PROJECfS FOR REFORMING THE PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION 291departments.^1 The major concerns of the Provincial Administration
are the safeguarding of the security of persons and property, the
execution of judicial decisions, the implementing of economic and
fiscal measures. To meet his own criticism of inadequate functional
division, business is apportioned among various bureaus on the model
of the organization of the ministries. 2
To overcome the inadequacy and small number of trained admin-
istrative personnel, Speransky made an interesting and valuable
proposal which was put into effect only many years after his time.It consisted of giving the Provincial Administration the right to employ
a few supernumerary assessors, to be selected among young men with
a university diploma.^3 Thereby, a young university graduate would
have a chance to get acquainted with the practical side of government
on the provincial level while awaiting a permanent appointment in
the central administration. Such an apprenticeship should then givepreference for later promotion. It would give an incentive to university
graduates for entering government service; and this in turn wouldhelp to attract more students to the universities. To educate and
enlighten local public opinion on government policies, Speransky
advised the establishment of a weekly paper in each province, to be
called the Vedomosti (news) of such or such a province. The paper
would publish all government decrees and measures, give statistical
data on the state of the province, and carry information of general
interest or benefit to the public. This suggestion, modeled on the St.
Petersburg Journal, which Speransky had helped to establish in 1804,
was readily taken up and became a general practice by the middle of
the century in even as remote a province as Eastern Siberia. 4
Leaving the existing economic and fiscal administrations untouched,
except for some minor details into which we need not enter, Speransky
suggested some fundamental changes in the judiciary. As before 1812,
the main purpose of these suggestions was to dissociate the judicial
from the police functions of local government, and to raise the prestige
and efficiency of the courts by giving them a: status equal to that of
the Provincial Administration. Speransky recommended the establish-1 "Proekt uchrezhdeniia dlia upravleniia gubernii." Sbornik IRIO, vol. 90. pp.
275-276 (pars. 8-9. 12).
2 Ibid., pp. 280-285. Pars. 38-41.
3 Ibid., pp. 275-276. Par. 10. A similar idea on the eventual membership of a
delegate of the nobility in the chancery of the Regional Administration (oblastnoe
pravlenie) is set forth in "Proekt uchrezhdeniia oblastnogo upravleniia." loco cit.,
p. 93. Par. 21.
4 "Proekt uchrezhdeniia dlia upravleniia gubernii." loco cit., p. 293. Par. 108 and
p. 294. Par. 1l0.