[Footnote 235:  A law of the autumn of 1902 altered this.  It delegated the administration to the Governor-General, assisted by the Senate.]

[Footnote 236:  For the constitution of Finland and its relation to Russia, see A Precis of the Public Law of Finland, by L. Mechelin, translated by C.J.  Cooke (1889); Pour la Finlande, par Jean Deck; Pour la Finlande, La Constitution du Grand Duche de Finlande (Paris, 1900).  J.R.  Danielsson, Finland’s Union with the Russian Empire (Borga, 1891).]

A very important clause of the law of 1869 declares that “Fundamental laws can be made, altered, explained, or repealed, only on the representation of the Emperor and Grand Duke, and with the consent of all the Estates.”  This clause sharply marked off Finland from Russia, where the power of the Czar is theoretically unlimited.  New taxes may not be imposed nor old taxes altered without the consent of the Finnish Diet; but, strange to say, the customs dues are fixed by the Government (that is, by the Grand Duke and the Senate) without the co-operation of the Diet.  Despite the archaic form of its representation, the Finnish constitution (an offshoot of that of Sweden) has worked extremely well; and in regard to civil freedom and religious toleration, the Finns take their place among the most progressive communities of the world.  Moreover, the constitution is no recent and artificial creation; it represents customs and beliefs that are deeply ingrained in a people who, like their Magyar kinsmen, cling firmly to the old, even while they hopefully confront the facts of the present.  There was every ground for hope.  Between the years 1812 and 1886 the population grew from 900,000 to 2,300,000, and the revenue from less than 7,000,000 marks (a Finnish mark = about ten pence) to 40,000,000 marks.

Possibly this prosperity prompted in the Russian bureaucracy the desire to bring the Grand Duchy closely into line with the rest of the Empire.  On grounds other than constitutional, the bureaucrats had a case.  They argued that while the revenue of Finland was increasing faster than that of Russia Proper, yet the Grand Duchy bore no share of the added military burdens.  It voted only 17 per cent of its revenue for military defence as against 28 per cent set apart in the Russian Budget.  The fact that the Swedish and Finnish languages, as well as Finnish money, were alone used on the railways of the Grand Duchy, even within a few miles of St. Petersburg, also formed a cause of complaint.  When, therefore, the Slavophils began to raise a hue and cry against everything that marred the symmetry of the Empire, an anti-Finnish campaign lay in the nature of things.  Historical students discovered that the constitution was the gift of the Czars, and that their goodwill had been grossly misused by the Finns.  Others, who could not deny the validity of the Finnish constitution, claimed that even constitutions and laws must change with changing circumstances; that a narrow particularism was out of place in an age of railways and telegraphs; and that Finland must take its fair share in the work of national defence[237].