Note 8 — Chapter XVIII · THE FIRST PARLIAMENT

The following were the chief points suggested by the Committee for the answer to the Tsar’s speech. They defined the programme of the majority:—The responsibility of Ministers to the majority in the Duma; universal suffrage (women’s suffrage was afterwards added); the abolition of the State Council; the necessity of land reform and universal education; the equality of rights for all classes before the law; freedom of conscience, person, domicile, speech, press, and meeting; control of the budget and redistribution of taxation; local self-government for separate nationalities; amnesty and the abolition of capital punishment.