Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 200: House Of Commons Election And Educational Achievements

After spending an unusual Christmas, time also arrived at January 1,

Carlo’s eldest son Juan Fernando was already nearly seven months old by Christmas and could crawl around on Carlo’s big bed.

Carlo also doted quite a bit on this little fellow, spending the entire Christmas playing with little Juan Fernando and fully fulfilling his duties as a father.

It is worth mentioning that the little fellow was also quite fond of his father Carlo. When Carlo came to the bedside, the little fellow immediately crawled to his father’s side using hands and feet, which made Queen Sophie, who had been taking care of the little fellow for a long time, a bit jealous.

After having one more little fellow, the Christmas atmosphere in the Royal Palace also became much livelier. Although the Christmas activities prepared in the Royal Palace in previous years were equally grand, the Royal Family after all only had Carlo and Queen Sophie two people, so it still seemed too lonely and cold.

In the future, the number of Spanish Royal Family members will definitely increase more and more with every Christmas. Currently, Queen Sophie’s body has almost fully recovered, and Carlo also intends to continue having a second child with Queen Sophie in the new year.

Anyway, the Spanish Royal Family has no financial concerns, and princes and princesses are naturally better the more there are. Only when Royal Family members increase more and more can the Royal Family branch out, thereby avoiding the risk of facing a succession crisis.

The good news is that Carlo and Queen Sophie are still young, with plenty of time in the next decade or so that can be used for childbearing.

If lucky, the number of Carlo’s children might even make up a soccer team. The Royal Family having more children is also an example, which can encourage the public to have more children and promote the growth of the Spanish population.

As time came to January 1876, the Lower House member elections in the Spanish Autonomous Communities also gradually came to an end. The first to finish elections were the Madrid region and a few regions with not much population. Regions with not much population naturally would not obtain too many House of Commons seats, and elections for individual seats would naturally be very rapid.

Carlo also obtained the election reports from these regions that had completed elections at the first opportunity. Currently, there are a total of 4 regions that have completed elections, namely the Madrid region, Balearic region, La Rioja region, and Cantabria.

Among the less than 30 House of Commons seats possessed by these 4 regions, the Progressive Party still occupied the majority, but the number could no longer form a crushing advantage over the Conservative Party.

The proportion of Progressive Party members was only around 40%, the proportion of Conservative Party members rose to 30%, and Liberal Party members were only a scant 2 people, accounting for even less than 10% of all members in these four regions.

Although this is only the result of member elections in four regions, it can to some extent also reflect the current support situation for each party across Spain.

The Progressive Party, because of having Prime Minister Primó’s lingering influence, is temporarily still Spain’s largest party. But after the Liberal Party lost Prime Minister Primó’s protection, it is no longer one of Spain’s three major parties on par with the Conservative Party, and there is already a certain gap with the Progressive Party and Conservative Party.

Although Carlo still looks favorably on Mateo being able to gradually strengthen the Liberal Party, considering the current Spanish political party situation, wanting to lead the Liberal Party to become a powerful party on par with the Conservative Party and Progressive Party, this path is destined to be fraught with difficulties.

Another half month passed, and finally at the end of January, elections for a total of 298 House of Commons member seats across the Spanish Autonomous Communities were all completed, and the new Lower House also formally convened its meeting on February 3,

The distribution of the 298 House of Commons member seats was not much different from what Carlo had estimated at the time. The Progressive Party remained Spain’s number one party, occupying 6% of the Lower House proportion, with a total of 112 seats.

The Conservative Party jumped to become Spain’s second largest party and substantially narrowed the gap with the Progressive Party. The Conservative Party’s proportion was also as high as 2%, nearly becoming the second party in Spain with over 100 House of Commons seats.

The Liberal Party performed disastrously, occupying only 34 seats in total, accounting for 4% of the total Lower House seats.

In addition, about 8% of members in the Lower House were independents, occupying a total of 53 seats, more than the seats of the third largest party, the Liberal Party.

After the Lower House was re-established, Carlo personally attended the Lower House’s first meeting. Indeed, a large meeting of nearly 300 people was much livelier than a meeting of 200 people, and the venue had also undergone temporary expansion to ensure it could accommodate nearly 300 Lower House members.

After the Lower House was established, the next most important thing was to elect the Speaker of the Lower House.

The position of Speaker is still quite important. Externally, it is the symbol of the council it belongs to, and internally, it has powers such as presiding over council meetings, ruling on council proposals, and announcing election vote results.

Because the council Speaker is also a member themselves, the Speaker also possesses all the powers owned by members.

The weekly routine meetings and emergency meetings conducted by the Lower House all require the Lower House Speaker to preside over them. Therefore, the first thing after the Lower House is established is for all members to vote and elect the new Lower House Speaker.

From the distribution proportion of Lower House seats, it can also be seen that the candidate for Lower House Speaker will basically emerge from the Progressive Party and Conservative Party.

However, because neither of these two parties occupies more than 50% of the lower house seats themselves, they also need to win over members from other parties, or those independent members, to greater extent ensure that a member from their side becomes the Lower House Speaker.

In terms of the bicameral system, Spain currently has certain similarities with the United Kingdom.

Although cabinet ministers are mostly appointed by the Prime Minister, this does not mean unconditional appointment. Even with the Prime Minister’s support, to become a Spanish cabinet minister, one must first become a member of either the upper or lower house.

Only after becoming a member can one obtain the right to be nominated as a cabinet minister. Such a system can ensure that parliamentary elections serve as the first round of screening tool before becoming a cabinet minister.

Except for a very few examples, most guys who can become members of the upper and lower houses basically still have certain abilities.

After several days of election competition, the Lower House finally elected the new Speaker candidate, member Horne Fernández from the Progressive Party.

Actually, the Progressive Party and Conservative Party’s contest for Speaker was quite a stalemate. But Carlo, considering that the Conservative Party exclusively holds the positions of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, therefore fixed the Lower House Speaker candidate on the Progressive Party.

Compared to the Conservative Party, the Progressive Party, trained by Prime Minister Primó, is currently Spain’s most suitable choice for ruling party. If not for the number two figure Ruiz being too radical, Carlo might not have settled on Cánovas as the successor to Prime Minister Primó.

1876 was destined to be a busy year for Carlo.

During the day, he had to attend various government and important institution meetings, and at night, he had to work hard with Queen Sophie.

If not for Carlo having placed considerable emphasis on physical training since arriving in Spain, he probably absolutely could not endure such fatigue day and night.

In spare time, Carlo also had fun with the two maids Anna and Alice, utilizing time to the extreme.

Under constant hard work, Queen Sophie soon brought good news.

Because of the experience brought by little Juan Fernando, when pregnancy symptoms appeared again, Queen Sophie quickly realized she might be pregnant.

Although it was already the second child, Carlo and Queen Sophie’s attention to the little fellow in the belly remained undiminished.

From the time pregnancy was confirmed, the Royal Family’s private doctors constantly accompanying at the side, and the numerous maids and servants ready to serve, were simply too many to count.

The entire Spanish Royal Palace had only just over a hundred servants in total, and more than twenty were serving at Queen Sophie’s side.

Speaking of these servants in the Royal Palace, one cannot fail to mention the Royal Palace’s quite strict servant selection and training process.

Among these more than a hundred servants currently, all have undergone background investigations, excluding infiltration by Republican Party rebels from the start.

In addition, Carlo also sought out orphans from across Spain for cultivation, and trained some of those with sufficient loyalty but not quite enough ability toward servant and maid directions.

Besides the relatively strict selection and cultivation system, for the salary treatment and welfare of all Royal Palace servants, Carlo was also quite generous.

The minimum income of Royal Palace servants exceeded the Spanish average annual income, and the average income far exceeded the Spanish average annual income.

Especially for servants in some more important positions, income would substantially increase, ensuring these servants’ loyalty to him.

Although Carlo trusted these servants enough, the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau’s surveillance of these servants still existed.

After all, it concerned his and his family’s safety, so being a bit more vigilant was not excessive.

On the morning of a certain day in February, Minister of Education Gerard Wilson sought an audience with Carlo and brought a piece of good news that made Carlo quite happy, namely the latest results regarding Spain’s literacy education.（

“Your Majesty, the Education Department has compiled statistics on the latest results of literacy education, and the data fully meets our expectations.” Gerard Wilson was full of smiles, and the first thing upon seeing Carlo was to report this good news to him.

Carlo nodded and took the literacy education data materials handed over by Gerard Wilson, reading them on his own.

The materials showed that Spain’s literacy education results in last year, that is, 1875, were still quite good.

In 1874, Spain’s population participating in literacy education had grown to an astonishing more than one million people. Although a large reason among them was these people wanting to freeload the free lunch welfare provided by Carlo, it is undeniable that these people participating in literacy education effectively reduced the proportion of Spain’s illiterate population.

At the beginning of 1875, Spain’s illiterate population had already dropped below 39%, which compared to the around 70% when Carlo had just had his coronation was already tremendous progress.

And one year later, Spain’s illiterate population once again sharply declined, and currently all illiterate population added up is less than 35%.

According to government materials, as of the beginning of 1876, Spain’s population was approximately 25 million. （Estimate）

Among them, the illiterate population had dropped below 4 million, and a large portion of this was still those low-age children unable to receive education as well as too elderly middle-aged and senior groups.

Besides these groups, the remaining illiterate population were mostly family pillars who needed to constantly work to earn income.

They really had no spare time to participate in literacy education, and factories would not give them holidays, which is also the biggest challenge facing literacy education.

Fortunately, revisions to the labor law can ensure that Spain’s vast workers and other employees have more rest time. Although the improvement is not much, according to government estimates, workers compared to before can have an average of half an hour to one hour more rest time per day.

If the 70% illiteracy rate a few years ago was really too exaggerated, then the current illiteracy rate of less than 35%, looking across the whole of Europe, is not bad either.

Although great powers like Britain, France, and Germany have even lower illiteracy rates, they are after all already extremely developed great power nations.

Europe still has large areas of regions with massive illiterate and low-income populations, and the existence of these populations also lowers Europe’s per capita education level and income level.

Looking across the whole of Europe, Spain’s per capita education level and illiteracy rate are not bad, at least able to rank in the middle.

Especially compared to Russia, which is also a great power, Spain does not do badly in education. Among Russia’s population, the majority are illiterate, and popularizing education is extremely difficult.

Don’t think that just because Russia underwent reforms, the reforms were not thoroughly completed. Farmers are still Russia’s lowest stratum; not to mention the right to education, even their most basic human rights are not valued.

Of course, a large population is also one of the reasons Russia is powerful. The title of Europe’s steamroller is renowned worldwide, also making Russia one of Europe’s five traditional great powers comparable to Britain, France, Germany, and Austria.

Further on, great powers like the United States and Italy still have considerable gaps with Russia. And precisely because of this, even though Russia does very poorly in per capita income and education, it remains a great power nation, and one without any controversy.

“The Ministry of Education has done very well; you have not failed Prime Minister Primó’s expectations.” Carlo looked satisfied at Minister of Education Gerard Wilson, quite recognizing this quite capable Minister of Education.

As early as more than a year ago, Gerard Wilson had proposed the dual-track education model, advocating ordinary education and technical education proceeding together, simultaneously cultivating the high-education-level talent and high technical talent that Spain lacks.

Currently, dual-track education has already begun implementation in Spain, expected to yield results in a short time. Especially the technical schools established by the Spanish Government, which have already recruited a large number of technical trainees.

After these trainees complete technical training, they will transform into the advanced technical talent that Spain urgently needs.

And the Minister of Education Gerard Wilson who proposed this system had long obtained Carlo’s recognition and support, and successfully been re-elected as Minister of Education.

Hearing what Carlo said, Gerard Wilson breathed a sigh of relief.

Although he had gained Carlo’s trust through his own abilities, he was after all a Minister of Education appointed by Prime Minister Primó and a member of the Progressive Party.

If Carlo was dissatisfied with Prime Minister Primó’s past sole control of great power and planned to completely cut ties with the existing Spanish Government and Prime Minister Primó, then he still had a high chance of having to bid farewell to Spain’s cabinet government and end his political career.

From the current situation, Carlo had no intention of completely cutting ties with Prime Minister Primó. Gerard Wilson, as the minister from the same party as Prime Minister Primó, could still remain in the position of Minister of Education and shine.

“This is all Your Majesty’s merit.” Gerard Wilson flattered, while subtly expressing his attitude: “If not for Your Majesty supporting the dual-track education system I proposed, the Education Department would not have achieved such remarkable accomplishments.

If we must say the greatest contributor to Spain’s education development up to now, I believe it should be Your Majesty. The Education Department still needs Your Majesty’s guidance; I will continue to contribute under Your Majesty’s instructions, adding bricks and tiles to Spain’s education cause.”