407.] The report was laid before the Tzar, who attached to it the following "resolution": [1] "Where this measure (of expulsion) has been started, it is inconvenient to repeal it; but it shall be postponed for the time being in the governments in which no steps towards it have as yet been made." For a number of years this "resolution" hung like the sword of Damocles over the heads of rural Jewry.
[Footnote 1: See on the meaning of the term "resolution" Vol.

I, p.

253, n.

1.] Less yielding was the Tzar's attitude on the question of the partial enlargement of the Pale of Settlement.

The Department of Laws had suggested to grant the merchants of the first guild the right of residence in the Russian interior in the interest of the exchequer and big business.