The right to strike, however, was bound up with certain other rights which the French workingmen were still denied. Unless the latter had the right to assemble and to organize, they could profit but little by the new law on coalitions. Besides, the French workingmen were generally averse to strikes. The reports of 1862, though demanding the freedom of coalition, declared that it was not the intention of the workingmen to make strikes their habitual procedure. The delegates of 1867, who formed a commission which met in Paris for two years, discussing all the economic problems that interested the workingmen of the time, were of the same opinion. A special session of the Commission was devoted to the consideration of the means by which strikes might be avoided. All agreed that, as one of the delegates expressed it, strikes were "the misery of the workingmen and the ruin of the employer"[28] and should be resorted to only in cases of absolute necessity. What the delegates demanded was the right to organize and to form "syndical chambers". They hoped that with the help of these organizations, they would avoid strikes and improve their economic condition. [28] _Commission Ouvrière de 1867, Recueil des Procés-Verbaux_, vol. i, p. 28. In the beginning of 1868, a number of delegates to the Exhibition of 1867 were received by the Minister of Agriculture, Commerce and Public Works to present their views and demands. The vice-president of the Commission, M. Parent, indicated clearly what the workingmen meant by "syndical chambers" in the following words: