REFUGEES

165

of refugees had already been set up. It had special subcommittees
at work for each of the following services: statistical, information,
evacuation, settlement of refugees, transport, children’s aid, public
health, and labor exchange.
On August 5, 1915, the Ministry of the Interior introduced in
the Duma a bill “to provide for the needs of the refugees.” The bill
contained provision for the organization at Petrograd of a Special
Council for Refugees which was to be presided over by the Minister
of the Interior; locally, the executive functions were to be entrusted
to committees acting under the chairmanship and direction of the
provincial governors. In the legislative chambers the bill was considerably
 amended. In its final form it vested all powers for dealing
with refugees locally in the municipalities and the zemstvos and it
did away with the chairmanship of the provincial governors. However,
 the law approved by the Emperor on August 30, 1915, provided
 that the Minister of the Interior should be personally at the
head of the entire organization of refugee relief. An advisory body
known as the Special Council, a majority of whose members were to
be appointed by the Minister, was attached to the Ministry.
The Ministry did by no means contemplate a concentration of
refugee relief work under the control of the Unions of Zemstvos and
of Towns. At first, the Special Council simply ignored the communications
 received from the Central Committees of the Unions of
Zemstvos and of Towns, appropriations were delayed, and the question
 of the participation of the unions in the relief of the refugees
was postponed from one meeting to another. To coordinate the
work of the many and motley organizations in existence, the Special
Council decided to draw up an “instruction for the settlement of the
refugees.” The elaboration of the instruction dragged on till March
2, 1916, and it introduced considerable changes into the law of
August 30, 1915, by creating provincial joint-committees locally
under the chairmanship of the governors, a thing that had been
vigorously opposed in the Duma as well as in the State Council.t
As a rule, appropriations granted for local needs had to be submitted
 to the approval of the governors.
In the course of the lengthy discussions of these new regulations,
the attitude of the Government as regards the place to be assigned
® The upper house of the Russian legislature.