Show i RUSSIAN LOCAL government A project on oil Foot The hereditary no ko A sirloin Cir loin contrast there is it a project on foot in governmental circles in russia for the mcw sanitation of local administration the central principles principle of which lias has been rumored to io bo to base it on the principle of rendering the iho members of the claw class of hereditary her ed itara lauded landed nobility tv alore alone eligible for election to the provincial acial assemblies tin the facts disc disclosed loed in an essay on 10 the lo subjects by sir steling levitow lo go to flis dis the practicability ability of this plan phin which could only be advisable or even possible if there existed a class clasa of noble landed land proprietors soundly con at 1 and aed nd more or less leas proportionally tion tilly distributed throughout the empire cui piro this ia riot not so in tile the and extreme east cast of cf R ku avia yia there may be e said to be no ouch anch class at all the large pro inco of archangel but four individuals individual 3 who inay imay le be so considered of fit the titled tilled land owners o in to flo win 11 country barly one halt half cr concentrated in nine nine governments of little russia white russia arid and lithuania ani and oven even there the distribution h N very unequal registers while ahila kharlov Kliar kov contains only 3 in the hie baltic provinces the ari aristocratic bocra tocra c alz IZ ment is insignificant in the ukraine more than half tile the so called nobility might be more properly designated yc 3 men their freeholds free holds bein being ic loa m than I 1 acres in the south and southeast the groat great territorial magnates predominate front from 40 to to per cent of tho the estates consisting of more than acres but even here they are being pushed from their pride of piece and social supremacy by bv nev nei men from the hie ranks of commerce tile the numbers of the hereditary nobility I 1 ire are sensibly on the decline in twelve years they have fallen olt off IS per cent the diminution of their revenues dates farther back and is in ill a greater ratio the absentee lial of cc ae great nobility and tile want of instruction of the smaller who do not reside upon their lands render them unfit to bo be the exclusive occupiers of the new government posts in tho the opinion of the writer above mentioned he ha thinks that there should be both a land property qualification anil an educational test required in the case of every aspirant to office prom from another source it would appear that the aristocratic members of the ali existing are in a large majority even in tho the towns and that they no special privileges to 1 be conferred upon them by law to enable them to maintain their as local leaders but a very curious contrast is presented by the conduct of these gentlemen in the assemblies sem win blies of the nobles and in the oo for many of them them are members of both lit in the former cormer they seldom bring forward questions of general inteli interest t although aliey have a righetto right to boso doso do so and are mainly engaged in asserting their clasi clas prerogatives while in the lie latter they put themselves at the tha head of the popular and in progressive ogress ive movement which is id alien if anything to their class ii interests in this v ay they show themselves at tho the same timo egotistic and generous cri crous defenders of their personal nal interests to the ho detriment of general interests and champions of the alio latter att ter to the detriment of their own london times |