INCREASED JEWISH DISABILITIES 1.

THE PAHLEN COMMISSION AND NEW SCHEMES OF OPPRESSION The "Temporary Rules" of May 3, 1882, had been passed, so to speak, as an extraordinary "war measure," outside the usual channel of legislative action.

Yet the Russian Government could not but realize that sooner or later it would be bound to adopt the customary legal procedure and place the Jewish question before the highest court of the land, the Council of State.

To meet this eventuality, it was necessary to prepare materials of a somewhat better quality than had been manufactured by the "gubernatorial commissions" and the "Central Jewish Committee" which owed their existence to Ignatyev, forming part and parcel of the general anti-Jewish policy of the discharged Minister.

Even prior to the promulgation of the "Temporary Rules," the Council of Ministers had called the Tzar's attention to the necessity of appointing a special "High Commission" to deal with the Jewish question and to draft legal measures for submission to the Council of State.
This suggestion was carried out on February 4, 1883, on which day an imperial ukase was issued calling for the formation of a "High Commission for the Revision of the Current Laws concerning the Jews." The chairmanship of the Commission was first entrusted to Makov, a former Minister of the Interior, and after his untimely death, to Count Pahlen, a former Minister of Justice, who guided the work of the Commission during the five years of its existence--hence its popular designation as the "Pahlen Commission," The membership of the Commission was made up of six officials representing the various departments of the Ministry of the Interior, and of one official for each of the Ministries of Finance, Justice, Public Instruction, Crown Domains, and Foreign Affairs, and, lastly, of a few experts who were consulted casually.
The new bureaucratic body received no definite instructions as to the period of time within which it was expected to complete its labors.