or letters, which could be arranged in words, and sentences, and pages, and volumes; and then a machine, called a printing-press, upon the principle of a screw, was made to stamp impressions of these types so arranged. There was an end,

then, at once, to the trade of the pen-and-ink copiers; because the copiers in types, who could press off several hundred books while the writers were producing one, drove them out of the morket. A single printer could do the work of at least two hundred writers. At first sight this seems a hardship, for a hundred and ninety-nine people might have been, and probably were, thrown out of their accustomed employment. But what was the consequence in a year or two? Where one written book was sold, a thousand printed books were required. The old books were multiplied in all countries, and new books were composed by men of talent and learning, because they could then find numerous readers. The printing-press did the work more neatly and more correctly than the writer, and it did it infinitely cheaper. What then? The writers of books had to turn their hands to some other trade, it is true; but type-founders, paper-makers, printers, and bookbinders, were set to work, by the new art or machine, to at least a hundred times greater number of persons than the old way of making books employed. If the pen-and-ink copiers could break the printing-presses, and melt down the types that are used in London alone at the present day, twenty thousand people would at least be thrown out of employment to make room for two hundred at the utmost; and what would be even worse than all this misery, books could only be purchased, as before the invention of printing, by the few rich, instead