Empire Rise: Spain

Chapter 97: Progress On Government Work

1870 passed quickly, and 1871 arrived next.

Carlo attended the Spanish Government’s summary meeting on 1870 and inquired about the Spanish Government’s progress in constructing industry and economy.

From Prime Minister Primó’s government work report, the specific differences in Spain’s development between the Primó Government and the Provisional Government period could also be seen.

During the Provisional Government period, Spain’s total railway mileage reached as high as 5400 kilometers.

This railway mileage data was actually not much different from Italy’s 5700 kilometers. Although it could not compare to the often over 10,000 kilometers of railway mileage in Britain, France, and Germany, it was still considered decent.

So the question arose: why did not Spain’s 5400 kilometers of railway mileage make Spain’s economy take off?

The real reason was that Spain’s railway track width was inconsistent with other European countries. Spain’s railways had completely become transportation channels for domestic economy and materials, rather than international trade lines.

Although Spain’s railway track width was consistent with Portugal’s, Portugal was ultimately a small country. For Spain’s economy to take off, it still needed to accelerate economic exchange with other countries.

Since Prime Minister Primó officially took office, the Spanish Government has placed great emphasis on railway construction.

From mid-1869 to the end of 1870, Spain constructed a total of over 500 kilometers of railway lines, bringing the total railway mileage infinitely close to 6000 kilometers. For the Spanish Government, such railway construction speed had far exceeded before. Spain had only constructed 5400 kilometers of railway from the birth of railways to 1869, but since Prime Minister Primó took office, 500 kilometers of railway were constructed in one year—this was one of Prime Minister Primó’s political achievements.

Of course, besides railways, roads were also a quite important part of the Spanish Government’s construction.

In this one-and-a-half-year period, the Spanish Government cumulatively constructed 4132 kilometers of roads, of which over 1500 kilometers of two-way four-lane main roads were built.

For regions that railways could not reach, building roads became very necessary. With the birth of cars, the importance of roads would increase infinitely.

The Spanish Government’s future emphasis on road construction would not decrease, and roads and railways would also be one of the Spanish Government’s main construction goals in the future.

Carlo also paid special attention to Spain’s education situation.

When Carlo first arrived in Spain, the illiterate population accounted for over 70% of the total population. So far, over a million people have received literacy education, and the illiteracy rate has decreased by at least about 5%.

It was estimated that within the next four years, Spain’s illiterate population should decrease by about 15% to 20%. Reducing Spain’s illiterate population to below 40% of the total population before 1880, and to below 10% of the total population before 1900—these were Carlo’s long-term goals.

The ultimate grand goal was definitely to achieve zero illiteracy domestically in Spain. Only by fully implementing free primary education could Spain’s youth enter society with sufficient knowledge and become skilled workers and other professions needed by the country.

Only when the educated population increased more and more, and finally all school-age children could receive education above primary school, could it guarantee that universities had sufficient sources of students when recruiting.

Education must start from children—this saying made sense. If even primary education had not been received, how could one skip middle school and senior high school to directly apply for university?

Speaking of university, currently all universities in Spain combined recruited over 4000 university students each year.

But among these 4000 people, the number choosing majors related to physics and chemistry was less than There were too many in Spain’s universities studying literature and art; even architecture engineering majors were more popular than those in physics and chemistry.

Spain obviously did not need so many literature and art students. The next plan was to transform some universities. Either build them into comprehensive universities, or directly convert them into science universities, integrating literature colleges together—having just one or two such universities would suffice.

Achieving such integration was still very difficult, because most of Spain’s universities were private institutions, and the number of universities founded by the government was very small.

The only thing that made Carlo somewhat relieved was that Spain’s population had stable growth in 1869 and

In 1868, Spain’s population growth rate was the lowest in the past decade, which not only was due to the outbreak of revolution, but also because a large number of Spanish farmers, facing the government’s harsh taxes, were already unable to afford raising children. Since they could not afford to raise children after birth, the best way was not to have them.

After the revolution broke out, the population growth rate returned to normal levels.

Although it was impossible to accurately count the entire Spanish population, based on population increase and decrease in various places, the current Spanish population could be roughly estimated to have exceeded 8 million.

In just the whole year of 1870, the Spanish population grew by at least 150,000 people. If not for the underdeveloped medical treatment leading to a large number of children dying young, the population growth data would probably double again.

The problem of low survival rate of newborns and young children was a major challenge currently faced by all European countries.

Not to mention ordinary commoners—even nobles and the royal family had very common cases of children dying young.

For example, Carlo’s father Vittorio Emanuele II had two sons die young in succession, one of whom even lived only a few days.

Overall, Carlo was satisfied with transmigrating to this world. The only thing he was not too satisfied with was this world’s quite backward medical technology, which was simply too terrible compared to posterity.

Although the Industrial Revolution brought considerable strength to European countries, it did not make such great progress in medical technology.

Although biology and medicine in various countries were constantly making breakthroughs, Europe’s life expectancy remaining below 40 years was enough to prove how terrible the medical environment was in this era.

Of course, Europe’s average lifespan of 40 years could not be entirely blamed on the terrible medical environment. After all, most European commoners were exploited by capitalists, working over ten hours a day—being able to live to around 40 was already quite good.

Although current Spain did not have a specific working hours system, in some enterprises of the royal family, it had been clearly required multiple times that workers’ daily working hours must not exceed 12 hours.

As king, Carlo naturally could not exploit those workers recklessly.

Besides clearly requiring daily work not to exceed 12 hours, the royal family’s enterprises allowed employees one day off per month to relieve the fatigue and tiredness accumulated over the long term.

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