neunkirchen with its large factory population pays only 0.58
mark, and Duttweiler 0.72 mark per capita for the care of their poor.

These are instances which throw light on the relief of the communities
if a system similar to that of the unions would be introduced. I do
not at all intend to make so expensive a proposition to you, and I
have already said that we shall have to work on this legislation for
at least a generation. But look at the glaring examples of Duttweiler
and Oberneunkirchen. Without their unions their budgets for the poor
would perhaps not rise to the Berlin figure, but they would easily
amount to 5 marks per capita. Actually, however, they are less than 1
mark, and almost as low as 1/2 mark. What a tremendous burden will be
taken from the charity departments of a city of ten thousand
inhabitants by a law like the one under discussion! Why, then, should
they not be asked to make some kind of a contribution to the insurance
fund? But the contributions should not be made by the districts, but
by larger units, and, since the State is the largest, I insist that
the contributions should be made by the State. If you do not yield in
this point to the allied governments, I shall look placidly, and
without being offended, toward further discussions and another session
of the Reichstag. This I consider to be the all-important part of the
law, and without it the bill would no longer appear to me to be as
valuable as I have thought it was, and would seem to lack the chief
characteristic which induced me to become its sponsor.

The previous speaker and the Honorable Mr. Bamberger have looked
askance at the Economic Council. This, gentlemen, was perfectly
natural, for competition in eloquence is as much disliked as in
business; and there are in this Council not only men of exceptionally
great practical knowledge, but also some very good speakers. When the
Council has been more firmly established these men will perhaps
deliver as long and expert speeches as those representatives are doing
who pass themselves off as the expert spokesmen of labor. I really do
not consider it to be polite, or politically advantageous, to refer to
the councillors who have come here, at the call of their king, to
voice their honest opinions with as much contempt as the
representatives whom I have mentioned have done. Most woods return the
echo of what we call into them; and why should the representative Mr.
Richter unnecessarily make for