Needless to say, the conclusions offered by them were of the kind anticipated in the instructions of the Council of State: the necessity of wiping out the last vestiges of Jewish self-government, such as the Jewish community, the school, the mutual relief societies, in a word, everything that tends to foster "the communal cohesion among the Jews." The barbarism of these proposals was covered by the fig-leaf of enlightenment.

When the benighted Jewish masses will have fused with the highly cultured populance of Russia.

In other words, when the Jews will have ceased to be Jews, then will the Jewish question find its solution.
In the meantime, however, the Jews are to be curbed by the bridle of disabilities.

The referee of the Committee on the question of the Pale of Settlement, Grigoryev, frankly stated: "What is important in this question is not whether the Jews will fare better when granted the right of residence all over the Empire, but rather the effect of this measure on the economic well-being of an enormous part of the Russian people." From this point of view the referee finds that it would be dangerous to let the Jews pass beyond the Pale, since "the plague, which has thus far been restricted to the Western provinces, will then spread over the whole Empire." For a long time the Committee was at a deadlock, held down by bureaucratic reaction.

It was only toward the end of its existence that the voice from another world, the posthumous voice of dead and buried liberalism, resounded in its midst.