The civil list of the Imperial family has been reduced, and estimates for the army, navy and civil service have been cut down considerably.

This has allowed the introduction of a series of financial reforms that tend to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry: the poll tax is abolished in 1886, a law is passed to accelerate legal transfer of the land allotted to the peasants in 1861, the payments due from them for this land are greatly reduced, Crown lands are made available for leasing or purchase to the peasants on advantageous terms, and great stretches of Crown lands in Eastern Russia and Siberia are opened for peasant emigration and resettlement.