Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/561

Rh, who, moreover, is burdened with the responsibility for an expensive new prison in the town of Vérkhni Údinsk, as well as for all other architectural work in a territory having an area of 547,905 square versts. It is manifest that one architect cannot cope with this amount of work; and the lack of technical supervision, by affecting disadvantageously the durability of the structures, results in the necessity for speedy repairs. In order to avoid these difficulties — the removal of which is beyond the limits of my power, but the responsibility for which rests on the local Siberian administration — I made a proposition to the Minister of the Interior to increase the salaries of the technical experts for whom provision is made in the East-Siberian civil lists. I do not ask for an increase in the number of officers provided for in the civil lists, but only for an increase in their salaries; and I do this in the hope that I shall thus attract hither a class of officers for whom there are always vacancies. I estimate at 9190 rúbles the increase of expenditure that this will necessitate. It will be far more economical for the imperial treasury to authorize this increased annual outlay than to spend a large amount at one time on badly constructed buildings. The losses that result every year from the bad construction of Government buildings in Eastern Siberia is incomparably greater than the amount of the proposed new expenditure. If the latter be authorized, it will at least be possible, on the one hand, to have in Eastern Siberia the necessary number of technologic officers, and on the other to make the local authorities responsible for the proper use of the building appropriations.

A part of the second report of Governor-general Anúchin to the Tsar upon the state of affairs in Eastern Siberia. Delivered to Alexander III. in March, 1882. From a "secret" copy.