Clash Between Jewish Representatives in Polish Parliament: Speech by Jewish Club Spokesman Complaini

While Deputy Rothenstreich, speaking on behalf of the Club of Jewish Deputies in the Seym to-day on the budget of the Ministry of Finance, was complaining of the heavy burden of taxation imposed upon the town population which is ruining the Jewish merchant and artisan classes, and demanding a radical change in the taxation system which at present is all to the advantage of the peasant class, Deputy Wislicki, President of the Central Federation of Jewish Merchants, who was returned to Parliament on the Government list, kept up a running stream of interruption, carrying on to the floor of the Chamber the differences which exist between the two groups of Jewish Deputies, constituting on the one hand a separate Jewish Club, and on the other part of the Government bloc.

The budget estimates were given a second reading to-day by the Seym, All the proposals submitted by the Club of Jewish Deputies were rejected.

Deputy Wislicki has figured in similar scenes previously. In 1929 when he was speaking in the Seym, complaining of the burden of taxation imposed upon the Jewish town population, the then Deputy Rassner, who is President of the Jewish Artisans Federation, speaking on behalf of the Club of Jewish Deputies interrupted to insist that Deputy Wislicki had no right to speak in the name of the Jewish population. Only the Club of Jewish Deputies, he said, represents the Jewish population and is entitled to speak in their name.

I speak here in the name of the Jewish traders, Deputy Wislicki said, although Deputy Gruenbaum will perhaps refuse to agree that I am a Jewish representative. But whether he agrees or not, the interests of the Jewish population are dear to me as they are to him, but Jewish interests, as I see it, cannot be defended by means of Deputy Gruenbaum’s policy. I believe that I can best serve the interests of both the Jewish and Polish populations by the methods which I have adopted. Official figures have established, Deputy Wislicki said, that the town population, to which the Jews belong, pays 82½ per cent. of the taxes, while the village population pays only 17½ per cent. of the taxes. According to the budget receipts, the industrial and trading interests pay 32 per cent. and agriculture pays in direct taxation only 7 per cent.