novelraw Chapter 100: Higher Education, Higher Income
Chapter 100: Higher Education, Higher Income
To reduce Spain’s illiteracy rate as soon as possible, Carlo had resorted to every possible means.
On the first day of 1871, Carlo had multiple newspaper offices under the royal industry publish articles about how education level determines income, and vigorously promote the concept of higher education leading to higher income.
The examples given were also very simple. University students who graduated from university had average incomes far exceeding Spain’s per capita income. Particularly those university students who were specially hired, their incomes were several times that of ordinary people.
In addition to examples of university students, the newspaper offices also cited several ordinary people with primary education or secondary school education whose incomes were higher than those of ordinary people without education after entering factories.
Entering factories requires operating equipment, and people with education often understand the equipment operation process better, learn it faster, and have a lower probability of making mistakes.
The purpose of Carlo doing this was naturally to stimulate the public’s voluntary desire to improve their education level through income, thereby popularizing Spain’s literacy education.
Although Spain’s literacy education was in full swing, literacy education could not force all Spaniards to participate.
Although it was free, under the policy of voluntary participation, the results achieved by literacy education were not as good as imagined.
Most of those participating in literacy education were children or young people of appropriate age, with very few young and middle-aged males over 25 participating.
This was actually easy to understand. Although literacy education was free, participating in literacy education would delay their time to enter factories and earn money. In this trade-off, it was no different from losing money. Although Spaniards understood the importance of education, each family would often choose to let younger children participate in literacy education, while adults engaged in labor to earn income to support the entire family.
Only by letting all Spaniards understand that the time they spend participating in literacy education would not result in a loss, and would turn into higher wages rewarding them in the future.
Only then could more people be attracted to participate in literacy education, thereby substantially and effectively reducing Spain’s illiteracy rate.
Fortunately, the newspaper offices under the royal banner now numbered as many as dozens, distributed across more than a dozen regions and colonies in Spain.
Especially in the capital Madrid, besides the Spanish Sun Newspaper, specialized newspaper offices such as the Madrid Workers’ Newspaper and the Agriculture Newspaper targeting different groups of people were created to expand the number of people the newspaper offices could influence.
At least two newspaper offices existed in each of Spain’s top five cities. Under such widespread newspaper propaganda, it was believed that many people would accept the concept of higher education leading to higher income, and proactively improve their own and their family’s education level.
To hide these dozens of newspaper offices under him, Butler Loren had racked his brains. Except for the Spanish Sun Newspaper, which was openly a royal industry, the other newspaper offices were basically disguised to appear as private enterprises.
It was not that Carlo was overly defensive. It was just that some newspaper offices, to maintain their market scale and sell their newspapers, would often publish gossip news or even relatively sexy pictures.
These news and pictures would be warmly welcomed by Spaniards, and grassroots people were also willing to feast their eyes on the sexy women in the newspapers.
But if it were royal industry publishing such news, it would inevitably leave the public with a bad impression that the royal family and the king liked gossip news and sexy women.
Although most of the public would enjoy such newspapers, if the newspaper offices belonged to the royal industry, some upright gentlemen would inevitably jump out to condemn the royal family.
Carlo had long been fully prepared for this. Enterprises like steel mills that could create a large number of jobs for Spain and would not exploit workers would be publicly revealed, telling the public that these were royal enterprises.
To accelerate the popularization of literacy education, Carlo thought of a method, and after calculation, considered it feasible.
After confirming the calculation was accurate, Carlo summoned Prime Minister Primó and proposed his suggestion: that the government would provide one free dinner on the day to all groups participating in literacy education.
Literacy education and primary education were completely different. Primary education required a fixed six years, while literacy education could end in as little as three months.
In general, it only required teaching people accepting literacy education some commonly used Spanish words and some simple cultural knowledge, scientific principles, and so on, to complete most of the literacy education work.
If classes were held twice a week, with each class exceeding three hours, literacy education could generally be completed in five months.
If it were children and adolescents who did not need to work and received literacy education every day, they could even complete most of the literacy education tasks in one month.
But no matter what, Carlo’s such proposal was quite bold.
Based on last year’s situation where over a million people received literacy education, providing one dinner to everyone participating in literacy education would equate to at least 50 dinners for a million people, totaling 50 million dinners.
Such large-scale dinners certainly would not be too luxurious. But even if it was just relatively cheap coarse grain bread and vegetables, plus a small amount of meat, it would still consume at least 5 million pesetas.
After hearing Carlo’s proposal, Prime Minister Primó was first stunned, then after careful thought and calculation, suddenly felt that this method was still feasible.
For the government, spending 5 million pesetas was not unacceptable. Attracting more people to participate in literacy education by providing a free dinner would ultimately benefit the Spanish government.
Even if the number doubled, it would not be too much of a burden for the government. The current world environment tended toward peace, so grain could be purchased from those major grain-producing countries, then made into relatively cheap food to provide to the public.
There was not much scrutiny on food safety now; as long as the provided food looked barely acceptable and could fill the public up, the public would naturally be satisfied.
Although it was just a relatively simple dinner, there would definitely be many Spaniards who wanted to save money willing to accept literacy education to save the cost of one dinner.
After all, literacy education did not cost money either; exchanging two hours of study for a free dinner, most of the public would surely be willing to accept it.
Providing free dinners was also good for reputation, whether for the government or for Carlo, as it could enhance their influence in the hearts of the public.
As for the additional expense of at least 5 million pesetas, it did not seem so important at this point. After all, Spain’s fiscal deficit last year was as high as 60 million pesetas; compared to that, what was an extra 5 million pesetas?
After careful consideration in his mind, Prime Minister Primó ultimately agreed to Carlo’s proposal, that the government would provide one free dinner to all groups participating in literacy education.
However, Carlo also made his own request: that when the government provided this free dinner, it must not forget the royal family’s contribution.
Carlo had no intention of letting the government monopolize this achievement. For Carlo, any matter that could increase Spaniards’ favor toward him could not be missed.
This not only concerned the stability of his throne, but also his future influence over the government. To ensure that after Prime Minister Primó retired, he could successfully infiltrate his influence into the government as desired, he must ensure that the attitude of most Spaniards was to support him.
If even Spaniards did not support him, then after Prime Minister Primó retired, what Carlo should consider was whether his throne could hold steady, rather than interfering in government affairs.
Hearing Carlo’s request, Prime Minister Primó naturally understood what Carlo’s purpose was. But since Carlo’s request did not affect him, Prime Minister Primó naturally would not oppose Carlo; after all, there was still a favor to be gained.
“Of course, Your Majesty. The proposal to provide free dinners was all put forward by you; Spaniards will naturally not forget your care for them.” Prime Minister Primó nodded and said with a smile.
Whether it was Carlo’s previous proposal to exchange the colonial governor for the Minister of Agriculture, or now wanting to share the public’s favor, they were actually all related to public support.
Prime Minister Primó naturally understood what Carlo wanted to do, but he had no intention of stopping Carlo.
As a politician and reformer, Prime Minister Primó deeply understood what his purpose was. Rather than power struggles and enjoying the dictatorship experience brought by wielding great power alone, it was better to say he wanted to rapidly advance Spain’s reforms through wielding great power alone.
For Prime Minister Primó, he had never thought about how long he would stay in the position of Spain’s prime minister. As long as he could complete Spain’s reforms, he would be content and did not covet the prestige and influence it would bring him afterward.
Carlo also understood this, so he felt very reassured about Prime Minister Primó during political interest exchanges.
This was also the biggest difference between Western monarchies compared to the East.
Europeans valued bloodline the most; it was too difficult for ordinary people to become kings through coups, and even in Europe’s long history, there were only a few such cases.
Napoleon was powerful enough, right? But after Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, he had to beat the European countries into submission before other countries acknowledged the noble bloodline of the Napoleon family.
This included the Napoleon family entering into multiple marriage alliances with other European royal families, allowing the family to join the ranks of Europe’s orthodox royal families.
But after the Napoleonic Empire fell, the Napoleon family’s influence quickly weakened. If it were not for Napoleon III later, plus France being truly very prosperous during the Napoleonic era, the Napoleon family would probably have long been forgotten in history.
This led to the fact that most prime ministers wielding great power alone in Europe could not ascend to the throne through coups. Even if they had great ambitions, most thought of emasculating the king and enjoying dictatorial politics as prime minister.
For politicians like Primó who did not have such great ambitions for power, wielding great power alone was not their pursuit; realizing political ideals and aspirations was.
The reason for not opposing Carlo’s opinions too much, and even cooperating with Carlo in political interests, was because Prime Minister Primó deeply understood that reformers have never had a good end since ancient times.
His befriending Carlo was not only paving the way for his departure from the political arena, but also letting Carlo understand that he himself had no great ambition for power, and hoped Carlo would not interfere too much in his reforms.
Although the two had not said it explicitly, they had reached a tacit understanding in some aspects. Both understood that after Prime Minister Primó completed the reforms, he was destined to lay down the heavy burden of prime minister.
Reforming the government offended a large number of entitled beneficiaries; if Primó stayed on the prime minister’s seat after the reforms were completed, it would inevitably affect the country’s stability.
And Carlo did not want such a person who successfully promoted reforms and had enormous influence in both the political and military circles to continue staying in the prime minister’s position; the phrase “merit that overshadows the ruler” was not said in vain.
The reason Wilhelm II dismissed Chancellor Bismarck, although differences in political views were part of it, it was hard to guarantee there was no reason of Chancellor Bismarck’s merit overshadowing the ruler.
As the instigator who single-handedly promoted the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, the two wars that predetermined Prussia’s unification of Germany, Chancellor Bismarck’s prestige in the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire was unprecedented.
It was even no exaggeration to say that Bismarck’s influence on Germany even surpassed that of Wilhelm I, who created the German Empire.
Although Bismarck and Wilhelm I had a good friendship and trusted each other greatly.
But the problem was that there was no friendship between Bismarck and Wilhelm II. Wilhelm II, as the newly ascended emperor, naturally could not accept another person threatening his power.
It was the same as the future situation in Spain. Carlo naturally could not accept having a prime minister who threatened his royal power; regardless of whether Prime Minister Primó succeeded in reforms or not, he must bid farewell to the prime minister’s seat and peacefully be his own noble.
Precisely because both understood this, Carlo was not stingy at all with rewards to Prime Minister Primó.
Prime Minister Primó had already become a duke of Spain, and his nobility title had reached the top of Spain. The highest grand duke title among nobles was prepared for Prime Minister Primó after completing the reforms.
When he fully realized Spain’s reforms and restored vitality to Spain’s industry and economy, that would be the time he leaped to become Spain’s topmost noble, a grand duke.
As long as Prime Minister Primó retired bravely, Carlo naturally would not settle accounts with him. At that time, Primó and Serrano, the two grand dukes, could also become a beautiful story in Spanish history, accompanying Spain’s rise to power, and Carlo’s name, sung by Spaniards together.
After Prime Minister Primó agreed to his proposal, Carlo had completed the purpose of summoning Prime Minister Primó.
After having a sumptuous lunch with Prime Minister Primó, Carlo began his new year’s life of leisure, while Prime Minister Primó began his busy work for Carlo’s just-expressed opinion.
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