REFUGEES 175 
months which had been appointed for that purpose, but a month or 
two later, at earliest. It was necessary, therefore, to issue advances, 
but this could not possibly satisfy all demands and merely tended to 
introduce a state of nervousness and uncertainty into the whole 
business. Moreover, there were inexplicable delays in the remittance 
of such funds as had been appropriated. Thus, on January 16, 
1915, a credit of 40,000 rubles had been sanctioned for the governor 
of Yaroslav, but the money was actually transmitted on March 9; 
on January 27, the sum of 30,000 rubles was appropriated for the 
governor of Novgorod, to be forwarded only on February 26; on 
January 27 the governor of Poltava was allowed the sum of 100,000 
rubles, but it was not received until March 2. Numberless instances 
of this kind might be cited. 
We have not space to go into the technical details which were 
responsible for the delays in the approval of estimates at Petrograd. 
It will be sufficient to point out that any budget was in danger of 
being rejected by the Special Council on purely formal grounds. 
The Unions of Zemstvos and of Towns received endless complaints 
about the lack of funds, while refugees were left for months and 
months without food and rent allowance, and frequently suffered 
actual starvation. The local population, who at first had generally 
shown a hospitable disposition toward the refugees, gradually 
changed their attitude when they saw that they had to deal with 
people incapable of paying their rent or buying food. Sorely tried 
by these clamoring, starving masses, the members of the relief com- 
mittees simply deserted their posts and refused to discharge their 
duties. In many districts the situation became desperate and there 
were fears of disorders and riots. The provincial committee of 
Ekaterinoslav called the attention of the governor to the total lack 
of funds and the desperate situation on not less than eighteen dif- 
ferent occasions between September 1, 1915, and F ebruary 11, 
1916. Repeated complaints of a similar nature were being made by 
the representatives of the unions in the provinces of Tambov, Kos- 
troma, Samara, Kazan, Simbirsk, and many others. 
In another respect also the relief work proved exceedingly diffi- 
cult. At the request of the Duma, all the work of refugee relief had, 
by the law of August 30, 1915, been handed over to the zemstvos 
and municipalities, which had been granted full independence in the 
matter of organizing the work locally. In practice this independence