34 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
universal education. For these purposes, the law of 1908 placed at
the disposal of the Ministry of Education a special annual credit of
more than 50,000,000 rubles. At first, all this money was not uti-
lized, but by the time the War broke out, almost the whole of it was
being spent. The rapid rise in government subsidies to zemstvos ap-
pears clearly from the following figures of their budgets in the
thirty-four provinces: from 11,918,000 rubles in 1910 they in-
creased to 57,991,000 rubles in 1914; during the same period the
revenue of the zemstvos increased from 171,688,000 rubles to 292,-
050,000 rubles.** It will be seen that during the four years preceding
the War, the government subsidies to zemstvos increased fivefold:
forming only about 7 per cent of the total revenue in 1910, they
amounted to 20 per cent in 1914.
During the decade immediately preceding the War, the Govern-
ment at last agreed to extend the zemstvo institution to those prov-
inces and territories where it had hitherto so stubbornly opposed its
establishment. In 1911 the Government carried through the legisla-
ture a law sanctioning the introduction of institutions of local gov-
ernment in six western provinces (Kiev, Volhynia, Podolia, Vitebsk,
Minsk, and Mogilev) '? and in 1912 a law was passed to extend it to
three other provinces (Astrakhan, Orenburg, Stavropol). Plans
were under consideration for the introduction of local government in
the Don territory, Siberia, etc.
An important feature of these new laws was the absence of the
class principle of representation that had formed part of the Zem-
stvo Act of 1890. The Government thus returned to something like
the principles adopted by it at the outset in 1864. In the Zemstvo
Acts of 1911 and 1912 we have no longer a special curia for the
gentry ; instead we find, side by side with the peasant curia, a curia
embracing landowners of all classes. Another interesting feature of
the zemstvo institution established in the six western provinces was
the material reduction of the franchise qualifications, and the divi-
sion of the landowners’ curia into Russian and non-Russian, the for-
11 Zemstvo Yearbook for 1912 and 1916.
12 As early as 1908, zemstvo institutions on peculiar principles had been
introduced there: the members of the assemblies and boards were appointed
by the Government from among those who had the requisite property qualifi-
cations. Of course, such an institution could not be regarded as a real organ
of self-government.
