Ságvári Ágnes (szerk.): Budapest. The History of a Capital (Budapest, 1975)
Documents
relief to the distressed masses, who are unemployed through no fault of their own and are facing the terrible period of winter. The representation should emphasize the need to restore public liberties and the freedom of the press. The General Assembly should instruct the mayor in no circumstances to permit commission-jackals to take the opportunity to arrange that the public utilities of the city are sold to private capitalism, which now has revealed its complete non-viability, and in whose hands these public utilities would be used only to increase the burdens on the population by raising the prices of the various public services. The General Assembly strongly protests against any plans to dissipate the public utilities built up with considerable difficulty from the pennies of the tax-paying population of the capital. And the General Assembly protests in advance against any intention of the present city regime to raise the rates of the public services, either covertly or openly. The General Assembly shall instruct the mayor to draw up an immediate proposal to introduce a 40-hour working week in the public services of the capital without involving any reduction of wages. The General Assembly shall instruct the mayor to make sure that until the state undertakes the distribution of unemployment relief, the unemployed will receive special financial aid for Christmas. The mayor shall be responsible for seeing that in the course of the campaign for the relief of distress help should not be given to those marked as due for political rewards, but to all who are in need of it, irrespective of party and denominational affiliations. In view of the fact that increasing numbers of unemployed workers, clerks, bankrupt artisans and businessmen have been reduced to a state where they are unable to pay their rent, and the number of evicted tenants is consequently very high, landlords should grant them a moratorium on rent, and the municipality should build temporary habitations for tenants who have been evicted. The mayor shall extend the provision of meals for the poor to enable each unemployed man and his family to receive a hot meal every day throughout the winter. Over and above a general reduction of the tax on consumption, urgent measures should be taken to abolish the consumption tax on bread. The General Assembly protests against any plan to reduce by as much as a penny the salaries and wages of junior clerks and workers, since at the present high cost of living these meagre salaries and wages are insufficient to meet daily subsistence costs. ... Pesti Levéltár [Archives of the City of Budapest], Minutes of the General Assembly, October 2nd, 1931. XXI Excerpts from the memorandum of the mayor, Jenő Sipőcz, to the Minister of the Interior on the social and welfare activities of the municipality July 15th, 1932 ... All those faced with the duty of resolving socio-political problems find themselves confronted by practically insurmountable difficulties through the exceptional fact, that as a result of the world economic crisis millions of able-bodied people who are willing to 110
