Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 221 Centering Plan
The Cuban colony was extremely important to Spain, which was why the cabinet ministers were shocked and surprised when they heard Colonial Secretary Frank say that the Cuban colony might not be that important.

How important was the Cuban colony?
In 1876, the Spanish government's total fiscal revenue was 7.933 million pesetas, which was also the highest fiscal revenue in Spain in the past decade.

The Cuban colony brought Spain revenue of 5827 million pesetas, accounting for 7.3% of Spain's total fiscal revenue.

One of the reasons why the proportion does not seem high is that Spain has achieved good development in recent years, and fiscal revenue has also been rising steadily with the development of Spain.

The second is that when Archduke Serrano put down the Cuban rebellion last time, he signed a tax agreement with the local Cuban people, allowing the Cuban colony to retain more tax revenue locally, which brought temporary stability to the Cuban colony.

5827 million pesetas is definitely not a small amount. The Cuban colony is also the only colony among all the colonies controlled by Spain that has a net income of more than 2000 million pesos. (Peso is the currency of Spanish colonies, and its value is equivalent to the peseta in the mainland)

Compared with Cuba, the larger and more populous Philippine colony only provided Spain with 1200 million pesetas in revenue last year, which also shows the importance of the Cuban colony.

For the Spanish government, giving up the Cuban colony means giving up nearly 6000 million pesetas in revenue. How could such a proposal not shock the cabinet ministers?
Now that he had made the proposal, Minister Frank would not back down halfway. He nodded to Grand Duke Serrano who kindly reminded him, and then continued to express his own opinion:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I know that the Cuban colony can bring us nearly 6000 million pesetas of income every year. But at the same time, we should also consider the harm that continuing to hold the Cuban colony will bring us.

Although Cuba has only a million people, both white and black Cubans are against our rule. The last time I went to Cuba, even the slaves on the plantations were shouting for autonomy and independence.

Should we continue to suppress Cuba? The last time we suppressed the Cuban people, we spent only 5000 million pesetas. The main reason was that the tax bill made some plantation owners turn to us.

But sooner or later the appetites of these plantation owners will grow, and either we continue to make concessions or we will have to continue to send troops to suppress the Cuban rebellion.

If it costs tens or even hundreds of millions of bistas to suppress each rebellion, is the income from the Cuban colony really that important?

And don't forget that the Cuban colony is right at the doorstep of the Americans. The chaos in Cuba is definitely related to the Americans.

Unless we are ready to go to war with the United States, we should leave this trouble to other countries. If we can exchange it for a colony of equally high value, it will not be a great loss for us.

Cuba's sugar and tobacco industries do generate a lot of revenue, but Cuba is not irreplaceable in these two industries."

After Carlo gave Minister Frank this difficult task, Minister Frank carefully prepared his speech to ensure that he could convince these cabinet ministers, or at least have enough reasons to prove that his views were correct.

For Spain, Cuba is its only remaining colony in the Americas and the last witness of the former Spanish colonial empire.

Not only was the Spanish government unwilling to lose its Cuban colony, the Spaniards were also unwilling to lose this colony that they had held for hundreds of years.

Even if Minister Frank could prove that his point of view was correct, it would be difficult to get the cabinet ministers to agree to give up the Cuban colony.

After all, if they gave up the Cuban colony at this time, if there was any problem, they would be the ones to bear the blame. If they did not give up the Cuban colony at this time, even if Cuba became independent in the future, it would have nothing to do with the current cabinet government.

For cabinet ministers, when considering an issue, they first consider the impact on themselves, and then the impact on Spain.

It would be extremely difficult to get them to agree to give up their Cuban colony.

Carlo looked around and saw that some of the cabinet ministers were carefully thinking over the points made by Minister Frank, while others seemed to be daydreaming and did not seem to care about what Minister Frank said.

Seeing that no one stood up to support his point of view, Minister Frank paused, and then continued: "The biggest disadvantage of the Cuban colony for us is that it is too far away from the Spanish mainland.

If a rebellion breaks out in the Cuban colony, we will need to travel across the ocean to quell it. If we can acquire a colony closer to our homeland and carry out a long-term localization strategy, perhaps we can directly turn it into our homeland.

There are still large tracts of land in Africa that have not been explored, and we can also exchange African colonies from other powers. For us, African colonies are closer and more convenient for us to manage. "

Although the warship technology of various countries is constantly upgrading, the current speed of ironclad ships is only about 13 knots, which is about 24 kilometers per hour.

The distance between the Spanish mainland and the Cuban colony is about 7400 kilometers, and this is just the straight-line distance between the two. You can't cross the Atlantic Ocean in a straight line, after all, there is no supply along the way.

The straight-line distance is as high as 7400 kilometers, which means that it takes at least kilometers to travel from mainland Spain to the Cuban colony.

For Spain, traveling thousands of miles to Cuba to fight the rebellion would be a very difficult process, and the military budget to quell the rebellion would increase several times.

After all, Spain is no longer the empire on which the sun never sets, and continuing to hold the Cuban colony is not entirely a good thing for Spain.

Minister Frank also seized on the issue of the Cuban colony and put forward his own views, which is indeed the current risk of Spain's colonization of Cuba.

Spain was not very afraid of the Americans alone, because at that time the impression that the United States gave to Europeans was prosperity in the East and chaos in the West.

The eastern United States was the first region to be colonized, and it is also the most developed and densely populated region in the United States.

Although the United States does not ban guns, the order in the eastern United States is still relatively safe and prosperous compared to the western part.

But the American West was quite chaotic. The Wild West was not called that for nothing. Gangs, criminals, stowaways and gold diggers formed the Wild West. Gunfights were common here, and gang fights were even more numerous.

In addition to this impression, the impression that the United States leaves on Europeans can be traced back to the colonial period hundreds of years ago.

There are gold mines everywhere in America, which has led a large number of gold diggers to try every possible means to go to the United States to pan for gold.

The United States attracted a large population with its gold mines. Every year, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of European immigrants crossed the ocean to seek survival in the United States, where there were more opportunities. Among them were also illegal immigrants and laborers from all over the world.

As a colonial and independent country, the United States is quite lucky. They don't even need to pay much attention to population development, and a large number of immigrants and illegal immigrants come to the United States every year.

But they are also unfortunate. These immigrants come from various countries and regions around the world, and the United States is one of the few countries in the world that has a mixture of white, black and yellow people.

White people in the United States are basically descendants of European immigrants, many of whom are recent immigrants to the United States.

Most of the black people were slaves brought to the United States from Africa during the slave trade period. They gained the status of free people after the Civil War and became full-fledged American citizens.

The composition of the yellow race is more complicated. Most of them are illegal immigrants from Asia or gold diggers attracted by gold mines.

In California, in the western United States, there is a city called San Francisco. This was originally a land discovered by the Spanish, attracting a large number of stowaways and gold diggers.

The yellow race gold diggers called San Francisco the Gold Mountain, implying that the gold here was piled up like a mountain, to describe the huge gold mine in San Francisco.

Later, Melbourne, Australia was also called Gold Mountain because of its large number of gold mines. In order to distinguish the two Gold Mountain cities, San Francisco, which was first called Gold Mountain, was called San Francisco, and the later Gold Mountain Melbourne was called New Gold Mountain.

The US policy at this time is still in a period of low-key development. They did not seek too much international influence, which also made European countries generally look down on the United States.

Of course, the United States was not strong at that time, which was one of the reasons why European countries looked down on the United States.

After Colonial Secretary Frank expressed his views, the cabinet meeting fell into silence.

No cabinet minister stood up to express his or her views, either in favor or against.

Deputy Prime Minister Canovas pretended to look at Carlo's face several times, then stood up, glanced at all the cabinet members, and then said: "Minister Frank, what you said makes some sense. But the Cuban colony is too important to us. No matter how we deal with it later, it will not be completed in a short time. I suggest that we can leak some information to observe the attitude of the people. If the people support the replacement of the Cuban colony, we can naturally follow public opinion, so as not to cause public dissatisfaction.

If the public opposes giving up the Cuban colony, we can treat the leaked information as a rumor and clarify it to the public in a timely manner.

What do you think? "

The reason why the cabinet ministers were reluctant to express their views was that they were actually worried that if the news of abandoning the Cuban colony leaked, they would be attacked by the public.

Don't underestimate the patriotic enthusiasm of the Spanish. They can cheer when the country gains new colonies, but they can also be angry when the country loses colonies.

They will not put themselves in danger until they are fully confident, after all, this is a matter that concerns their future political career.

Hearing Canovas' proposal, Archduke Serrano nodded, stood up and said, "Minister Canovas' proposal is good, I think it is the most appropriate choice at this time.

As for the Cuban colony, we must fully consider the opinions of the people. If the people are willing to give up the Cuban colony, then we should naturally give up the Cuban colony.

But if the people are unwilling to give up the Cuban colony, we can only fight for public opinion and for Spain.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you can keep this strictly confidential before we test public opinion. This matter concerns the entire cabinet government, and I don't want any news to be leaked outside of the plan."

As he spoke, Archduke Serrano turned his gaze toward several cabinet ministers from the Liberal and Progressive parties, and the meaning of his words was already quite clear.

The prime minister and deputy prime minister in the cabinet are both from the Conservative Party, so now we only have to worry about whether the Liberal Party and the Progressive Party will leak the news.

As for the Conservative Party, only a fool would take the initiative to leak the news. After all, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister are both from the Conservative Party. Creating trouble for the cabinet government is equivalent to creating trouble for the Conservative Party, isn't it?

Noticing Archduke Serrano's gaze, several cabinet ministers from the Liberal Party and the Progressive Party nodded quickly, saying that they would keep the matter strictly confidential.

Although Archduke Serrano's position as prime minister was more symbolic, the person who was actually in charge of the cabinet work was Deputy Prime Minister Canovas.

But no one dared to ignore the opinion of Archduke Serrano. In addition to the fact that Archduke Serrano was highly valued by Carlo, another reason was that Archduke Serrano, as the Minister of Defense, held military power in his hands.

Although Archduke Serrano's influence in politics is not as great as that of former Prime Minister Primo, his resume is equally brilliant.

Prime Minister Primo served as the governor of the colony, and Archduke Serrano also served as the governor of the colony. Both of them came from the military and had brilliant military records.

And speaking of it, Archduke Serrano and Prime Minister Primo were the founders of the current Spanish government. It was they who led the troops to overthrow the rule of Queen Isabella.

As long as Archduke Serrano still holds military power, other cabinet members dare not ignore his opinions.

At this moment, Carlo suddenly coughed twice, and then rarely expressed his opinion in the meeting: "I also think Minister Canovas's proposal is good, let's do it."

Since Carlo has expressed his opinion, other cabinet ministers will naturally not make any suggestions. Everyone is not stupid, and they all know who has the final say in the current Spanish government.

Carlo would not make a decision easily, but once Carlo made a decision, even Archduke Serrano and Minister Canovas could not stop him.

A king who controls the Senate already has a lot of power in his hands. Not to mention that Carlo also gained military power by forming the Spanish Military Committee. Carlo, who holds military power, has completely gained power. It is no exaggeration to say that he has monopolized power.

The discussion at the cabinet meeting ended like this, but Carlo was still quite satisfied with the development direction.

Carlo did not intend to give up the Cuban colony immediately. This time, he asked Minister Frank to express his views on abandoning the Cuban colony, which was actually a preventive measure for the cabinet ministers.

The Cuban colony had to be abandoned sooner or later, and Cuba, separated by the Atlantic Ocean, was not part of Carlo's plan.

In the future, Spain will expand more into Africa, especially in Northwest Africa and near the Congo territory. These two regions are the lands that Spain really wants to expand into.

Carlo doesn't mind exchanging the remaining land if it can bring equivalent benefits.

These lands in Morocco can be localized in the future. In other words, these are lands that Spain can control permanently.

These lands of Cuba will become independent sooner or later. Even if Carlo replaces the residents of Cuba batch after batch, as long as there are residents born in Cuba, the concept of Cubans will never disappear.

It would be better to take the opportunity to squeeze out the last bit of profit from Cuba, and then sell Cuba to other powers to cause some trouble for the Americans.

At this time, Hawaii had not yet been annexed by the United States, so it could also be used to trip up the Americans.

Just as the United States can create conflicts for Spain in Cuba, Spain can also create problems for Americans in Hawaii.

Anyway, Spain doesn't have to worry about the threat from the United States at this time, because the United States does not have the strength to cross the ocean to attack Spain.

It has been less than 20 years since the American Civil War, and the contradictions dividing the North and the South have not been eliminated in the United States.

Although the Civil War liberated a large number of plantation slaves in the United States, these black slaves did not significantly change their status after obtaining the status of free people.

Racial discrimination still exists in later generations, not to mention more than 100 years ago in 1877.

At that time, the United States was still pursuing the racial segregation system, and it was impossible for blacks to step into white cities.

Black people will never be able to find the easy jobs that white people can find. They can only do low-level jobs, which are not only tiring but also paid much less than white people.

Black people can only work as police officers in black cities and cannot get promoted. White police can deal with black people at will, just by finding a seemingly reasonable reason.

When black policemen face white criminals, even if the white criminals are extremely serious, the black policemen have no power to arrest them.

Even black police officers are not allowed to enter areas where white people live. Such a huge disparity in treatment is also a hidden danger in the United States.

To put it bluntly, the United States has only concealed its domestic problems due to its rapid development. The United States has many domestic problems, some even more serious than Spain.

The population of Spain is all white, and the Catalans and Basques, who do not have a high level of identification with Spain, only account for a small proportion.

The United States is a country where all three races exist: black, white and yellow. The United States has a large number of black people, and these blacks are also a factor of instability in the United States.

Unless America can completely resolve the problems that exist between blacks and whites, or resolve one of the two, America's problems will always exist.

In times of peace and prosperity, such problems are of course not a big deal, and they are unlikely to even cause chaos in the country. But in some unstable periods, such problems are fatal to the United States, and may even cause the division and civil war of the United States.

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(End of this chapter)