The protection of the former serfs was skillfully arranged by grouping them in self-governing village communes, to which land enough was given on a long-term repayment basis. In each, by an assembly composed of all the heads of households, periodic allotments of the common territory were made to the individuals. Compact economic units, whose property could not be sold, were built up against alienation of the land or poverty-induced peonage. The rendering of justice in local disputes was delegated to the peasant courts,--the only tribunals in Russia, save the National Senate, from which there is no appeal. The Mir, complete within itself, was responsible to the Imperial Government for good order and the taxes, and was secure from molestation provided these duties were fulfilled. Its inhabitants, united and independent, were able to resist any encroachment by their former masters or by neighboring landlords. [Illustration: THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW] It is not unworthy of note that up to the present time the liberties in economic matters thus granted have rarely been infringed by the authorities, nor have the village assemblies been exploited as a play in politics or to attain personal ends. While agriculturally and industrially the communal land provisions have become insufficient, cramping, perhaps baneful, and no longer necessary now that society is in equilibrium, nevertheless the germ of free institutions fecundated in the Mir, when dissociated from its communal features, is admirable still, and is capable of becoming the foundation for real self-government. Plans for provincial assemblies as a further extension of local home rule had been under consideration since 1859. On January 1, 1864, an Imperial Ukase was promulgated instituting Semstvos in thirty-three governments. To this assembly, proprietor and peasant, rich and poor, elected their representatives. Each Semstvo was to appoint its own executive to carry out the laws it decreed. The jurisdiction of this assembly, though confined to local and non-political matters, was wide. Rates, streets, convocations, posts, sanitary measures, famine-relief, fire-insurance, schools, agricultural improvement, all land, house, and factory taxes (those upon imperial as well as those upon private domains), were given into the Semstvo control. It was granted partial powers over various other minor matters. It exercised practically all the economic and social functions of local governmental activity save what fell to the Mirs. It was welcomed as an epoch-making institution. The liberal press of the period hailed it as a living guidon of the upward way, as the blessed daylight of a constitutional government. So indeed it might have become. In the new Emperor’s mind there germinated a whole peaceful revolution. He had plans for new courts of justice, reorganization of the army, reform of the civil administration, and popular representative government, with an elected national chamber.