No Anti-jewish Measure Contemplated Lithuanian Minister to United States Declares to Jewish Telegrap

No special order has been issued to Jewish business houses to release non-citizens from employment, M. Balutis, the Lithuanian Minister in Washington, has declared in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency representative here with regard to the recent reports from Lithuania on the anxiety caused there by the new regulations restricting the employment of aliens.

The Minister of the Interior has advised business men of all nationalities, he went on to explain, to obtain specialists of Lithuanian citizenship, in view of the regulations in the employment law of July 1930., which are applicable from January 1932, and provide that aliens working in Lithuania must obtain a permit from the Ministry of the Interior which will be issued for one year and will be renewable. The permit will be void if the owner loses the right to reside in Lithuania.

Permits are unnecessary, he added, for citizens of States, which, in accordance with their Treaties with Lithuania, do not require equivalent permits from Lithuanians. Offenders against the law are liable to a penalty of a maximum of 1,000 Lits, or expulsion from the country.

The law is intended to safeguard the interests of Lithuanian citizens, including Jews, the Minister declared, and no anti-Jewish measure is contemplated. The Minister confirmed that there are 10,000 Staatenlose in Lithuania, the majority of them Jews; but I do not think, he said, that the law applies to them as holders of Nansen passports, whom Lithuania treats equally with other citizens, except that they do not enjoy political rights.