The grounds of the decision went a great deal further than the decision itself. As was pointed out to the workmen by Frederic Harrison, “the judgement lays down not merely that certain societies have failed to bring themselves within the letter of a certain Act, but that Trade Unions, of whatever sort, are in their nature contrary to public policy, and that their object in itself will vitiate every association and every transaction into which it enters.... In a word, Unionism becomes (if not according to the suggestion of the learned judge--criminal) at any rate something like betting and gambling, public nuisances and immoral considerations--things condemned and suppressed by the law.”[400] Trade Unionism was now at bay, assailed on both sides. It was easy to foresee that the employers and their allies would make a determined attempt to use the Royal Commission and the Sheffield outrages to suppress Trade Unionism by the criminal law. On the other hand, the hard-earned accumulations of the larger societies, by this time amounting to an aggregate of over a quarter of a million sterling, were at the mercy of their whole army of branch secretaries and treasurers, any one of whom might embezzle the funds with impunity. The crisis was too serious to be dealt with by the excited delegate meetings of the London Trades Council. For over four years we hear of only occasional and purely formal meetings of this body. Immediately on the publication of the decision of the judges in January 1867 Applegarth convened what was called a “Conference of Amalgamated Trades,” but what consisted in reality of weekly private meetings of the five leaders and a few other friends. From 1867 to 1871 this “conference” acted as the effective cabinet of the Trade Union Movement. Its private minute-book, kept by Applegarth, reveals to the student the whole political life of the Trade Union world.