In the year 1827 a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to examine into the subject of Emigration. The first person examined before that Committee was Joseph Foster, a working weaver of Glasgow. He told the Committee that he and many others, who had formed themselves into a society, were in great distress; that numbers of them worked at the _hand-loom_ from eighteen to nineteen hours a day, and that their earnings, at the utmost, did not amount to more than seven shillings a-week, and that sometimes they were as low as four shillings. That twenty years before that time they could readily earn a pound a-week by the same industry; and that as _power-loom_ weaving had increased, the distress of the hand-weavers also had increased in the same proportion. The Committee then put to Joseph Foster the following questions, and received the following answers:-- "_Q._ Are the Committee to understand that you attribute the insufficiency of your remuneration for your labour 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 am authorized, by the majority of our society, to say that I speak their minds, as well as my own, in stating this." It is worthy of note how the common sense of this working-man, a quarter of a century ago, saw clearly the great principle which overthrows, in the outset, all unreasoning hostility to machinery. Let us follow out his principle. Amongst the many accounts which the newspapers in December, 1830, gave of the destruction of machinery by agricultural labourers, we observed that in the neighbourhood of Aylesbury a band of mistaken and unfortunate men destroyed all the machinery of many farms, _down even to the common drills_. The men conducted themselves, says the county newspaper, with civility; and such was their consideration, that they moved the machines out of the farm-yards, to prevent injury arising to the cattle from the nails and splinters that flew about while the machinery was being destroyed. They _could not make up their minds_ as to the propriety of destroying a horse-churn, and therefore that machine was passed over.