Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 203: Child Labor Schools

Whether viewed from a historical perspective or from the current situation in Europe, recent years have been a relatively peaceful and stable phase for Europe.

Since the establishment of the German Empire, the European Powers have tended toward stability. Although there are relatively intense conflicts between countries, such conflicts are not sufficient to push the countries into a large-scale war between great powers.

This is fortunate for Spain, as what Spain lacks is precisely a peaceful and stable development environment. But it is also unfortunate for Spain; an overly stable peaceful development environment has led to relatively slow development in the military industry, making it difficult to find opportunities for large-scale exports of weapons like those in World War I and World War II.

The Tenth Russo-Turkish War is a large-scale war verified by history, and it is also the first large-scale opportunity for the royal arsenal to export weapons and equipment since its establishment.

Of course, it is not certain whether Spain can get a piece of the cake in this war. After all, besides Russia, other European Powers led by the United Kingdom and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are also paying attention to the situation on the Balkan Peninsula.

Precisely because of this, when Carlo instructed the royal arsenal to expand production, he set the weapons storage target at 150,000 rifles, 1,200 cannons, and corresponding bullets and cannonballs.

Even if Spain cannot sell the weapons in the Russo-Turkish War, these stockpiled rifles and cannons can also be sold to other countries in the form of small-scale orders, or used domestically.

After all, army training also involves wear and tear on weapons and ammunition, so stockpiling more weapons and ammunition is not a big problem.

The weapons and equipment of this era are nothing more than standard firearms centered on rifles and cannons as important firepower output. The manufacturing costs of these two types of weapons and their corresponding bullets and cannonballs are not too high, which is also why Carlo has the confidence to directly order the royal arsenal to start production without inspection.

It is worth mentioning that while the Spanish royal arsenal is expanding, it has recruited a large number of child laborers as workers. This is not to say that Carlo intentionally exploits child laborers, but rather that it is the backdrop of this era. Not only in Spain, but across the whole of Europe, including traditional great powers like Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria, there are large numbers of child laborers.

One of the important reasons for the average life expectancy in Europe this era being only thirty or forty years is that a large number of children enter factories to become child laborers, who are crazily exploited by factory owners and capitalists, ultimately leading to various health problems and dying young in their twenties or thirties.

Even living to twenty or thirty is considered quite good. Many child laborers die directly on the production line under the exploitation of factory owners, which is also the bloody and cruel reality of this era.

Of course, the reason the royal arsenal recruits a large number of child laborers is not because Carlo wants to exploit them, but to provide them with better welfare benefits as much as possible.

Although Spain’s labor law and minimum wage law stipulate working hours and income for child laborers, this can only alleviate part of the suffering of the child laborer group.

These children are Spain’s future, and even just for the sake of Spain’s future, Carlo must try to take care of more child laborers and let them grow up healthier.

The current royal arsenal is absolutely the leading enterprise in Spain’s military industry and a benchmark and representative enterprise in Spain’s military industry.

The proportion of child laborers in the armory currently exceeds 30%, which is quite exaggerated. Every day, one can see over a thousand child laborers at the royal arsenal marching grandly to their production lines, contributing their meager strength to Spain’s military industry.

Carlo will not excessively increase child laborers’ income, as that would be unfair to adult workers. Of course, the welfare benefits that should be given to child laborers are still provided, even more than stipulated by the labor law.

All child laborers in royal enterprises can enjoy at least one day off per week, with more than four days off per month. In addition, the factory and enterprise will distribute milk or big bone broth to child laborers at least once a week to help them better nourish their bodies.

Child laborers are not allowed to work overtime, and after the factory’s stipulated closing time, child laborers can leave first.

This is also Carlo doing what he can to provide some help to these child laborers, letting them feel a bit of warmth in this dark era.

To change this situation, it cannot be achieved by Carlo alone. The entire country’s economy must be greatly advanced, so that Spaniards have more deposits and income in their hands, and only then will they send their children to school instead of factories to sell their labor.

As early as the literacy education period, Carlo had royal enterprises organize child laborers to participate in literacy education during holidays. The current progress is quite good; at least in the royal factories and enterprises, most child laborers have completed literacy education and escaped the status of illiterates.

In the future, Carlo also plans to establish child laborer schools inside some larger-scale factories, allowing these child laborers to enjoy compulsory primary education within the factories, completing their studies while working.

Child laborer schools can not only teach knowledge of compulsory primary education but also let them learn some basic technology, transforming from child laborers into skilled workers.

Doing so can not only improve the education level of Spaniards but also effectively improve the living standards of these child laborers.

After all, an illiterate child laborer who knows nothing and a skilled child laborer with primary school education and certain skills will definitely have different incomes.

However, child laborer schools involve aspects not covered by ordinary public schools, so Carlo only has some ideas and has not yet had time to implement them.

Compared to child laborers in royal enterprise factories, the income levels and welfare benefits of child laborers in private enterprises factories are much worse.

This is unavoidable, after all, the labor provided by child laborers is really limited. Moreover, compared to adult workers, child laborers are easier to exploit, their resistance is weaker, and under the coercion and intimidation of capitalists, many child laborers dare not resist at all.

Capitalists are not the seemingly amiable business tycoons on the internet in posterity, but bullies who devour people without spitting out bones.

For this, Carlo can only express helplessness. This is a universal phenomenon under the great backdrop of this era, and Carlo cannot completely eradicate it even if he wants to rectify it.

But for certain bottom lines regarding child laborers, Carlo has still made relevant regulations.

Europe is quite extreme regarding child laborers. How extreme? Factories of capitalists even have a large number of child laborers under ten years old.

Yes, child laborers under ten years old. Even more precisely, there are large numbers of four- or five-year-olds, five- or six-year-olds.

The sources of these child laborers are also varied. Some come from families unable to afford the expenses of too many children, forced to send some children to factories to fend for themselves.

Others come from various church welfare institutions, orphanages, and transactions by other institutions.

Even in a society as technologically advanced as posterity, human trafficking exists, let alone in the 1870s when technology and related laws and regulations were very backward.

Human trafficking is prevalent in European countries, and the lives of grassroots people in this era are indeed very miserable.

Ironically, while these capitalists crazily exploit child laborers for huge profits, they disguise themselves as kind and benevolent gentlemen.

They establish more welfare institutions and schools through donations to the church, gathering those orphans and unwanted abandoned children.

These orphans are then secretly transferred to capitalists’ factories, becoming free labor under the capitalists’ whips.

For these purchased people, capitalists show no mercy. Any disobedient child laborer faces beatings at best, or is made to disappear directly through various means at worst.

For such church welfare institutions and church schools, the Spanish Government will sooner or later carry out rectification.

Leaving aside the hidden human trafficking issue, just the private agendas mixed into the knowledge taught by these welfare institutions and church schools dooms them to be abolished by the government or undergo large-scale rectification.

As is well known, the public are blind and easily influenced by public opinion. Children are the blindest group among the public; they easily believe the knowledge they learn, and capitalists and the church use such means to shape a distorted worldview for them.

This is completely unacceptable to Carlo. In Spain, only the royal family and the government can brainwash through education; the behavior of capitalists and the church is a challenge to the status of the royal family and the authority of the government.

Spain does not prohibit the existence of private schools, but private schools must obey the control of the Ministry of Education, and the corresponding teaching materials must be reviewed by the Ministry of Education; they cannot teach whatever they want.

In officially run public schools, starting from primary school, there will be a large number of ideological education courses. These courses do not forcibly brainwash students but subtly cultivate their loyalty to the monarch and love for the country, making them feel love for Spain, and affection for the royal family and Carlo.

These students just entering school are like blank sheets of paper; even if Carlo does not write on them, someone will eventually scribble on the paper.

Rather than that, it is better for Carlo and the government to proactively write things beneficial to Spain’s development on these papers, starting from childhood, cultivating Spaniards’ national identity and national pride, and using the royal family as a bond to closely connect Spaniards from various regions, jointly creating this vast ethnic group and the united and unified Spanish Nation.

Binding the royal family and the country together has many benefits, such as the royal family’s status being very stable, etc. If politicians do not want the country to fall into a divided situation, they must preserve the royal family and use the royal family’s jurisprudence to control the entire unified country.

In this aspect, it is quite similar to the British Royal Family. Although the British Royal Family in posterity has lost most of its power, just its role as a bond connecting various regions of the United Kingdom is enough to prevent the British Government from touching the royal family.

The British Government could indeed easily abolish the royal family, but the consequence would be that Scotland and Ireland would no longer be controlled by England, and the British Empire would fall apart.

What Carlo wants to do is to make the Spanish Royal Family have a status similar to that of the British Royal Family in posterity. Even if the royal family has little power, the government would not dare to underestimate it.

As long as the throne’s succession does not fall into the chaotic situation like the Carlist faction, the future Spanish Royal Family will be irreplaceable, with a very stable status, and no need to worry about any risks affecting the royal family’s status.

Time passed quickly, and soon it was late August 1876, the first year of the official implementation of the compulsory primary education pilot in the Madrid region and Catalonia region.

In these months, the number of primary schools renovated and built by the Ministry of Education has exceeded a hundred, barely able to support the promotion of compulsory primary education in the two regions.

Although these schools are very rudimentary, they can barely accommodate a few hundred students by squeezing in. Over a hundred primary schools mean they can accommodate tens of thousands of students, and plus the original primary schools in the two regions, they barely meet the primary school demand needed for promoting compulsory education.

Because it is the first year of compulsory education promotion, the enrollment period for primary schools this year has been extended. From late August to late September, a full month, children willing to participate in compulsory education can go to nearby schools to register.

Facts have proven that completely free compulsory education plus the welfare of providing three meals a day is very attractive to the Spanish people.

Since primary schools started registration and enrollment in late August, in less than a week, the total number of registered students in all primary schools in Madrid alone has exceeded 10,

For the Madrid region and Catalonia region combined, in less than ten days, the number of registered students has exceeded 20,

The public’s enthusiastic participation in the promotion of compulsory education made Carlo and Minister of Education Gerard Wilson breathe a sigh of relief.

Although compulsory education is completely free and provides three meals a day to students, there was fear that some stubborn parents would only care about immediate interests and be willing to send their children to factories but not to schools.

After all, sending to school costs no money but also earns no money. If sent to a factory, even as a child laborer, relying on Spain’s promulgated minimum wage law, they can earn considerable income.

These laws, clearly promulgated to improve child laborers’ living standards, have now become reasons why some parents are unwilling to send their children to school.

In the era without minimum wage law, an adult male worker’s income was several times or even ten times that of a child laborer.

But after the minimum wage law, child laborers’ income has continued to grow and is now close to half the income level of adult male workers.

The consequence of this is that many capitalists no longer favor cheap child laborers, as child laborers not only enjoy holidays and rest time, but their income is not much lower than that of female workers.

Because the combined population of the Madrid region and Catalonia region is just over 2 million, the peak period of student registration only exists in late August and early September.

By mid-September, the number of students going to various primary schools to register was already very few. However, in this half month, all primary schools in the two regions combined have accommodated over 30,000 students, which is quite fruitful.