The Hebrew daily “Hazefirah”and the Yiddish daily “Najer Hajnt” were confiscated to-day because they had published articles criticising the programme speech delivered by M. Starzynski, the great champion of the policy of “Etatism”, who has just been reappointed in the reconstituted Government to his old office of Vice-Minister of Finance, which he resigned last April. His resignation was received with satisfaction by the Jewish press in Poland, which interpreted it as an abandonment, or a modification of the policy of “Etatism” under which the Government took over various industrial enterprises as State monopolies, displacing tens of thousands of Jewish industrialists and Jewish workers employed in industry. The Jewish leaders in Poland have repeatedly demanded the abolition of “Etatism”, contending that it is one of the principal reasons for the present catastrophic economic situation of the Jewish population.
In his programme speech now on resuming office, M. Starzynski announced that he was going to fight against small-trading and declared that there was no possibility whatever of changing the present system of taxation. The Jewish papers complained that such a policy would result in making the economic position of the Jewish population even worse than it is now.
M. Starzynski was one of the important Polish representatives who attended the joint discussion between Jewish and Polish representatives about a month ago (reported in the J.T.A. Bulletin of May 6th.) convoked by the Institute for Research into the Nationalities Problem, to consider what action can be taken to alleviate the economic distress of the Jewish population.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.