Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 196: Protecting Workers' Rights

Starting from November 1875, Spain thoroughly entered Carlo’s era.

On November 11, more than 20 nobles and officials whose crimes were confirmed after trial were publicly executed in the city center square of Madrid.

These nobles and officials sentenced to death could freely choose the method of execution, such as the guillotine or gallows.

The large-scale execution of officials and nobles also made the public extremely curious, as even the revolution six or seven years ago did not reach the point of mass public executions of nobles.

Carlo’s ability to issue execution orders against nobles was seen by the Spanish people as valuing the opinions of the Spanish people.

Executed alongside these more than 20 noble officials were the bosses of those factories at the very center of the public opinion storm, namely those exposed.

To quell the anger of Spanish workers, they had to be pulled out as scapegoats. However, they were not entirely innocent, as flies do not bite seamless eggs. Being used by rebel nobles as an excuse for parades at least proved that their usual exploitation of workers was not minimal.

In addition to executing these criminals, the government also publicly announced the handling of other nobles and officials whose crimes did not warrant death.

First, regardless of whether nobles or officials, all their property was confiscated, and nobles’ nobility titles were abolished. Their family members were prohibited from running for member of parliament for 50 years, and those currently elected as members of parliament were also stripped of their member of parliament qualifications simultaneously.

Depending on the degree of their participation in the rebellion, they were sentenced to different periods of imprisonment. But among these people, the shortest imprisonment was nearly 20 years, and the longest was life imprisonment. Carlo would establish a new prison in the Congo Territory to hold these traitors. As for whether these people would go to prison to serve their sentences or go to the Congo Territory as laborers, only people in the Congo Territory knew.

Anyway, these people were all criminals, and rather than letting them stay in prison wasting grain, it was better to let them contribute their last bit of residual heat and make a contribution to the development of the Congo Territory.

After executing these criminals, the Spanish Government immediately turned its attention to protecting workers’ rights.

The main reason for the large-scale workers’ parade across Madrid before was that those factory owners were too unscrupulous in their acknowledged exploitation.

Although the government had promulgated the corresponding 《Laborer Protection Law》, laws always have loopholes to exploit. These capitalists tried every means to exploit the loopholes in the law, still able to exploit workers arbitrarily in areas not covered by legal supervision.

To ensure workers’ interests and also to completely quell the public anger caused by the workers’ parade, Spanish Provisional Government Prime Minister Serrano publicly stated that he would promote further reform of the 《Laborer Protection Law》, clarifying workers’ working hours and minimum income, and implementing it in all regions nationwide.

Serrano acted quickly, promulgating Spain’s new 《Laborer Protection Law》 in just a few days.

The new 《Laborer Protection Law》 stipulates that when Spanish citizens work in enterprises and factories on the mainland, the daily normal working hours shall not exceed ten hours.

After single-day working hours exceed ten hours, the extra working time will be considered overtime and should receive salary higher than ordinary working hours, at least raised to 5 times the salary of ordinary working hours.

Spanish citizens’ weekly working hours shall not exceed 70 hours, and they should have at least 2 days of holiday per month. Workers still on jobs during large holidays and important events should be provided by factories and enterprises with overtime income of more than 5 times ordinary working hours.

Although the government did not explicitly require that workers’ working hours not exceed ten hours, as long as it exceeds ten hours, factories must provide workers with 5 times the overtime wages compared to ordinary working hours.

This also satisfied the workers’ demands. The reason workers were angry was not overtime itself, but overtime without any reward.

As long as overtime could bring higher income, most workers were still willing to work a bit harder themselves while making their income a bit higher.

The new 《Laborer Protection Law》 regulates Spanish citizens’ working hours, while the newly promulgated 《Laborer’s Minimum Income Law》 next modifies the minimum income standards obtained by Spanish citizens participating in labor.

For current Spain, the minimum income law promulgated a few years ago is obviously no longer applicable.

In the six years of Spain’s rapid development, per capita income has also seen huge improvements. If all Spanish laborers were still protected according to the previous minimum income law, factory owners would have a lot of room to exploit laborers.

Since revisions were to be made, the minimum income law definitely needed to be revised as well.

According to the latest 《Laborer’s Minimum Income Law》, the minimum income obtained by Spanish citizens participating in labor has also seen a significant increase.

The minimum weekly salary for adult male Spanish citizens when working shall not be less than 2 pesetas 15 copper coins, and for adult female Spanish citizens, not less than 1 peseta 75 copper coins.

The minimum weekly salary for male Spanish citizens over 50 years old when working shall not be less than 1 peseta 60 copper coins, and for females over 50, not less than 1 peseta 25 copper coins.

The minimum weekly salary for child labor when working shall uniformly not be less than 90 copper coins, and child labor shall not work overtime for any reason, with daily working hours not exceeding ten hours, and every Sunday as a rest day for child labor.

Compared to the 《Laborer’s Minimum Income Law》 from a few years ago, this latest minimum income law is obviously much stronger in terms of income protection.

Even child labor’s weekly salary is guaranteed above 90 copper coins, which is higher than the weekly salary for female Spanish citizens over 50 in the previous income law.

The reason child labor’s income received a huge increase is mainly to take care of those poor families who have no choice but to let children work.

Carlo can allow capitalists to exploit workers to a certain extent, as this is beneficial to factory production and to Spain’s industrial construction and economic development.

But if capitalists want to exploit even child labor, Carlo doesn’t mind letting them feel the strength of Spanish judiciary.

Child labor’s interests must be protected, with daily working hours not exceeding ten hours, and at least one day per week as rest time; this is Carlo’s bottom line.

This latest 《Laborer’s Minimum Income Law》 was formulated with reference to Spain’s per capita income. The economic situations of Spanish Autonomous Communities are different, and the minimum incomes in various regions have some fluctuations.

But such fluctuations only consider the issue that people in more developed economic regions should receive higher incomes, so the fluctuations of the minimum income law in various regions only allow increases, not decreases.

With two consecutive laws on protecting laborers’ interests being revised, the public anger caused by the workers’ parade was completely quelled.

Still the same words, the Spanish people still trust the Spanish Government. What they are angry about is only the capitalists’ exploitation of workers, and they have little dissatisfaction with the government.

After the government consecutively revised the laws on labor laws, the public only has satisfaction and admiration for the government, impossible to have any dissatisfaction or opposition.

Carlo and Grand Duke Serrano, who led the revision of labor laws, also gained the love and praise of the Spanish people.

A few days later in the Royal Palace of Madrid, Carlo met with Count Canovas, who had become Deputy Prime Minister of the provisional cabinet.

In this rebellion, the biggest beneficiaries, besides Carlo who gained government power, were Grand Duke Serrano who became Prime Minister and Count Canovas who became Deputy Prime Minister.

Anyone with eyes could see that Grand Duke Serrano becoming Prime Minister was just a transition, and the next to formally serve as Prime Minister would definitely be Count Canovas.

The reason was also simple. First, Grand Duke Serrano was already of advanced age at 65, without much energy to control the Spanish Government.

Second, Grand Duke Serrano himself had extremely high prestige in the military and was Spain’s Minister of Defense for two terms since the revolution.

If he became Prime Minister as well, wouldn’t his prestige rival that of Prime Minister Primó in the past? Carlo had finally waited for the chance to grasp power, so how could he allow another Prime Minister Primó to be born?

It was precisely such thinking that made many members of parliament and officials feel that Count Canovas, who had little prestige in the military, would ultimately serve as Spain’s Prime Minister.

Carlo certainly thought the same, but not out of defense against Grand Duke Serrano, rather feeling that Canovas, this younger fellow, was more suitable to serve as Spain’s Prime Minister.

Canovas was born in 1828, currently only 47 years old. On the position of Prime Minister, current Canovas was clearly still in his prime, with plenty of time and energy to manage Spain’s political affairs.

Grand Duke Serrano was after all of advanced age at Moreover, Grand Duke Serrano himself was not very good at political affairs and economic development; otherwise, he wouldn’t have let Prime Minister Primó serve as Prime Minister after the revolution, while he himself became Minister of Defense.

Letting Canovas take over as Spain’s Prime Minister, because he was in his prime, he could cooperate with Carlo for two terms, that is, ten years.

Longer ruling time was extremely valuable for the current development stage of Spain. What was feared was too frequent regime changes, which would cause a country with hope for rapid development to fall into development stagnation due to regime transitions.

Historical Spain in this period was precisely because of internal strife and frequent regime changes. After Queen Isabella came the provisional government, after the provisional government came Amadeo I, after Amadeo I came the republican government, after the republican government came Alfonso XII.

During this period, whether three kings or the provisional government and republican government, the positions of Spain’s Prime Minister and President never had overly stable candidates.

This also led to historical Spain having almost no stable development space during this period, and after missing this relatively golden development time, Spain thoroughly fell into weakness.

Carlo would not repeat the mistakes. Unless Spain’s Prime Minister had issues with loyalty, Carlo would not consider changing Prime Ministers too frequently.

Of course, if there were ability issues, they still needed to be changed. After all, only a capable Prime Minister could promote national development; an incapable one would only make things worse.

Spain’s political parties and members of parliament were concerned with the issue of reorganizing parliament and holding new elections, while at this time Carlo was concerned with the issue of the large tracts of land obtained after confiscating nobles’ property.

Speaking of which, even though nearly a hundred nobles participated in the rebellion, they were only one-tenth of Spain’s noble group.

But precisely this one-tenth of nobles had property too numerous to count, and land even more to an exaggerated number.

Preliminary statistics show that the land area owned by these nobles exceeds 1 million acres, of which nearly 600,000 acres are arable land, which is a much-needed arable land resource for current Spain.

After all property of these rebel nobles is fully inventoried, the land resources obtained will be even more.

Although not enough to completely solve Spain’s arable land area troubles, it at least solves a considerable part.

Carlo did not plan to control these lands in his own hands, but to sell or rent them to local people for planting.

Land sales were at standard market price, and for some low-income poor families, subsidies not exceeding 10% could be considered.

For renting, it was completely according to Spain’s land rent law, and Carlo would not lower the rent further on this basis, as sometimes appropriate charges were beneficial to maintaining relations with the public.

But in any case, a portion of these lands would ultimately be transferred. Carlo did not plan to let the royal family become landowner nobility; the royal family only needed to master a small portion of land.

There were countless industries more profitable than farming and renting land, and Carlo had no need to compete with other farmers for food in the agriculture sector.

Except for retaining a portion of plain and flat land to cope with future mechanized agriculture development, the rest of the land was best sold to the government or farmers.

Moreover, speaking of land, the royal family still held a complete Congo Territory. The land area of the Congo Territory had no upper limit; wherever Spanish Colonial Strongholds were established, that was part of the Congo Territory.

Currently, Carlo still had a headache over the development of the Congo Territory and naturally would not cling to these lands.

And a few days later, the royal family began to gradually sell and rent out the confiscated lands of those nobles externally.

The prices for external land sales were very fair, and directed at selling to local farmers to avoid these lands flowing back into nobles’ hands.

For those farmers who really had no money to buy land, the royal family could also rent land to them at low prices. Spain’s current land rent was relatively low, at least much lower than before the land rent law was promulgated.

This also effectively protected farmers’ income; at least current Spanish farmers’ income had seen considerable growth.

Besides owning large tracts of land, nobles also owned large and small castles and manors, as well as various other industries.

Carlo had Butler Loren screen these castles and manors; some castles and manors with better geographical locations and environments could be retained by the royal family.

While those with poorer locations or environments were publicly sold externally, sold to Spanish nobles or capitalists in exchange for funds.

Although the Royal Palace of Madrid was one of Europe’s three major palaces, Carlo did not plan to live long-term in the Royal Palace of Madrid.

Appropriately going to some manors with better environments for vacation and residence not only achieved the purpose of relaxation but was also beneficial to physical health.

Current Spanish Royal Family, besides the Royal Palace of Madrid, indeed did not have many castles and manors to provide for Carlo’s vacations.

These nobles’ properties were a good supplement for Carlo; at least several nobles’ manors and castles quite met Carlo’s requirements.

In nobles’ castles and manors, there were also large amounts of precious jewelry and other property. Because the quantity was too scattered, even though Butler Loren had led people to inventory for several days, it was still not fully inventoried.

But what could be determined was that the property of these nearly hundred nobles added up was too numerous to count; just cash alone was nearly ten million pesetas.

The value of those gold jewelry and various antiques and paintings was even as high as several tens of millions of pesetas. The currently inventoried property had a total value already close to 50 million pesetas.

Although a considerable portion was contributed by those dukes, the cumulative property of counts and barons was also not a small number.

Actually, including those lands, these rebel nobles’ property would be even more. And those castles and manors, the value of these immovable properties was inestimable.

Some castles had histories up to several hundred years; although not much to Carlo, if put up for auction in posterity, they would easily exceed 100 million, and in US dollars.

Good news was that these nobles’ property and various gold, silver, and jewelry could be easily sold off.

Even the value of the currently inventoried property was enough to increase the royal family’s property by one-twentieth.

However, Carlo did not plan to keep all this property for himself, but to establish an organization related to poverty alleviation and public welfare to boost the royal family’s reputation.

Carlo acted quickly; this institution for boosting the royal family’s reputation was established in Madrid in just a few days.

This charity institution was named by Carlo as the Spanish Royal Relief Committee, with the purpose of providing help and aid within its capacity to Spain’s extremely low-income population.

On the day of announcing the establishment of the Royal Relief Committee, Carlo publicly stated that he would inject 5 million pesetas into the Royal Relief Committee for aiding low-income population, and promised to inject no less than 2 million pesetas into the Royal Relief Committee annually.

To let the Royal Relief Committee realize its value, Carlo even stated encouragement for all Spaniards to supervise the expenditure of the Royal Relief Committee, ensuring all funds invested in the Royal Relief Committee were used to help low-income population, rather than letting some people line their own pockets.

After all, it was an institution for boosting the royal family’s reputation, so some real deeds still needed to be done.

Besides having headquarters in Madrid, the Royal Relief Committee would also expand to the capital cities of Spanish Autonomous Communities, spreading the Spanish Royal Family’s good reputation across the entire Spain, bringing massive prestige to the royal family every year.

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