to suspect that the Zemstvo had the ambition to play the part of a parliamentary Opposition.  This suspicion found formal expression in at least one secret official document, in which the writer declares that “the Opposition has built itself firmly a nest in the Zemstvo.”  Now, if we mean to be just to both parties in this little family quarrel, we must admit that the Zemstvo, as I shall explain in a future chapter, had ambitions of that kind, and it would have been better perhaps for the country at the present moment if it had been able to realise them.  But this is a West-European idea.  In Russia there is, and can be, no such thing as “His Majesty’s Opposition.”  To the Russian official mind the three words seem to contain a logical contradiction.  Opposition to officials, even within the limits of the law, is equivalent to opposition to the Autocratic Power, of which they are the incarnate emanations; and opposition to what they consider the interests of autocracy comes within measurable distance of high treason.  It was considered necessary, therefore, to curb and suppress the ambitious tendencies of the wayward child, and accordingly it was placed more and more under the tutelage of the provincial Governors.  To show how the change was effected, let me give an illustration.  In the older arrangements the Governor could suspend the action of the Zemstvo only on the ground of its being illegal or ultra vires, and when there was an irreconcilable difference of opinion between the two parties the question was decided judicially by the Senate; under the more recent arrangements his Excellency can interpose his veto whenever he considers that a decision, though it may be perfectly legal, is not conducive to the public good, and differences of opinion are referred, not to the Senate, but to the Minister of the Interior, who is always naturally disposed to support the views of his subordinate.

In order to put an end to all this insubordination, Count Tolstoy, the reactionary Minister of the Interior, prepared a scheme of reorganisation in accordance with his anti-liberal views, but he died before he could carry it out, and a much milder reorganisation was adopted in the law of 12th (24th) June, 1890.  The principal changes introduced by that law were that the number of delegates in the Assemblies was reduced by about a fourth, and the relative strength of the different social classes was altered.  Under the old law the Noblesse had about 42 per cent., and the peasantry about 38 per cent, of the seats; by the new electoral arrangements the former have 57 per cent, and the latter about 30.  It does not necessarily follow, however, that the Assemblies are more conservative or more subservient on that account.  Liberalism and insubordination are much more likely to be found among the nobles than among the peasants.

In addition to all this, as there was an apprehension in the higher official spheres of St. Petersburg that the opposition spirit of the Zemstvo might find public expression in a printed form, the provincial Governors received extensive rights of preventive censure with regard to the publication of the minutes of Zemstvo Assemblies and similar documents.