However, in February 1937, Beneš did promise to have "ethnic proportionality" in the Czechoslovak civil service, more funding to ethnic German cultural groups, a guarantee that government contracts for public works would go to businesses owned by ethnic Germans in areas where Germans where the majority, the distribution of government spending on a regional basis, and to allow greater use of German as one of the official languages of Czechoslovakia. Even through Beneš had addressed many of the complaints made by the Sudetenlanders, on 27 April 1937, Henlein in a speech before the chamber of deputies demanded that all of the "racial groups" of Czechoslovakia be automatically enrolled in "national organisations" which would be separate legal entities and would direct all of the internal affairs of their own "racial group". Henlein argued that all people when they turned 18 would be legally obliged to choose their own "racial group" for life, and each of the "national organisations" would elect a "spokesman" who would not serve in parliament, but would serve as the representative of their "racial group" within the Czechoslovak state. Once a citizen had chosen their "national organisation" at the age of 18, they would not be allowed to leave it. Henlein concluded that each of the "racial groups" needed their own "national organisation" to provide the necessary space to allow them to develop in peace. These demands were rejected by Beneš as an attempt to gut Czechoslovak unity by turning it into a series of corporate "racial groups" governing themselves. However, Henlein's demands served to distract attention from the February reforms and allowed him to once again present the Sudeten Germans as being "oppressed" as Beneš was denying them the right to their own "racial identity".