Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/54

 are withdrawn from its competence. Thus, the right to legislate in military matters has always been withheld, although the Duma did very much to improve the state of the Russian army and navy a few years before the war. The right to legislate in questions of church administration is also a subject of dispute, although the Duma claims nothing more than what the Government has always possessed in matters of religious legislation since the time of Peter the Great. Further, the Duma is thwarted by the indiscriminate use of Imperial edicts and orders in Council. There is one case in which the law expressly allows emergency legislation; this is when the Duma is not sitting. You can, however, hardly imagine how much this Article 87 is misused for matters not at all urgent, at times when the presence of the Duma is not desired. We even had a case of the prorogation of the Duma and of the Council of Empire for three days in order to carry through without the legislative assembly a very important law.

The curtailment of the control of the Duma over the Budget is, perhaps, even more serious. It is particularly here that the feeling of distrust toward the young representative body has guided the Government in the making of our constitution. In the first place, all the expenses which were customary before the granting of the constitution in 1905, were considered sacrosanct and not to be touched. They are specially "protected " from the hasty influence of budget legislation. Doubly protected are the expenses for the