THE ZEMSTVOS AND THE UNION 83
cost of living, in addition to dealing with a large number of highly
important and urgent economic problems, it was necessary to devise
some better organization and coérdination among these local bodies.
The first attempt in this direction was made by the provincial zem-
stvo of Perm, which, with the sanction of the governor, introduced
the so-called volost economic councils. These included representa-
tives of the local residents on an elective basis, and all the zemstvo
officers living within the volost, and the principal officials of the
volost peasant administration. According to the terms of reference,
“the volost councils are granted the right to hire a secretary-in-
structor, by agreement with, the district zemstvo board.” Three-
fourths of his wages were to be paid by the provincial zemstvo, while
the district zemstvo was to contribute the balance. The experiment
of the Perm zemstvo proved very successful and was followed by
other zemstvos.
The War undoubtedly stimulated local enterprise and energy.
Not only the zemstvos, but likewise the Government fully realized
the necessity of mobilizing all available public forces. It was not,
however, the intention of the authorities nor in accordance with the
tradition of officialdom to link up the small government units with
the zemstvo institutions and thus expand and consolidate the sphere
of zemstvo activities. When an acute need was felt for smaller local
organizations to conduct the food supply campaign, the Ministry
of the Interior found it impossible to confine itself to the existing
volost administration or committees for relief. It attempted, in con-
formity with the law of October 10, 1916, to create special volost
food supply committees on the same basis as the economic councils
of Perm, with the participation of local representatives, but these
were intended to be independent of the zemstvo organization.
The exigencies of the War, however, were such as to demand im-
peratively nothing short of volost zemstvos, to be formed on a uni-
form plan as a small, elective unit. Hasty and thoughtless local
enterprises, resulting in an endless and uncoordinated variety of
committees, offices, and councils, threatened to dissipate zemstvo as
well as government forces in a general chaos. In place of organiza-
tion there was sometimes only improvisation. The Government at
last realized the need of proper legislation for a final solution of
the problem of volost administration reform, such as had been
arged for a quarter of a century, only to be repeatedly deferred by
