THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
according to a plan at once all embracing and yet adjustable to the
practical limits of the available data.
During the actual progress of the War, however, the execution of
this plan for a scientific and objective study of war economics
proved impossible in any large and authoritative way. Incidental
studies and surveys of portions of the field could be made and were
made under the direction of the Division, but it was impossible to
undertake a general history for obvious reasons. In the first place,
an authoritative statement of the resources of belligerents bore directly
 on the conduct of armies in the field. The result was to remove
as far as possible from scrutiny those data of the economic life of
the countries at war which would ordinarily, in time of peace, be
readily available for investigation. In addition to this difficulty of
consulting documents, collaborators competent to deal with them
were for the most part called into national service in the belligerent
countries and so were unavailable for research. The plan for a war
history was therefore postponed until conditions should arise which
would make possible not only access to essential documents, but also
the cooperation of economists, historians, and men of affairs in the
nations chiefly concerned, whose joint work would not be misunderstood
 either in purpose or in content.
Upon the termination of the War, the Endowment once more took
up the original plan, and it was found with but slight modification
to be applicable to the situation. Work was begun in the summer and
autumn of 1918. In the first place a final conference of the Advisory
Board of Economists of the Division of Economics and History was
held in Paris, which limited itself to planning a series of short preliminary
 surveys of special fields. Since, however, the purely preliminary
 character of such studies was further emphasized by the
fact that they were directed more especially toward those problems
which were then fronting Europe as questions of urgency, it was
considered best not to treat them as part of the general survey, but
rather as of contemporary value in the period of war settlement. It
was clear that not only could no general program be laid down a
priori by this conference as a whole, but that a new and more highly
specialized research organization than that already existing would
be needed to undertake the Economic and Social History of the
World War, one based more upon national grounds in the first instance,
 and less upon purely international codperation. Until the

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