116 REFORM OF RUSSIA'S FINANCES AND CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION
creating the Council also listed its immediate tasks: consideration of
the Civil Code drafted by Speransky and the Commission on Laws,
reorganization of the ministries, and discussion of Speransky's Finan-
cial Plan.
In the beginning, the Council worked well and rapidly. It consid-
ered and 'approved the Financial Plan and the statutes of the ministries.
The discussion of the Civil Code took more time, but then the draft
submitted was not very satisfactory, as we remember. The Department
on State Economy, under the chairmanship of the able and enlightened
Admiral Count Mordvinov, was particularly energetic, and with
rewarding results. However, in addition to its consultative functions
on new legislation, the Council took on also judicial cases, those on
which the Senate could not come to an agreement or decision. This
judicial role and the exclusively consultative participation in the
drafting of new legislation became the main functions of the Council
in later years and remained such throughout the 19th century.^1 This
had not been Speransky's original intention, but it was the best that
could come of an institution torn out of its original context and
deprived of the support of those institutions with which it was sup-
posed to have formed a harmonious, integrated, and organic unit.
Reporting on his accomplishments for the year 1810 in a report
submitted to the Emperor, Speransky briefly outlined the ground
covered so far and what, in his opinion, still remained to be done. At
the time of his writing, the first perversions of his work and intentions
were becoming apparent, and Speransky warned that the improvements
would come to naught if this process were allowed to continue. He
protested against the Council of State becoming a judicial body: "[the
Council] has not been established for the solution of judicial problems,
but to give a basic form, a framework of regularity, to the legislative
function heretofore dispersed and variegated and to provide [the
legislative] with permanency, solidity, and uniformity." 2 There was
still a lack of adequate personnel for the Council of State, but this
defect would certainly be obviated in the near future, Speransky wrote
in answer to some criticisms that had been made of the new in-
stitution. In regard to the finances of the Empire, Speransky continued,
the domestic loan had been floated and was proceeding successfully
(which was an optimistic exaggeration, as we know), but the establish-
ment of a solid system of credit was not in sight yet and the budget1 Korkunov. Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo, II. p. 83.
2 Speranskii, "Otchct v delakh 1810," Sbornik IRIO, XXI, p. 449 (note).