Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 314 Provinces, Cities, Counties, Prefectures, and Towns

After failing to ask Prime Minister Canovas for help, Conservative MPs who opposed the administrative division reform realized that there was no one in Spain who could prevent the administrative division reform from happening.

In this case, they can only accept it passively and try their best to guide the reform of action zones in a more reasonable direction.

A few days later, at a regular meeting of the House of Commons, a proposal for administrative division reform received a majority of votes in the vote.

This surprised the Progressive Party members. They had thought that this meeting would take a long time to push for administrative division reforms, but they did not expect the Conservative Party members to surrender right away and vote in favor.

Since the Conservative Party, the biggest opponent, has chosen to agree, it is naturally impossible for other parties and independents to continue to maintain their opposition.

Public opinion has developed to the point where anyone who votes against is a selfish national sinner. Under such circumstances, no one dares to bear such pressure.

As a result, the proposal for administrative division reform received an overwhelming majority of votes in favor, and most of the remaining members of parliament abstained rather than opposed.

At the meeting, Ferdinand Avery, then Speaker of the House of Commons, announced that the administrative division reform had been passed. The House of Commons would formally launch a negotiation meeting on the administrative division reform, and after the negotiation, the negotiation results would be submitted to the House of Lords for review and approval.

Regarding the current administrative division reforms in Spain, the most mentioned are the less populated regions in the north such as Cantabria, Basque Country, Asturias, Navarra and La Rioja.

As for southern regions such as Andalucia, Valencia, La Mancha, etc., they are basically not on the list of administrative division reform.

These regions are huge in area and have a population of millions or even tens of millions. They are fully qualified to be independent regions and naturally will not face the risk of being abolished or merged.

After several days of negotiations and voting, the House of Commons finally made a preliminarily decision that the six regions involved in the administrative division reform are Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country, Navarra, La Rioja and Murcia.

These six administrative regions will be abolished or merged, leaving only two regions in order to reduce the number of administrative regions in Spain and reduce the number of officials and government agencies.

When the results of the House of Commons meeting were finally announced, this administrative division reform plan immediately aroused heated discussions in Spain.

For most Spaniards, the administrative division reform has little to do with them. Even though there are six regions involved in the administrative division reform, the total population of these six regions is less than that of Andalusia alone.

In addition, five of the six regions are located in northern Spain, which to a certain extent reduces the impact of the administrative division reform.

If we have to talk about the impact, the Basque people are probably the most dissatisfied.

As one of the most valiant and warlike nations in Spain, the Basques have never been integrated into the Spanish family. Originally, the Basques had two administrative regions, the Basque Country and La Rioja, both controlled by the Basques. They are also the third largest nation in Spain after the Catalans.

If what the House of Commons said is true, the existing Basque Region and La Rioja Region will be merged, and it is unclear whether the Basque people can keep their existing land.

More importantly, after merging with other regions, the number of Basques in their administrative region will be greatly reduced.

This was a huge blow to the national independence of the Basques. When they were unable to maintain their uniqueness that was different from other Spaniards, they could only passively integrate into the big family of Spain.

This is something the Basques do not want to see, and they are trying to launch a march to protest the decision of the House of Commons, to at least retain one of the Basque Region and La Rioja, to ensure that the Basques can have control over one of the administrative divisions.

Carlo's defenses against the very special Basques have never weakened.

Although the Catalans are still the largest ethnic group in Spain and the one that most desires independence or autonomy, the Basques' ambition and independence from Spain are definitely the greatest of all ethnic groups on the Iberian Peninsula.

It is no exaggeration to say that the ethnic differences between the Basques and the Spaniards are even greater than the ethnic differences between the Portuguese and the Spanish.

It is extremely difficult to assimilate such a brave and warlike nation. Historically, Spain spent hundreds of years trying to do so but failed. In later generations, the Basque region is still the most aggressive region in Spain seeking independence.

In this case, there is naturally no need to be polite to the Basques.

Long before, Carlo had launched an immigration plan to move Spaniards from more populous regions in Spain to the two administrative regions of the Basque Country to dilute the proportion of the Basque population in the local area.

At present, judging from the local population ratio, Carlo is relatively successful.

Currently, the combined population of the Basque Country and La Rioja is as high as 85, an increase of about 15 compared to the population of the two regions 20 years ago.

There is no doubt that these 20 people are almost all pure-blooded Spaniards.

These Spaniards have a strong sense of national identity. Their arrival effectively diluted the proportion of Basques in the Basque and La Rioja regions, allowing Spain to strengthen its control over the two regions.

It was also with the help of these Spaniards that the news of the march was learned by the Royal Security Intelligence Agency before the Basques had time to organize it.

Once the Basques organized a march, it would not be easy to calm them down. Carlo acted decisively and decided to arrest several leaders of the Basques before the march was organized to disrupt their march plan.

On March 1885, 3, following Carlo's order, an action team consisting of dozens of people rushed to the Basque army. Their target was a secret estate on the outskirts of Gastes.

With Carlo's investment in the Royal Security Intelligence Service, the agency's intelligence work in Spain also went very well.

Demonstrations like the one organized by the Basques are completely exposed to the eyes of the Royal Security Intelligence Agency.

The Royal Security Intelligence Agency knew all the important information, including who was the leader of the parade, where they were planning the parade, and how many people were expected to join the parade, so they naturally had no trouble taking action.

Soon, the task force arrived at a suburban estate in southern Gasteiz and successfully arrested a group of Basque march leaders during a meeting.

Later in the day, some Basque workers tried to contact the leaders to ask when the march would take place.

They tried every possible way to contact the leader, but were surprised to find that they could not get in touch with him at all.

Some people were quite puzzled, but because they could not find any useful information, they could only give up and cancel the parade that had been prepared. Some people were obviously smarter. They rushed to the secret manor in the suburbs, found that there was no one there and there were signs of fighting, so they concealed their terrible guesses and tacitly pretended that nothing had happened.

Under such circumstances, the administrative division reform did not cause any opposition demonstrations in Spain, and the administrative division reform was successfully promoted.

When the House of Commons submitted the bill on administrative division reform to the House of Lords, the House of Lords also put forward some of its own suggestions based on Carlo's instructions.

Of course, the House of Lords did not object to the results of the discussion of the House of Commons. It was just that the House of Lords added a few suggestions of its own on top of the results of the meeting.

Madrid is the largest city and capital of Spain, so it is very reasonable to set up a separate administrative division. Barcelona has become a large city comparable to Madrid due to its industrial and economic development in recent years.

Considering Barcelona's future economic and industrial development, should it be established as a separate administrative division?

You know, Barcelona currently has a population of 63.14, which is more than the population of some regions.

Barcelona also has the fastest population growth of all Spanish cities, even faster than the capital Madrid.

If Barcelona could be established as a separate administrative district, the economic and industrial development speed of Barcelona would most likely see a greater growth.

This is a good thing for both Spain and Barcelona, ​​so it is necessary to discuss the establishment of a region in Barcelona.

Of course, it is also possible to not establish a region and instead establish a special city, transforming Barcelona from a city under the jurisdiction of the Catalonia region into a city directly led by the cabinet government. This would also stimulate further growth in Barcelona's industry and economy.

The second suggestion is to reform the administrative divisions of Spain's existing regions, cities, towns and villages, and change them to the province-municipality-town or state-city-town form that is more commonly used in European countries.

Such reforms are conducive to centralization, increasing the influence of the cabinet government on various regions and facilitating the control of the policies of local governments.

Under the existing regional system, some regional laws can go against the laws of the cabinet government.

For example, in the Catalonia region, there was once a decree that only Catalan could be used in Catalonia, which was obviously too outrageous.

Reforming the existing administrative divisions into administrative divisions similar to states, cities and towns can reduce the legislative power of state-level administrative divisions and avoid conflicts between laws enacted by the cabinet government and laws of local governments.

It is reasonable for all regions to have certain legislative powers, but such legislative powers must be based on respecting and upholding national laws.

Although the House of Lords only has these two opinions, the House of Commons dare not ignore them in any way.

A few days later, Carlo personally issued an order to convene an enlarged meeting of Parliament, where all members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords voted on administrative division reforms.

At this time, because the administrative division reform plan had been approved, there was no problem for Carlo to step forward and convene a corresponding meeting.

Parliament also needs a larger meeting to determine the scope and intensity of the reforms, and such an expanded meeting has received attention from everyone.

The first thing the expanded meeting voted on was to reform Spain's existing three-level administrative system of regions, cities and towns into other administrative divisions to reduce the legislative power of the regions.

After a full round of voting, the number of people who agreed to the reform finally slightly exceeded the number of people who opposed the reform, and the reform of the administrative division system was confirmed.

The next step will be a voting meeting on what type of administrative divisions should be reformed into.

Currently, the administrative divisions that Spain can choose from are states, cities and towns or provinces, cities and counties. In theory, these two are similar.

States and provinces are equivalent to the existing regions in Spain, and municipalities represent cities under the regions. The only difference is the third-level towns and counties.

The former is that all the towns and villages are under the jurisdiction of the city, and the latter is that larger towns and villages or smaller cities are named as counties, and the counties manage smaller villages or towns.

For Spain, the first option of states, cities and towns may be more reasonable.

The reason is very simple. The population of Spain is not that large and there are not too many large towns. Naturally, there is no need to set up counties to manage towns.

It can also be seen from the population distribution map of Spain that Spain's population is mainly concentrated around cities, and most of the population in inland areas is located around Madrid.

In this way, it is more appropriate for cities to manage towns and villages, and it will not increase the burden of management.

The final voting result was indeed true. Many members of parliament were optimistic about the administrative system of states, municipalities and towns. Since the existing regions of Spain are to be reformed, it would be better to reform them into states, municipalities and towns.

The third topic discussed at the meeting was whether to establish a separate administrative district in Barcelona.

It is worth mentioning that after Spain's administrative divisions were reformed from regions to states, there are more possibilities for Barcelona to establish an independent administrative division.

Barcelona can be established as a regional administrative division like Madrid, or it can be established as a special city as a more special entity and directly managed by the cabinet government.

After no longer being under the jurisdiction of Catalonia, Barcelona will be able to obtain more policy favors, and a large amount of resources from the cabinet government will be tilted towards Barcelona.

In this way, Spain's second largest city is likely to catch up with Madrid, and it is not impossible for it to surpass Madrid and become the largest city in Spain in the future.

However, just like the Basque region, it is unacceptable for the Catalans to have Barcelona as a special city or regional-level administrative division.

Even the opposition to Barcelona's separation is greater than the resistance to administrative reform in the Basque Region.

Fortunately, a large number of senators joined the enlarged meeting. Through the efforts of these senators, the proposal was finally passed by a majority vote.

(End of this chapter)