278 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
traordinary powers. It consisted of three generals and five repre-
sentatives of the unions, and on July 6 it began its work. Although
absolute unanimity prevailed among the members of the commission,
the officer commanding the city placed many needless, vexatious, and
simply ridiculous obstacles in their way, while his petty bureau-
cratic methods greatly hampered its labors. Still worse were the
difficulties in dealing with the Riga State Railway. Instead of co-
operation and help, the commission found there an atmosphere of
peevishness, in addition to the habitual carelessness and irregu-
larity in the work of the officials of this railway. The commission
appealed to Petrograd, but even though high officials of the Minis-
try of Transport came down to Riga to investigate the complaints,
there was only a slight improvement in the situation.
In Riga, one of the most important industrial centers of the Em-
pire, an immense quantity of highly valuable materials and manu-
factured goods had been accumulated. Many factories had in stock
thousands of tons of copper, steel, lead, tin, and other metals. The
work of the commission was of a highly responsible and delicate na-
ture, since, in spite of its intention to evacuate industrial plants as
integral units, the commission found itself compelled to break them
up to a considerable extent, lest materials of great value for the pro-
duction of military equipment should fall into the hands of the
enemy. Fortunately, the German offensive was delayed, so that the
commission was able to complete its labor at the beginning of Sep-
tember, by which time most of the valuable equipment was evacu-
ated.
The total number of establishments evacuated from Riga was
about 150. Some of these represented comparatively small factories
and their plant could be loaded on ten or twelve railway cars. There
were also, however, large works which required in each case more
than 1,000 cars for the transport of their plant alone. On the whole,
it may safely be estimated that nearly 30,000 railway carloads of
plant and about 8,000 carloads of working men were evacuated be-
tween July 6 and September 6 from Riga. The executive functions
‘nthe evacuation of the city were performed chiefly by the officials
of the two unions, for the army generals had at their disposal only a
very small staff, not more than some three or four officers. The num-
ber of engineers, students, and other trained and intelligent workers
