The article is devoted to the characteristic of process of involvement of Mountain Altai local territory in an orbit of land policy of the state and the Cabinet at the beginning of the XX century. The authors show that this territory originally interested the Department for Migration Affairs as a potential source of lands for colonization. Although in 1908 the Cabinet didn’t authorize the inclusion of Mountain Altai in the colonization fund, the Department for Migration Affairs started surveying those territories. The authors provide evidence that the Cabinet authorization in 1909 to transfer Mountain Altai land management and colonization responsibilities to the Department for Migration Affairs was the logical result of the Cabinet attitude to the local territory. After the violations of economic interests of the Cabinet during allocation of land for resettlement were revealed the Cabinet showed greater concern about Mountain Altai as the area of probable repetition of similar conflicts. Under the circumstances the Cabinet undertook a number of measures which actually nullified the permission given in 1909, having secured a preference of land policy implementation in Mountain Altai. The authors claim that in the developed struggle of the state and the Department both parties used identical approaches — territory exploration by special expeditions and bureaucratic interaction of governing structures. The Cabinet policy in Mountain Altai between 1908 and 1910 demonstrates the development of similar strategies (depending on the circumstances) ranging from transferring the lands into colonization fund (with several exceptions) of the Department of Migration Affairs to conferring the right of land management on Mount Altai to the Cabinet.