Watchful Waiting

It is too early as yet properly to appraise the announcement made yesterday by Dr. Ludwig, a leading Austrian government official, to the effect that all the recently issued laws which give the impression of being anti-Jewish are now being revised.

There will be time enough for appreciation of this announcement when the revision actually produces the results which the Jews would like to see, namely, the reinstatement of Jewish employes dismissed from government and municipal offices, abolition of the law segregating Jewish children in a special Ghetto school and recognition of the Jewish community as the representative of Jewish interests, as well as the granting of a proportionate government subsidy for Jewish religious needs, as is done for the needs of the other religious communities.

A mere rewording of the anti-Jewish clauses in the laws will not be sufficient to restore foreign Jewish confidence in Austria. Watchfully we shall wait for acts. Only then will it be possible to establish the Austrian Cabinet’s sincerity of its expressed wishes to right the wrongs inflicted upon the Jewish population under the recently promulgated laws, or to decide whether Dr. Ludwig’s announcement is only a maneouver resembling the unkept promises made several years ago by Premier Schuschnigg to Jewish leaders in Geneva.

TAX AND SUBSIDY

The protests which are now being voiced against the Warsaw municipality for having annulled its subsidy for Jewish schools will be considered just by every impartial observer.

Contributing a large amount in taxes to the municipal budget, the Jewish population in Warsaw is entitled to demand fair treatment as far as municipal subsidy for schools goes. There is no reason why Jewish money paid in taxes should be used to aid non-Jewish schools when the Jewish schools are refused such assistance.

Taxation without representation has long been recognized as unjust in principle. Does not the municipality of Warsaw realize this ?