Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 200 House of Commons Elections and Educational Outcomes

After an unusual Christmas, it was January 1876, 1.

Carlo's eldest son, Juan Fernando, was almost seven months old at Christmas and could crawl around in Carlo's big bed.

Carlo also doted on the little guy very much. He played with little Juan Fernando all day on Christmas, fully fulfilling his duties as a father.

It is worth mentioning that the little one also loves his father Carlo very much. When Carlo came to the bed, the little one immediately crawled to his father's side with his hands and feet, which made Queen Sophie, who had been taking care of the little one for a long time, a little jealous.

With the addition of a little one, the Christmas atmosphere in the palace has become much more lively. Although the Christmas activities prepared by the palace in previous years were equally grand, the royal family only had Carlo and Queen Sophie, after all, and it still looked too lonely and deserted.

In the future, every Christmas of the royal family, the number of Spanish royal family members will surely increase. At present, Queen Sophie's health has almost recovered, and Carlo also intends to continue to have a second child with Queen Sophie in the new year.

Anyway, the Spanish royal family does not have any financial problems, so naturally the more princes and princesses they have, the better. Only when there are more and more royal family members can the royal family expand and avoid the risk of extinction.

The good news is that both Carlo and Queen Sophie are still young and have plenty of time to have children in the next decade or so.

If he is lucky, Carlo may have enough children to form a football team. The royal family's large number of children is also a role model, which can encourage the public to have more children and promote the growth of Spain's population.

As time came to January 1876, the elections for members of the House of Representatives in various regions of Spain were gradually coming to an end.

The first to finish the elections were the Madrid region and several regions with small populations. Regions with small populations naturally won't get too many seats in the lower house, so the elections for individual seats will naturally be very quick.

Carlo also got the election reports of the regions that have completed the elections as soon as possible. There are currently four regions that have completed the elections, namely the Madrid Region, the Balearic Region, the La Rioja Region and the Cantabria Region.

The Progressive Party still holds the majority of the less than 4 seats in the House of Commons held by these four regions, but the numbers are no longer enough to give the Conservative Party an overwhelming advantage.

The proportion of Progressive Party members is only about 40%, the proportion of Conservative Party members has increased to 30%, and there are only a handful of Liberal Party members, accounting for less than 2% of all members of the four regions.

Although these are only the results of the elections for four regional councillors, they can to a certain extent reflect the current support situation for various parties in Spain as a whole.

The Progressive Party is still the largest party in Spain for the time being because of the afterglow of Prime Minister Primo. But after the Liberal Party lost the protection of Prime Minister Primo, it is no longer one of the three major parties in Spain along with the Conservative Party, and there is a certain gap between it and the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party.

Although Carlo is still optimistic that Mateo can lead the Liberal Party to grow stronger, considering the current situation of political parties in Spain, the road to leading the Liberal Party to become a powerful party on par with the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party is destined to be full of difficulties.

More than half a month passed, and finally at the end of January, the elections for a total of 298 seats in the House of Representatives in various regions of Spain were completed, and the new House of Representatives officially convened on February 1876, 2.

The distribution of the 298 seats in the lower house is not much different from what Carlo had estimated at the time. The Progressive Party is still the largest party in Spain, occupying 37.6% of the lower house and a total of 112 seats.

The Conservative Party has become the second largest party in Spain, and has significantly narrowed the gap with the Progressive Party. The Conservative Party's share is also as high as 33.2%, almost becoming the second party in Spain to have more than seats in the House of Commons.

The Liberal Party pulled out a big slack, only winning 34 seats in total, or 11.4% of the total seats in the House of Commons.

In addition, about 17.8% of the members in the House of Commons are independents, who occupy a total of 53 seats, more than the third largest party, the Liberal Party.

After the House of Commons was reorganized, Carlo personally attended the first meeting of the House of Commons. It is true that a large meeting with nearly 300 people is more lively than a meeting with 200 people. The venue was also temporarily expanded to ensure that it could accommodate nearly 300 members of the House of Commons.

After the House of Commons is established, the next most important thing is to elect the Speaker of the House of Commons.

The position of speaker is quite important. To the outside world, it is the symbol of the house where it is located. Internally, it has the power to preside over house meetings, decide on house proposals, and announce election results.

Because the Speaker of the House is also a member of the House, he or she has all the powers that a member of the House has.

The weekly routine and emergency meetings of the House of Commons are all chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons. Therefore, the first thing the House of Commons does after its establishment is to vote for a new Speaker of the House of Commons.

It can also be seen from the distribution ratio of seats in the House of Commons that the candidate for Speaker of the House of Commons will basically be chosen from the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party.

However, because the proportion of seats occupied by these two parties in the House of Commons does not exceed 50%, they also need to win over members of other parties or those independent members to ensure to a greater extent that their own members become Speaker of the House of Commons.

In terms of the systems of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, Spain and the United Kingdom currently have certain similarities.

Although most cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister, this does not mean that the appointment is unconditional. Even with the support of the prime minister, if you want to become a cabinet minister in Spain, you must first become a member of either the upper or lower house.

Only after becoming a member of parliament can one be nominated as a cabinet minister. This system ensures that the parliamentary election can serve as the first round of screening before becoming a cabinet minister.

Except for very few examples, most people who can become members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords basically have certain abilities.

After days of election competition, the House of Commons finally elected a new Speaker, Horn Fernandez, a member of the Progressive Party.

In fact, the competition between the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party for the speakership was quite deadlocked. However, considering that the Conservative Party monopolized the two major positions of prime minister and deputy prime minister, Carlo decided to choose the speaker of the House of Commons from the Progressive Party.

Compared to the Conservative Party, the Progressive Party, which has been trained by Prime Minister Primo, is currently the most suitable ruling party in Spain. If it weren't for the fact that the second-in-command Ruiz was too radical, Carlo would not necessarily have decided to choose Canovas as the successor to Prime Minister Primo.

1876 ​​was destined to be a busy year for Carlo.

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

If Carlo had not attached great importance to physical exercise since arriving in Spain, he would definitely not be able to bear such fatigue day and night.

In his spare time, Carlo would have fun with the two maids, Anna and Alice, making the most of his time.

After continuous efforts, Queen Sophie soon brought good news.

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

Although this is already their second child, Carlo and Queen Sophie still attach great importance to the little one in their belly. From the moment the pregnancy was confirmed, the royal private doctor accompanied her at all times, and a large number of maids and servants were always waiting.

There are only more than a hundred servants in the entire Spanish royal palace, and there are more than twenty serving Queen Sophie.

When talking about these servants in the palace, we have to mention the palace's very strict servant selection and training process.

All of the more than one hundred servants currently employed had undergone background checks, ruling out infiltration by Republican insurgents from the outset.

In addition, Carlo also searched for orphans from all over Spain to raise them, and trained some of the orphans who were loyal but not capable enough to be servants and maids.

In addition to the relatively strict selection and training system, Carlo was also quite generous with the salaries and benefits of all servants in the palace.

The lowest income of palace servants exceeded the average annual income of Spaniards, and the average income far exceeded the average annual income of Spaniards.

Especially for servants holding some more important positions, their income will be greatly increased to ensure their loyalty.

Although Carlo trusted these servants enough, the Royal Security Intelligence Agency also kept surveillance on them.

After all, it is a matter of safety for yourself and your family, so it is not excessive to pay attention to it.

One morning in February, Education Secretary Gerard Wilson asked to see Carlo and brought him some good news that made Carlo very happy, which was the latest achievements in literacy education in Spain.

"Your Majesty, the education department has compiled the latest statistics on literacy education, and the data is completely in line with our expectations." Gerard Wilson smiled, and the first thing he did when he saw Carlo was to report the good news to Carlo.

Carlo nodded, took the literacy education data handed over by Gerard Wilson, and began to read it by himself.

The data shows that Spain’s literacy education results in the last year, that is, 1875, were still quite good.

In 1874, the number of people participating in literacy education in Spain increased to an astonishing one million. Although a large part of the reason was that these people wanted to take advantage of the free lunch provided by Carlo, it is undeniable that these people who participated in literacy education effectively reduced the proportion of illiterate people in Spain.

By the beginning of 1875, the illiteracy rate in Spain had dropped below 39%, a significant improvement from the 70% or so that it had been just after Carlo's coronation.

A year later, the illiterate population in Spain experienced another sharp decline, and now the total number of illiterate people is less than 35%.

According to government data, Spain's population was approximately 1876 million at the beginning of 1825. (estimated)

The number of illiterate people has dropped to less than 640 million, a large portion of whom are young children who cannot receive education and middle-aged and elderly people who are too old.

Apart from these groups, the remaining illiterate population are mostly family breadwinners who need to continue working to earn income.

They really don't have any free time to participate in literacy education, and the factories will not give them holidays. This is also the biggest challenge facing literacy education.

Fortunately, changes to the labor law will ensure that the vast majority of workers and other employees in Spain have more rest time. Although the improvement is not much, according to government estimates, workers will be able to rest for an extra half an hour to an hour per day on average compared to before.

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

Although powerful countries such as Britain, France and Germany have lower illiteracy rates, they are, after all, extremely developed and powerful countries.

There are still large areas in Europe with a large number of illiterate and low-income people, and the existence of these people also reduces the per capita education and income levels in Europe.

Looking at the whole of Europe, Spain's per capita education level and illiteracy rate are not bad, at least it can be considered average.

Especially compared with Russia, which is also a great power, Spain is not bad in education. Most of the population in Russia is illiterate, and it is extremely difficult to popularize education.

Although Russia has undergone reforms, the reforms have not been completed thoroughly. Peasants are still the lowest class in Russia, and they are not even respected for their most basic human rights, let alone the right to education.

Of course, a large population is also one of the reasons why Russia is so powerful. The name of the European bulldozer is famous all over the world, which also makes Russia one of the five traditional European powers comparable to Britain, France, Germany and Austria.

Later, great powers like the United States and Italy still had a large gap with Russia. It is precisely because of this that even though Russia performed poorly in terms of per capita income and education, it is still a great power, and an undisputed great power.

"The Ministry of Education has done a great job. You have lived up to Prime Minister Primo's expectations." Carlo looked at Education Minister Gerard Wilson with satisfaction and was quite impressed with this capable Education Minister.

More than a year ago, Gerard Wilson proposed a dual-track education model, advocating a two-pronged approach of general education and technical education, while cultivating the highly educated and high-tech talents that Spain lacks.

At present, dual-track education has been implemented in Spain and is expected to produce results in a short period of time. In particular, technical schools established by the Spanish government have enrolled a large number of technical students.

After completing the technical training, these trainees will be transformed into high-level technical talents that Spain urgently needs.

The Education Secretary, Gerard Wilson, who proposed this system, had long been recognized and supported by Carlo and was successfully re-elected as Education Secretary.

Gerard Wilson breathed a sigh of relief after hearing what Carlo said.

Although he gained Carlo's trust with his own abilities, he was, after all, the Minister of Education appointed by Prime Minister Primo and a member of the Progressive Party.

If Carlo is dissatisfied with the way Prime Minister Primo once monopolized power and intends to completely separate the current Spanish government from Prime Minister Primo, then there is a great possibility that he will bid farewell to the Spanish cabinet government and end his political career.

At present, Carlo has no intention of completely cutting ties with Prime Minister Primo. Gerard Wilson, as the minister of the same party as Prime Minister Primo, can still stay in the position of Minister of Education and play his own role.

"All this is thanks to your Majesty." Gerard Wilson flattered him and secretly expressed his attitude: "If your Majesty had not supported the dual-track education system I proposed, the education department would not have achieved such remarkable results.

If I have to say who is the biggest contributor to the development of Spanish education so far, I think it should be you, Your Majesty. The education sector still needs your guidance, Your Majesty. I will continue to contribute my remaining energy under your instructions and make further contributions to the cause of education in Spain. "

(End of this chapter)