President Dr. Kaempf: This is a new question for which I cannot give the floor.
Dr. K. Liebknecht: Mr. President, before you have heard the whole question, you are not in a position to judge (laughter in the House) if it is a new question or not. At any rate I wish to assert that the President reached this conclusion that it is a new question not from his own impulses (shouts in the House: Oho!) but because from parts of the House it was called to his attention.
President Dr. Kaempf: I ask you not to criticize the way I preside (applause). We come now to the following question:
Dr. K. Liebknecht: Will the Government be ready very soon to place before the Reichstag for action data concerning the situation of the population in the territory occupied by Germany? Further data concerning the measures taken for the people in the occupied territory, concerning the means of living, (food, clothing, shelter), concerning their health condition, their rights, their numbers? Then data concerning the kind and reason of the punishments decreed and reprisal measures taken against the people in this territory by the German authorities, the number of people executed, military requisitions of property and methods followed in such operations? And the extent of the contributions levied upon them, especially on the Belgian people?"
To answer these questions the floor is given to:
Minister Director Lewald: The Imperial Chancellor declines to put before the Reichstag the material desired by Dr. Liebknecht. But he will give information about the activities of the civil authorities in the occupied territory on the request of the committee of the Reichstag.
Dr. K. Liebknecht: A supplementary question. How many places and buildings were destroyed by the German authorities since the beginning of the war for the purpose of reprisal—how many persons were arrested and killed for the same purpose?
President Dr. Kaempf: This is a new question. It is ruled out of order.
Dr. K. Liebknecht reads the third question: Is the Government ready to lay before the Reichstag without delay material concerning