Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 121: Development Of The Royal Industries

Carlo currently does not hold much power in the Spanish Government. Spain’s executive power, legislative power, and military power are basically concentrated in Spain’s government and parliament.

Doing so has both advantages and disadvantages for Carlo as a monarch. The disadvantages are obvious. Carlo will not possess too much power and cannot develop the country of Spain as he wishes.

But there are also benefits. First, Carlo can independently stay outside the government and parliament, avoiding being affected by some accidents.

Whether it is reform or victory in war, Carlo, as king, can still claim a bit of merit. But if the reform or war fails, the main responsibility will naturally fall on the government and parliament, and it will have little to do with Carlo and the Royal Family.

Even if the Royal Family makes some gestures in appropriate situations, those accidents basically will not affect the Royal Family’s status, and the public naturally will not blame the Royal Family, which has little power and cannot influence the government.

For monarchs who lean toward conservatism and have no great ambitions, having little power is naturally quite good.

But for a monarch like Carlo who is full of ambition, this situation may not be a good thing.

More importantly, the current development of the Spanish Government is somewhat distorted.

During Queen Isabella’s reign, although power was concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister, the king had the power of appointment and removal over the Prime Minister, which could greatly limit the Prime Minister’s power.

But in the current Spanish Government, although it appears on the surface to be a cabinet government with dual power alongside parliament, in reality, parliament has no role in supervising or restricting the cabinet government. The political party that obtains the majority of seats in parliament has the power to form the Spanish Cabinet Government. This leads to Prime Minister Primó, who controls the entire cabinet government, also controlling the majority of seats in the Spanish Parliament.

It is no exaggeration to say that the current Spanish Government is Prime Minister Primó’s one-man rule. As long as it is a policy decided by the cabinet government, it will not face much opposition in parliament. And laws formulated by parliament will quickly be implemented by the cabinet government.

If Defense Minister Serrano did not control Spain’s military power, Serrano would probably achieve the rare feat of grasping military, law, and government all at once.

This is also the reason why Prime Minister Primó’s reforms have been very smooth so far. The cabinet government consists entirely of reformists promoted by Prime Minister Primó, and most of them are members of the Progressive Party to which Prime Minister Primó belongs.

The Progressive Party also occupies the majority of seats in parliament, and the Liberal Party is very supportive of the reforms. Although the Conservative Party opposes the reforms, the problem is that they are not in power, and coupled with Carlo’s public support for the reforms, there is no resistance to the reforms in either the government or parliament.

However, this situation must eventually change. Prime Minister Primó is capable, and he is loyal to the Royal Family.

The main purpose for which he grasped power was to promote Spain’s reforms. But such enormous power is not suitable for every Prime Minister of Spain to hold.

For Carlo, it is precisely because he wants to see the success of the reforms that he allows Prime Minister Primó to have such great authority.

No Prime Minister after Prime Minister Primó can have such great power, and even Prime Minister Primó after the success of the reforms must relinquish some of his power.

Prime Minister Primó naturally understands his own situation. “Merit overshadowing the master” is not just talk. Although Carlo can gain some merit and public favor through his public support for the reforms after their success, it ultimately cannot compare to the immense prestige that Prime Minister Primó gains from actually driving the reforms.

If Prime Minister Primó, who successfully drives the reforms, still holds considerable power, even if Carlo can sit still, the members of the Royalist Party will not be able to.

However, success in the reforms is still a long way off for the current Spain. Through this honeymoon trip, Carlo has personally seen the changes in various places in Spain. Although overall they are changing for the better, there is still a huge gap compared to other great power nations in Europe.

One of the main goals of this trip is the Seville Industrial Base established by the Spanish Government earlier.

Although the importance of the Seville Industrial Base is now lower than that of the Barcelona Industrial Base, it is still one of the few medium-to-large industrial bases in Spain so far.

More importantly, the Seville Industrial Base is the first industrial base that Spain officially launched and constructed since Carlo became king, which also holds commemorative significance for Carlo.

Of course, in addition to inspecting the construction and production situation of the industrial base upon arriving at the Seville Industrial Base, there is another purpose: to check the construction situation of the steel mill and other factories under the Royal Family’s Industry in the industrial base.

Speaking of the Royal Family’s Industry, at the beginning, the person in charge was only Butler Loren. But up to now, Butler Loren has several talents under him responsible for managing the Royal Family’s property. They hold various industries and assets, and all of these together constitute the Royal Family’s total property.

If asked to directly state how much property the Royal Family has, Carlo really does not know. Although it has only been two or three years since arriving in Spain, the development of the Royal Family’s property can no longer be simply described as rapid development.

Just the Royal United Bank alone is enough to place the Spanish Royal Family in the top 5 of Spain’s richest families, not to mention that the National Bank, established a year ago, also has 45% of its shares held by the Royal Family.

These two banks ensure that the development of the Royal Family’s Industry no longer lacks funds, and it can easily borrow sufficient funds from the two banks for development.

The two super-large official banks have also directly reorganized Spain’s banking industry. Although they have not directly suppressed those small and medium-sized banks, these small and medium-sized banks cannot resist the expansion of the two large banks at all.

The Royal United Bank has now established a total of 26 bank branches in 15 domestic regions of Spain, and the total number of depositors broke through 310,000 at the beginning of the year, with total savings funds exceeding 85 million.

Of course, with the expansion of the banks and the continuous increase in users, the average deposit scale per user will see a significant decrease.

The current average deposit per capita at the Royal Bank is only about 270 pesetas, while the per capita income counted by the government in 1872 has exceeded 107 pesetas, making the per capita deposit roughly two and a half years of per capita annual income.

These data indicate two pieces of news. The first is that Spain’s per capita annual income is continuously growing. Agricultural tax reduction and the abolition of the tithe are definitely important reasons. The increase in income for farmers, who make up the majority of Spain’s population, is actually the real good news for Spain.

Moreover, with the subsequent construction of industrial bases, state-owned factories, and private factories, the number of workers and their income will also increase in the future.

This will similarly drive the growth of Spain’s per capita income and become a booster for Spain’s economic growth.

As long as Spain’s infrastructure construction and other industrial construction do not stop, the corresponding growth in per capita annual income and the economy will not stop either.

Although it cannot catch up with the pace of other great power nations in the short term, compared to Spain a few years ago, it is already a significant improvement.

Before the revolution, Spain’s per capita annual income was less than 87 pesetas, and this data did not include a large number of low-income people, so the actual situation was even lower.

Now, the per capita annual income has broken through 107 pesetas. Although only 4 years have passed since 1868, per capita income has increased by at least 23%.

This rate of improvement is still relatively slow because the main factor driving the increase in per capita income is still the growth in farmers’ income.

The subsequent growth in workers’ income will be an even greater driver for the increase in per capita income, bringing even more obvious changes.

According to the Spanish Government’s estimate, around 1875, Spain’s per capita annual income can rise to at least 145 pesetas. By 1880, it can rise above 160 pesetas, which is almost twice that of

By around 1880, the various reforms promoted by the Spanish Government will basically be completed. Spain can proudly call itself the number one nation below the great powers in both industry and economy—in other words, the great powers’ goalkeeper.

Those stronger than Spain can naturally qualify to contend for the great powers. Those weaker than Spain naturally do not deserve to be called great powers.

The good news is that Carlo has already begun his plan for the African Colony. This also means that after Spain completes its future reforms, it will not miss the great opportunity to partition Africa due to slow reform progress.

The African Colony is still very important. Not only is there a large indigenous population that can serve as free labor, but the colony’s abundant resources can also be utilized by Spain.

Apart from the relatively big problem that most of Africa’s population consists of black people, the African Colony basically brings only benefits.

After all, Africa’s indigenous people are still very backward now, and most African tribes have no ability to resist the colonization by European Powers.

Italy’s colonization of the Abyssinian Empire was ultimately an accident, and they did succeed in the end. As for other regions in Africa, those indigenous people can only tremble helplessly under the steel guns and cannons of the great powers.

Carlo’s arrival caused a sensation throughout the Seville Industrial Base. More than one-third of the factories in this industrial base were established by the Royal Family, and the factories naturally also propagate events about Carlo.

The workers in the Royal Family’s factories enjoy more relaxed work requirements than other factories and can earn more income than other factories, which naturally makes these workers grateful to Carlo, the true master of the factories.

When working hours in other factories are generally over 14 hours, the working hours in Royal Family factories are basically kept around 12 hours, with a fixed holiday every month. Such work conditions are simply what workers outside dream of.

And for Carlo, who provides such a work environment, the workers naturally have no other thoughts—only endless gratitude and curiosity toward this young king.

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