The permissive character of the "Rural Police Act" has often been adversely criticised, sometimes, perhaps, without due allowance being made for the difficulty of the problem which confronted the government. It cannot be denied that, judged by its immediate results, the Act was largely a failure, and it is equally certain that its ill-success was consequent upon the free choice between adoption and rejection allowed to local magistrates; but it must be remembered that the power of the government in this matter was far from being unrestricted, the only possible alternatives before the authorities being, the policy of making a small beginning, and the policy of doing nothing at all. Reference has already been made to the difficulty of securing satisfactory recruits for the metropolitan police, and the available supply had been still further reduced by the demands made upon it to satisfy the necessities of the boroughs. An endeavour to provide simultaneously the whole of England and Wales with efficient police-officers would have been to attempt the impracticable, whilst knowingly to admit inferior men into the ranks of the new constabulary would have been to condemn it irretrievably. Nor was the lack of suitable material the only reason why a cautious plan of campaign was necessary and inevitable; the same spirit of obstinate opposition which had been encountered and nearly overcome in London was, to some extent, apparent in the counties; country gentlemen, besides being indisposed to favour any innovation that threatened their personal supremacy so near home, were strongly opposed to any additional burden being thrown on the county rate. The press, without repeating the bitterness displayed in 1829, added its influence to that of the county magnates, and the idea that any reform of the rural police was at all necessary was scouted by people who ought to have known better; the very men who a year before had testified to the increase of rural crime, now declaring that any interference with the existing machinery for its suppression would be disastrous. Amongst the many objections put forward, some were not very complimentary to the "great unpaid;" it was argued, for example, that the county justices were comparatively harmless so long as they wielded that blunt instrument, the parish constable, but should they be armed with a sharp weapon, such as the police-constable was admitted to be, no man could foresee the damage that would result.[208] Whilst public opinion remained in ferment the Government was surely well advised to act with caution, by making the adoption of the Act dependent upon the consent of those whom it was designed to benefit. In this way much opposition was disarmed, and the care of the infant institution was entrusted only to those who voluntarily undertook it.