greatest of social problems have found a peaceable solution in Russia,
thanks to the conditions of its political organization.

For a full comprehension, however, of the manifesto of 1899, it must be
regarded as one of the phases in the development of Finland's relations
to Russia. It will then become evident that as a legacy of the past it
is the outcome of the natural course of events which sooner or later
must have led up to it. The initiation of Finland into the historical
destinies of the Russian Empire was bound to lead to the rise of
questions calling for a general solution common both to the empire and
to Finland. Naturally, in view of the subordinate status of the latter,
such questions could be solved only in the order appointed for imperial
legislation. At the same time, neither the fundamental laws of the
Swedish period of rule in Finland, which were completely incompatible
with its new status, nor the Statutes of the Diet, introduced by
Alexander II., and determining the order of issue of local laws,
touched, or could touch, the question of the issue of general imperial
laws. This question arose in the course of the legislative work
on the systematization of the fundamental laws of Finland. This task,
undertaken by order of the Emperor Alexander II. for the more precise
determination of the status of Finland as an indivisible part of our
state, was continued during the reign of his august successor, the
Emperor Alexander III., and led to the question of determining the
order of issue of general imperial laws. The rules drafted for this
purpose in 1893 formed the contents of the manifesto of 1899. Thus we
see that during six years they remained without application, there
being no practical necessity for their publication. When, however, this
necessity arose, owing to the lapse of the former military law, the
manifesto was issued. It was, therefore, the finishing touch to the
labor of many years at the determination of the manner in which the