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Outlook for Minorities in Roumania: King Carol in Opening New Parliament Recalls in Speech from Thro

June 17, 1931
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King Carol in opening to-day the newly-elected Parliament recalled in his speech from the Throne the creation by the present Government of the new Government Department for Minorities in charge of Under-Secretary of State Dr. Rudolph Brandsch, one of the leaders of the German Minority, and announced that Dr. Brandsch will shortly present to Parliament the programme of his new Department.

Professor Cuza, the antisemitic leader, who has now seven followers in the Chamber, where in the last Chamber he was his only representative, acted by seniority as the President of the opening session. Professor Cuza, is 76 years of age, and is the oldest member in the present Chamber. (The election of the oldest Deputy to preside at the opening session is traditional in most of the Parliaments of Central and Eastern Europe. Some years ago, the Orthodox Chief Rabbi in Hungary, the late Rabbi Koppel Reich, being the oldest member of the Hungarian parliament, where he sat in the Senate ex officio as one of the two representatives of the Jewish Faith, was chosen by seniority to be the President at the opening of Parliament. It was feared, however, that the antisemitic Deputies might create a scandal, and the Chief Rabbi absented himself from the sitting, pleading illness).

Dr. Theodore Fischer and Dr. Mayer Ebner, the leaders of the Jewish Party, who were re-elected to Parliament, have resigned their seats in favour of ex-Deputy Michael Landau who failed to be re-elected and of Dr. Samuel Singer, who stood on the Jewish Party List, but did not obtain sufficient votes to be elected. The changes which still require approval by the Chamber to be valid, are in accordance with an internal agreement of the Jewish Party. Dr. Theodore Fischer will continue to be the leader of the Jewish Party, and both he and Dr. Ebner will continue to be members of the Party Parliamentary Club. The other two members of the Club, Deputies Josef Fischer and Max Diamant remain unaffected.

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