Our Daily News Letter

(By Our Kovno Correspondent)

That the process of the restoration of the rights of Lithuanian Jewry, which had been destroyed by the previous reactionary regime, is well on its way now that the new democratic government has come to power, was the statement made here by Dr. Robinson, President of the Jewish fraction in the Parliament and leader of Lithuanian Jewry today, in an interview granted the representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Discussing the results of the first session of the new Lithuanian Sejm, which closed on July 21, Dr. Robinson pointed out that in the four or five short weeks for which the first Sejm session had lasted there had been no time for the Jewish fraction to give practical effect to more than a small part of its programme. The most important thing that had happened was of course the general feeling of satisfaction with which the Jewish population had received the news of the fail of the old Government. An ordinary Jew in one of the small towns, Dr. Robinson said, had expressed to him his view of what had happened in these naive words: “Somehow, the fear of the police has gone and the threat of new injustices has vanished.”

“The position of the Jewish Sejm Fraction,” Dr. Robinson continued, “is certainly much stronger. The reason is not difficult to find. In the last Sejm we were in opposition to the Government, while now we are entirely with the Government. There is another much more vital reason, and that is the fact that the Jews have again become an important factor in Lithuanian political life. We find ourselves today in the position of a political group wielding a certain amount of influence with regard to the formation of the Cabinet and the regulation of the Parliamentary work. The Jewish Deputies are now actively engaged on all the Parliamentary committees (one of the Jewish Deputies, Advocate Finkelstein, is the chairman of one of the most important of the committees).

“Their work on the Committees is giving the Jewish Deputies a feeling of participation in the political activity of the country and is stimulating their sense of responsibility and self-respect –they realize that they are taking part in the life of the country and contributing to its welfare. And the other groups in the Sejm see them at work earnestly on the problems facing the country and willy-nilly begin to regard them as having a share in it, as being participators, not merely spectators occupying a back seat and only grumbling when their sectional interests seem affected as the result of decisions in which they had had no part.”

As for concrete gains, Dr. Robinson said that the laws which had already been passed by the Sejm in its short first session had conferred important benefits on the Jewish population of Lithuania. The abolition of martial law had been of great assistance to them in respect of freedom of movement and in other ways. The recall of the curfew regulations had had a similar effect. The reorganization of the police force had put a stop to the methods of ill treatment and extortion practiced in the past by police officials against the Jews. The political amnesty had resulted in the release of large numbers of Jews among the political prisoners. The changes in the agrarian laws too brought about certain improvements in the position of the Jews. And the new education law enabled Jewish students to obtain Government grants.

Many officials who had been proved to have been partisans of the old reactionary. Government and who had discriminated against Jews have been dismissed. The Jewish Deputies have intervened also with a view to bringing about the abolition of certain objectionable and arbitrary methods of enforcing payment of taxes. The new session of the Sejm which opens in September will take up the question of a far-reaching reform of the whole system of taxation.

“The new Government,” Dr. Robinson declared, “does not intend to interfere in the internal matter of Jewish education. The Jewish Deputies are in regular contact with the Ministry of Education, and the attitude of the Ministry is extremely friendly and satisfactory.

“This.” Dr. Robinson concluded, “has all been a preliminary work achieved over a few short weeks. When the Sejm re-assembles in September and takes up the real work of the session, a great deal more will be done to bring about the complete restoration of the rights of the Jewish population of Lithuania.”