and tried to transfer more of the Grand Duke's rights and privileges to Finnish organs of state than the law proposal implied. On this socialist initiative, and with the support of the Agrarian League and the Young Finns, Parliament did pass on 18 June the so-called Authority of the State measure, but the Russians considered this to be a seizure of authority whereby the Finnish Parliament had taken all authority into its own hands. The Provisional Government refused to approve the law; instead, it dissolved Parliament and ordered new elections. At first the left tried to keep Parliament in session with its socialist majority but gave up when the bourgeois parties began to prepare for new elections. In the subsequent October voting, the Social Democrats lost their majority, which seemed to indicate that the Authority of the State supporters would meet stiffened opposition. Simultaneously, however, the position of the Provisional Government was growing weaker day by day, and in the Parliament which assembled on the first of November, the new majority no longer considered itself able to maintain its earlier stand on the issue of state authority. Thus, with the two opposing viewpoints gradually drawing together, Finnish independence seemed to have reached the point of realization.

The bourgeois parties sought to find a compromise solution through joint negotiation. It was proposed that the authority which had belonged to the Grand Duke be transferred to an administrative group to be elected by Parliament - at first it was proposed that just one person be chosen, but upon the Agrarian League claiming that this seemed monarchial, a group of three was decided upon - with foreign affairs and military matters to still be left in the care of the Russian Provisional Government. The Agrarians would have supported the socialist line on the authority of the state issue, but the Social Democrats were no longer disposed to send their measure to the Provisional Government for approval. They were prepared to accept a solution by way of manifesto only on condition that all powers of the Grand Duke be renounced by the Provisional Government, which legally did not possess them. Those who were for independence tended to accept the socialist stand, but opinion on the issue of by whom the supreme authority should be exercised remained divided. The Socialists wanted that authority to rest with Parliament, while the other independence-minded wanted it to be given to a government administrator or to the Senate. Conferences between the bourgeois parties resulted in a compromise proposal according to which the Russian Provisional Government would by proclamation renounce the exercising of the authority of the Grand Duke of

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