ORIGIN OF THE UNION 57 
The local organs of the Zemstvo Union were the provincial and 
district committees. Their organization and procedure were left to 
the discretion of the provincial zemstvo. Funds appropriated by the 
provincial zemstvos for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers were 
paid into the central treasury of the Union. The latter then allo- 
cated them to the provincial committees, and these, in turn, to the 
district committees. Very soon, the central treasury began to re- 
ceive donations and contributions from all over Russia, partly in 
cash and partly in kind (linen, warm clothing, etc.). Later, the Gov- 
ernment, availing itself of the resources of the Union, gave it 
steadily increasing orders to supply the army with equipment and 
provisions, placing at the disposal of the Union large sums to enable 
it to carry out these orders. 
Prince Lvov was elected President of the Union. M. Shlippe, 
chairman of the Moscow provincial zemstvo board. was chosen to act 
in his absence. 
About a week after the organization of the Union, Prince Lvov 
had an audience with the Emperor. In the course of the conversa- 
tion, Prince Lvov thus explained the aims of the new Union: 
The All-Russian Union of Zemstvos was formed only about a week 
ago. Its organization is of the simplest. A Central Committee has been 
formed at Moscow, and provincial and district committees locally. The 
whole organization has been built, not according to rigid and elaborate 
statutes, but on a basis of a powerful desire for collaboration. Out of 
their own resources, the zemstvos have been able to assign 12,000,000 
rubles for the relief of the wounded. Our function is to receive the 
wounded from the army, transfer them to the hospitals, equip hospital 
trains and hospitals, heal our wounded soldiers and then send them 
hack to their homes.* 
The Emperor received this report with the same sympathy he had 
shown for the similar zemstvo organization in 1904. But among the 
higher government officials, the reaction to the Emperor’s expression 
of pleasure with the zemstvo enterprise was now quite different from 
what it had been ten years earlier. The events that were taking 
place seemed far too grave and ominous to admit of opposition to 
this useful enterprise, and, moreover, there had been a change in the 
meantime in the relations between the Government and the public. 
'* Report (Obzor Deyatelnosti) of the Central Committee, p. 80.