The hopes aroused by this display of moderation soon vanished. Early in 1898 the appointment of General Kuropatkin to the Ministry for War for Russia foreboded evil to the Grand Duchy. The new Minister speedily counselled the exploitation of the resources of Finland for the benefit of the Empire. Already the Russian General Staff had made efforts in this direction; and now Kuropatkin, supported by the whole weight of the Slavophil party, sought to convince the Czar of the danger of leaving the Finns with a separate military organisation. A military committee, in which there was only one Finn, the Minister Procope, had for some time been sitting at St. Petersburg, and finally gained over Nicholas II. to its views. He is said to have formed his final decision during his winter stay at Livadia in the Crimea, owing to the personal intervention of Kuropatkin, and that too in face of a protest from the Finnish Minister, Procope, against the suspension by imperial ukase of a fundamental law of the Grand Duchy. The Czar must have known of the unlawfulness of the present procedure, for on November 6/18, 1894, shortly after his accession, he signed the following declaration:-- . . . We have hereby desired to confirm and ratify the religion, the fundamental laws, the rights and privileges of every class in the said Grand Duchy, in particular, and all its inhabitants high and low in general, which they, according to the constitution of this country, had enjoyed, promising to preserve the same steadfastly and in full force[239]. [Footnote 239: _The Rights of Finland_, p. 4 (Stockholm 1899). See too for the whole question _Finland and the Tsars, 1809-1899_, by J.R. Fisher (London, 2nd Edit. 1900).] The military system of Finland having been definitely organised by the Finnish law of 1878, that statute clearly came within the scope of those "fundamental laws" which Nicholas II. had promised to uphold in full force. We can imagine, then, the astonishment which fell on the Finnish Diet and people on the presentation of the famous Imperial Manifesto of February 3/15, 1899. While expressing a desire to leave purely Finnish affairs to the consideration of the Government and Diet of the Grand Duchy, the Czar warned his Finnish subjects that there were others that could not be so treated, seeing that they were "closely bound up with the needs of the whole Empire." As the Finnish constitution pointed out no way of treating such subjects, it was needful now to complete the existing institutions of the Duchy. The Manifesto proceded as follows:--