Mr Dowling, the Commissioner of the Liverpool police, stated that in Cheshire parish constables never interfered with wreckers, and on occasions when the borough police were employed on salvage duty they had to go armed to protect themselves against the hostility of the neighbouring villagers. In Cornwall, public opinion was so well disposed towards wreckers, and so superstitiously hostile to shipwrecked sailors, that the coastguard were frequently intimidated and forced to desist from their efforts to save life. It is related how, on one occasion, after communication had with much difficulty been established with a stranded ship by means of the rocket apparatus, the onlookers rushed down and cut the hawser when only one man had been saved, because they believed that if the crew was rescued, ill-luck would befall the district. The Commissioners' summing-up on this part of the subject was couched in the following words: "It is our duty to report, as the result of the extensive inquiries we have made, as to the mode in which the primary duties of a civilized community, in the protection of the persons and property of wayfarers and strangers, are performed, that the barbarous practices above described are not confined to particular districts, but prevail among the population of our coasts wherever wrecks occur...." Another matter which occupied the attention of the Commission had reference to the lawlessness prevailing in the manufacturing districts. As is well known, the introduction of machinery, or, more correctly speaking, the quarrels and consequent cessation of work to which the innovation gave rise, brought much suffering to the wage earning classes. In 1826 the hand-weavers of Lancashire rose in rebellion, and the combinations entered into by the operatives in mines and factories were at first remarkable for the extreme violence of the methods employed, being signalised by an epidemic of machine-breaking in some counties, and by the crime of vitriol-throwing in others. The right of every man to sell his labour at his own price, or to cease work altogether if it pleased him to do so, was at this time recognised, and the legality of combination was no longer denied; but the organizers of labour were not willing to grant to the independent artisan the same measure of liberty that they demanded for themselves and for those whom they claimed to represent. The result of this attitude on the part of the leaders of trades-unionism was that cases of coercion, accompanied by violence, were of common occurrence, and the need of an efficient police force to protect life and property, as well as to prevent intimidation, was very urgent. In this connection the Commissioners remark "some of the strongest corroborative evidence in favour of the efficiency of a well-organized constabulary or police force, might perhaps be found in the extreme bitterness of invective with which the parties implicated in illegal practices in these districts treat any