had boldly accepted the challenge and asked for the appointment of a special commission for examining and verifying the labors of the commissioners on the fertilization of the Zaraï fields; and this did not prevent him from also keeping these gentlemen busy in other ways. He had also demanded a special commission for investigating the status and organization of the foreign populations.
This last question had likewise been raised by the Commission of June 14, and was energetically supported by Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, on the ground that no delay should be allowed in relieving the deplorable situation of these alien tribes.
In committee this matter gave rise to the most lively discussions among the ministries. The ministry hostile to Alekseï Aleksandrovitch proved that the position of the foreign populations was perfectly flourishing; that to meddle with them would be to injure their well-being; and that, if any fault could be found in regard to the matter, it was due to the neglect of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch and his ministry, in not carrying out the measures prescribed by law.
Now Alekseï Aleksandrovitch had made up his mind to demand: first, the appointment of a new committee, whose duty should be to study on the spot the condition of the foreign populations; secondly, in case their condition should be found such as the official data in the hands of the committee represented, that a new scientific commission should be sent to study into the causes of this sad state of things, with the aim of settling it from the (a) political, (d) administrative, (c) economical, (d) ethnographical, (e) physical, and (f) religious point of view; thirdly, that the hostile ministry should be required to furnish the particulars in regard to the measures taken during the last ten years to relieve the wretched situation in which these tribes were placed; and fourthly and finally, that this ministry should explain the fact that they had acted in absolute contradiction to the fundamental and organic law, Volume T, page 18, with reference to Article 36,
