B.)

Act XV

on the more efficient ensuring of social and economic life^(1.)

Published in the 6^th issue of the National Official Journal, on the 29^th of May 1938.

Article 1. Hereby we authorise the Hungarian Royal Ministry (H. R. Ministry) to take the necessary measures, which are of immediate urgency, to ensure a more efficient social and economic life – including measures required to overcome intellectual unemployment – within three months of the announcement of this Act, according to the objectives and principles stated in the following articles, even if the implementation would otherwise be the responsibility of lawmaking.⁽²⁾

Article 2. Hereby the H. R. Ministry is ordered to:

a) establish chambers of press for publishers, editors and permanently employed workers of both temporary and non-temporary journals;

b) establish actors’ and cinematic art chambers for actors, theatre and film producers, theatre and film directors and organisers, as well as assistant staff employed in the theatre and the cinematic industry.

Responsibilities of the press, theatre and cinematic art chambers include expressing and ensuring the ideals of the national spirit and Christian morals, representing the common and social interests of chamber members, protecting the moral standard and prestige of their work, protecting the rights of their profession and supervising the fulfilment of their responsibilities, acting as an authoritative body controlling them, opining and making propositions for issues related to journalism and publishing, as well as the theatre and film-making.

Publishers, editors and permanent employees of both temporary and non-temporary journals have to be members of the press chamber.

In the theatre, film producing – and borrowing or otherwise publishing – companies, those working in the jobs specified in the first section of point b), producers, actors and arts assistants, can only be employed if they are members of the theatre or cinematic art chambers. The Minister of Religion and Public Education may give permission for exceptions from the above in a well-founded case of public interest.⁽³⁾

Article 3. Only Hungarian citizens may be members of the press chamber, as well as the theatre and cinematic art chambers. The other conditions of membership will be defined by the H. R. Ministry in a decree.⁽⁴⁾

Article 4. Jews may only be given membership to the press, theatre and cinematic art chambers so that their proportion to the total membership does not exceed twenty per cent.

This twenty per cent does not include:

a) disabled soldiers, war veterans, children and widows of martyrs;

b) those who converted to another established religion before the 1^st of August 1919, and have ceaselessly remained members of the same denomination ever since;

c) descendants of parents defined under point b), who are themselves not members of the Israelite community.⁽⁵⁾

Article 5. Both temporary and non-temporary journals may only employ persons specified in the first section of Article 4 in a proportion of not more than twenty per cent of the number of permanent employees; and their annual total fees, regardless of the title of the fee, cannot exceed twenty per cent of the annual total fees of permanent employees working in the same field. Employers are obliged to carry out these regulations by the 31^st of December 1939. The H. R. Prime Minister may specify the method of implementation and allow exceptions from the regulations of this Article in a case of public interest.

The regulations of Article 8 pertain to the publishing office staff, as well as the editorial assistant employees, of both temporary and non-temporary journals. The second section of Article 4 must be correspondingly implemented for the regulations of the present Article, also.

The regulations of this Article cannot be implemented in case of journals dealing solely with religious issues and matters of a religious community.⁽⁶⁾

Article 6. The Minister of Religion and Public Education defines the proportion of the persons under the first section of Article 4 in the jobs specified in the first section of Article 2, point b).⁽⁷⁾

Article 7. Persons defined in Article 4, first section may only be admitted to the membership of the chambers of lawyers, engineers and doctors in a proportion not more than twenty per cent compared to the total number of members. Until the proportion of other chamber members does not reach eighty per cent of the total number of members, the chamber can only admit persons defined in Article 4, first section in a proportion not exceeding five per cent of all newly admitted members. The responsible Minister may make an exception, if it is proposed by the chamber and serves public interest.

The second paragraph of Article 4 also applies for the present Article.⁽⁸⁾

Article 8. At companies specified in Act 1937:XXI, where representatives, trade assistants or other intellectual employees number ten or more, persons defined in Article 4, first section can only be employed in a proportion not exceeding twenty per cent of all intellectuals employed by the company; their total annual fees, regardless of the title of the fee, cannot exceed twenty per cent of the annual total fees of the company’s intellectual workers.

At companies where the number of intellectual employees specified in the first section of Article 4 is greater than the rate defined in the above section, persons falling into the category of Article 4, section one can only be admitted in a proportion not higher than five per cent of the total number of new employees, as long as the share of intellectual employees specified in section one of Article 4 is bigger than the rate defined in the previous section. The detailed rules for reaching the rate will be defined by the decree of the H. R. Ministry, so that the rate determined in the previous section is achieved by the 30^th of June 1943; if so proposed by the relevant Minister for public interest, this deadline may be prolonged by the H. R. Ministry till the 30^th of June 1948. If so proposed by the relevant Ministry for public interest, in a well-founded case the H. R. Ministry may deviate from the regulations stated in this section.

At companies specified in Act 1937:XXI, where the number of representatives, trade assistants or other intellectual employees is lower than ten, the proportion of employees described in the first section of Article 4, as counted on the 1^st of March 1938, cannot be changed in favour of such employees and against the proportion of the other employees. For companies established after the 1^st of March 1938, the objectives of the first section apply.

The second section of Article 4 has to be duly implemented for this Article, as well.

Article 9. Hereby we prolong the 30^th of June 1938 deadline for the authorisation to implement the measures defined by law-making and ordered by decree, last prolonged by Act 1937:X, till the 30^th of June 1939, with the addition that the authorisation also pertains to the implementation of measures aimed at ensuring continuous production.

At the same time, the measures contained in Act 1931:XXVI and complemented by Act 1932:VII remain in force unchanged, as well as the 2nd and 3rd sections of Act 1937:X⁽¹⁰⁾

Article 10. The present Act will be in force from the day of announcement; the H. R. Ministry is responsible for its implementation.

Hereby we authorise the H. R. Ministry to determine an obligation for providing data in order to implement the regulations of the present Act and the measures taken to overcome intellectual unemployment; we also authorise the Ministry to ensure control of data providing, as well as to label the infringement or circumvention of the present regulations as offence, and punish them according to the regulations defined in section 3 of Act 1931:XXVI, and finally, to assign a new leader to companies infringing or circumventing these regulations, until the company meets the regulations.⁽¹¹⁾

⁽¹⁾The bill was submitted by the H. R. Prime Minister and the H. R. Minister of Justice on the 8^th of April 1938. – The report of the Chamber of Deputees’ committees of public law, economy and transportation, public education and justice was dated the 27^th of April 1937. – The Chamber of Deputees discussed it between the 5^th and 18^th of 1938, during sessions 306-315. – The report of the Upper Chamber’s committees of public law, trading, transportation, public education, industry- and justice was dated the 20^th of May 1938. – The Upper Chamber discussed it on 24 May 1938, during session 67.

(Preamble of the Ministry, P.M.) Following the great advancement of technical knowledge, the manufacturing industry, transportation and trade showed a strong growth in the 19^th century. The new economic order, called “capitalism” in economics, was emerging in Western Europe as early as the first half of the last century. As the joint result of several economic, social and political factors, this economic process only began in our country with as much as a half century delay, in the sixties.

In this period, our country’s autochthonous inhabitants hardly had any social classes that could enter the new economic environment, based on capital, as powerful players. The bonded population, freed not much before, had neither the inclination, nor the schooling or wealth necessary to contribute more than their manual labour to the new industrial and economic life. For centuries, the nobility had been busy almost exclusively with warfare, agriculture and public issues; industrial and economic enterprise were unfamiliar ground to them. Moreover, in that particular period, they even had trouble managing their remaining estates because of the fundamental changes made to the ancient feudal system and patriarchal farming. The bourgeoisie of the cities had the biggest opportunity to play a leading role in the emerging new industrial and economic life, but even that social class was not prepared for make the sudden change from the familiar sectors of handicrafts making and local trading to capitalistic production and enterprise. Under these circumstances, it is only natural that the first opportunities of the new capitalistic economic life were occupied by the Jewry, who are well-known for their inclination towards capitalistic enterprises. The Jewry had a significant role in financial and loan management; to a certain extent, they were forced to these areas by the inevitable situation that provided them with an almost monopolistic setting in loan transactions and money-economy, as they were banned from other occupations. The domestic Jewry also had the financial possibilities for playing that role, as by that time, the Jewry was already a capitalistic class of the country. This Jewish occupation of the industrial and agricultural life was not insignificant, since the number of Jews in 1840 amounted to 241,000.

Also naturally, the nearly unlimited possibilities for economic prowess attracted foreign Jewry to our country like a magnet. The enormous extent of immigration is demonstrated by the fact that the number of Jews between 1840 and 1871 grew from 241,000 to 553,641, and between 1871 and 1900 it soared up to 851,378; this increase cannot be explained solely by natural multiplication. The most direct routes of immigration to our country started in Austrian provinces where the Jews already lived in densely populated settlements, that is, in Gorlitz and Bucovina. Even though many – including Ferenc Deák himself – had been pressing the legal settling of the immigration issue, this has never been done, for various and so long never clarified reasons.

When discussing Jewry, their role and estimation, we must not disregard the fact that this immigrated, or often just migrating class could never adapt to the other classes of the domestic population in their attitude, feelings and all their mental habitude.

As a natural result of the enormous economic expansion of the Jewry, they also occupied all the intellectual fields, the press and performing arts. Under the liberal political, economic, customs policy and taxation circumstances of the last decades of the past century, the industrial, trading and loaning enterprises that were not burdened with social obligations provided a huge profit to economic entrepreneurs. In turn, wealth assured the ability to obtain higher training and education; because of that, the Jewry have by now crowded, in addition to economic professions, also other free profiting professions, particularly the professions of lawyer, medical doctor and engineer. The occupation of the press and performing arts is explained partly by the possibility to obtain higher education because of greater wealth, and partly by the fact that the Jewry also saw and tried to exploit opportunities for profitable enterprise in the press and the theatre.

The increasingly stronger expansion of the Jewry was neither hindered by the war, nor by the series of national, social and economic crises burdening the country. This might be the only social and economic process in the history of the nation that has not only continued during the crises, but even intensified. Even though the proportion of Jewish population in our country has been decreasing; from the year 1920 – when it reached the highest rate of 5.9% compared to the whole population – it went down to 5.1% according to the data of the 1930 census –, still they have occupied new branches in more than one areas of the social and economic life. In particular, the number of Jewish intellectual employees grew by over 4,000 in the industry and by more than 8,000 in trade; among trade employees, even their proportion grew from 48.2% to 52.8%. Their proportion also increased in the press and in performing arts.

A study of the statistical data using systematic scientific methods show us without doubt that the Jewry occupies a much greater space in all aspects of the economic life than their proportion to the rest of the country’s population.

This apparent economic occupation of the Jewry caused unrest in the other social classes of the population even before the war. As early as in the last decades of the past century, there were strong signs of a striving to solve the Jewish issue from a political, social and economic aspect. In 1884, a party of 17 delegates was sent to the Parliament, with the foremost aim to solve this issue in an institutional form. The Catholic People’s Party founded in 1894 also began to fight against certain social and political anomalies that resulted from a liberal political trend, and the efforts to solve the Jewish issue were clearly visible in the practical public actions of the party. However, a more intensive political combination against the Jewish penetration was only started after the war.

The reason for that was that the harsher economic conditions after the war were calling more attention to the phenomenon that the Jewry not only maintained, but even increased their outstanding economic property and wealth, despite the war, the revolutions and the following economic crises. A wide range of people became aware of the disruption of the balance between the Jewish and non-Jewish social classes. Social clubs, political parties, even several parties from the Chamber of Deputies made it clear in their names and programmes that they intended to see to the issue of economic prowess of the non-Jewish social classes.

This stir in public opinion is understandable. The public authority and social system, cornered into a tight area and weakened by the unfortunate Trianon peace treaty, of the mutilated country can no longer place the youth in the usual public professions. The reason is that the number of young intellectuals was not decreasing proportionately with the reduction of the country’s size, as the intellectual, and particularly the public professions were mainly filled in buy Hungarians in Greater Hungary, since Hungarians were the strongest in the intellectual class. This means that the mutilated country not only had to provide a living to a disproportionately big intellectual class, but even had to take care of the thousands retreating to the mutilated country’s territory from the territories that were torn off. The number of those looking for intellectual jobs was also considerably increased by a growing number of country farmers and industrial city workers obtaining university and, in general, higher education. Undoubtedly, one of the most valuable class of the nation, the intellectual class is in a situation of crisis. Because of the interdependence of the social classes, this crisis is not only the problem of a relatively smaller social class, but burdens the whole nation.

The objection that the Hungarian race does not have the talent for the economic area that requires independent enterprise is not accepted by public opinion. Even if the Hungarians were not prepared in the sixties of the last century for leaping suddenly, almost one day to the next into the merciless economic fight that resulted from the nearly unlimited predominance of liberal economic and social principles, two generations have passes since then, and today’s generation is not averse to any forms of economic enterprise, and is up to the requirements of this age in both technical and economic knowledge, as well as language skills.

The nation’s public opinion is not willing to accept the situation that the Jewry’s excessive penetration in certain professions has made it very difficult for other classes of the population to enter the economic life just, logical or unchangeable; that cannot even be justified by the fact that the Jewry’s initiative role has a great significance in the development and evident results. The global factors of growing industrial, economic and loaning life have increased the past importance of this class of the economic life, here in Hungary and all over the world. The correctly realised necessity to develop the industry and measures taken to support trade have naturally promoted a great growth in industrial, trade and loaning life, which at the same time very considerably increased the economic and social strength of the Jewry taking positions there.