The success with which the case of the Trade Unionists had been presented to the Commission was reflected in a changed attitude on the part of the governing class, a change expressly attributed to the “greater knowledge and wider experience” of Trade Unions which had been gained through the Royal Commission. “True statesmanship,” declared the _Times_, “will seek neither to augment nor to reduce their influence, but, accepting it as a fact, will give it free scope for legitimate development.”[404] Thus the official report of the Commission, from which the enemies of Trade Unionism had hoped so much, contained no recommendation which would have made the position of any single Union worse than it was before. An inconclusive and somewhat inconsistent document, it argued that trade combination could be of no real economic advantage to the workman, but nevertheless recommended the legalisation of the Unions under certain conditions. Whereas the Act of 1825 had excepted from the common illegality only combinations in respect of wages or hours of labour, the Commissioners recommended that no combination should henceforth be liable to prosecution for restraint of trade, except those formed “to do acts which involved breach of contract,” and to refuse to work with any particular person. But the privilege of registration, carrying with it the power to obtain legal protection for the society’s funds, was to be conferred only on Unions whose rules were free from certain restrictive clauses, such as the limitation of apprentices or of the use of machinery, and the prohibition of piecework and sub-contract. The employers’ influence on the Commission was further shown in a special refusal of the privilege of registration to societies whose rules authorised the support of the disputes of other trades.