Emil Lederer: Intervention on the Unrestricted Inclusion of Food Supply (1921)

This brief recorded intervention in a commission discussion documents Lederer’s withdrawal of an earlier proposal and his support for including food supply without restriction. Its argument turns on a clarification: his previous remarks had assumed that there might be reservations about general inclusion. Responding to Privy Councillor Prentzel, he distinguishes that assumption from his own substantive position.

Denn die Argumente, die für eine restlose Einbeziehung gesprochen haben, die sich übrigens mit meinem Standpunkt decken, veranlassen mich, zu bemerken, daß ich den früheren Vorschlag nicht aufrechterhalte, sondern einem Beschluß der Kommission mich anschließe, der dahin geht, keinerlei Einschränkung aufzunehmen.

English translation: For the arguments advanced in favour of complete inclusion, which, incidentally, accord with my own position, prompt me to observe that I do not maintain the earlier proposal, but instead support a resolution of the commission to the effect that no restriction should be included.

The conceptual distinction is between a proposal framed in anticipation of objections and the position Lederer actually endorses. His change concerns the former, not necessarily the latter. The intervention moves from explaining his earlier premise to withdrawing the proposal and endorsing an unrestricted resolution. Its significance is procedural: it records assent and removes a qualification. The passage does not reproduce the earlier proposal or the arguments for inclusion, so it establishes Lederer’s position without supplying a broader account of food-supply policy.