sures towards solving the Jewish problem abandoned
themselves entirely to a policy of repression, those of their
fellow-bureaucrats who had been commissioned to consider and judge the
same question from a purely theoretic point of view came to the
conclusion that the repressive policy pursued by the Government was not
only injurious but even dangerous. Contrary to expectations, the "High
Commission" under the chairmanship of Count Pahlen, consisting of aged
dignitaries and members of various ministries, approached the Jewish
question, at least as far as the majority of the Commission was
concerned, in a much more serious frame of mind than did the promoters
of the "active" anti-Jewish policies, who had no time for contemplation
and were driven by the pressure of their reactionary energy to go ahead
at all cost. In the course of five years the Pahlen Commission succeeded
in investigating the Jewish question in all its aspects. It studied and
itself prepared a large mass of historic, juridic, as well as economic
and statistical material. It probed the labors of Ignatyev's
gubernatorial commissions, quickly ascertaining their biased tendency,
and examined the entire history of the preceding legislation concerning
the Jews. It finally came to the conclusion that the whole century-long
system of restrictive legislation had failed of its purpose, and must
give way to a system of emancipatory measures, to be carried out
gradually and with extreme caution. The majority of the members of the
Commission concurred in this opinion, including Count Pahlen, its
chairman. In the following we present a few brief extracts from the
conclusions formulated by this conservative and bureaucratic commission
in its comprehensive "General Memoir" which was written in the beginning
of 1888:

Can the attitude of the State towards a population of five millions,
forming one-twentieth of its subjects--though belonging to a race
different from that of the majority--whom that State itself had
incorporated, together with the territories populated by them, into
the Russian body politic, differ from its attitude towards all its
other subjects?.... Hence, from the political point of view, the Jew
is entitled to equality of citizenship. Without granting him equal
rights, we cannot, properly speaking, demand from him equal civic
obligations.... Repression and disfranchisement, discrimination and
persecution have never yet leaded to impro