Debate on The Public Health (Amendment) Act

Official report · Assembly of SchwartzistanSession 1904 · col. 9325

The Speaker: The question before the House is that the Bill be now read a third time and do pass. I call the Minister.

Josef Marrow (Minister of the Interior): I move the third reading. The Bill gives the towns a duty and an officer to carry it out. The Ministry of the Interior has the forms ready. The Bill provides as follows. Every town above 1000 inhabitants must appoint an officer under this Act. I move.

Ottmar Hallin (The Osmoor; The Continuity Party): Sir, Nothing in the Bill disturbs the record. The Continuity Party asks only that the register be kept as it has always been kept. Drains, roads and lamps. The House will pass the Bill because the alternative is drains, roads and no lamps. The people of The Osmoor will ask what it costs them, and I should like to be able to tell them. We shall divide the House. [Interruption.]

Jorn Tarn (Kesselhöh; The Reed Party): Mr. Speaker, Kesselhöh has had a hard year. I say that not against the Bill but so that the Minister remembers it when the fees are fixed. The members for the reed districts will ask, as they always ask, what the Bill means for the harvest and the causeways. The material provision is this: Every town above 1000 inhabitants must appoint an officer under this Act. I ask the House to note it. An officer under the Act: the phrase appears in every Bill from the Interior and means a man with a book and a bicycle. My party will divide the House on the Bill. [Interruption.]

Friedl Wendl (Norrfeld; The Assembly Union): Sir, I sit for Norrfeld. The clerks there are few and the roads are long, and any officer the Bill appoints will spend a week finding the houses. The liberty of the subject is a large phrase for a small Bill, but I use it, because the Bill is small and the liberty is not. The Bill says so in terms: Every town above 1000 inhabitants must appoint an officer under this Act. Drains, roads and lamps. The House will pass the Bill because the alternative is drains, roads and no lamps. I support the Bill, with the reservation I have stated. [The Line!]

Edvard Brenn (Westgau; The Workers' Front): Mr. Speaker, The mills of Kessel will feel this Bill before the Ministry does. I say so now so that nobody may say afterwards that they were not told. Westgau has had a hard year. I say that not against the Bill but so that the Minister remembers it when the fees are fixed. The towns asked for it. The towns will pay for it. That is the usual arrangement and I do not quarrel with it. I have the Bill before me and the House has it before it. My party will divide the House on the Bill. [Shame.]

The Minister, in reply, said that the points raised were answered in the printed Bill and that the Ministry would consider the rest.

The question being put, a division was called for, and the members went to the lobbies.

The tellers reported the numbers to the Chair. The Speaker declared the Bill passed.

The House then proceeded to the next Order of the Day.