Chapter 296: 1884
On the second day of the new year, that is, January 2, 1884, Carlo welcomed good news, which was the birth of his third son Alexander.
Speaking of which, it had been more than four years since Martin’s birth at this time.
In these more than four years, Carlo managed to thoroughly restore Queen Sophie’s health, before considering having children again.
At this time, Carlo was not yet 33 years old, and Queen Sophie was even less than 29, both still in their golden childbearing age stage.
After Queen Sophie exceeds 30 years old, Carlo will cautiously consider having children. After all, the older the age of the mother, the higher the risk during delivery naturally becomes.
Time passes quickly. Carlo’s eldest son Prince Juan Fernando is already almost nine years old. Even Princess Sophia and Prince Martin, who were born later, have reached the ages of seven and four respectively, exactly at the mischievous and cute stage.
It is precisely because of these little ones that the vast Royal Palace of Madrid appears to have more vitality, much livelier than before.
For the arrival of their youngest brother Alexander, the three little ones all showed quite surprised attitudes.
If not for their studies being too busy, they would probably spend the whole day thinking of ways to stay by their brother’s side. Children always have an innate attractiveness, even Carlo would take time out of his busy schedule to accompany his youngest son, then throw himself back into busy work.
Compared to the previous years, 1884 was absolutely a relatively special year for Spain.
The first Five-Year Development Plan was proposed in 1869 and ended in 1874, marking that Spain officially returned to the ranks of European powers through reform.
The second Five-Year Development Plan was proposed immediately in 1874 and was supposed to conclude together with the cabinet government in
But because Prime Minister Primó was assassinated, it caused the second Five-Year Development Plan period to experience the terrible situation of three rounds of governments in Spain.
Fortunately, after Prime Minister Primó was assassinated, he willingly let go of all power. Under Carlo’s mediation, the three cabinet governments continuously promoted the implementation of the second Five-Year Development Plan without interruption.
In the third year of the third cabinet government, that is, when Count Canovas became Prime Minister of Spain, the Spanish Government formally proposed the third Five-Year Development Plan, with very ambitious goals set.
Five years later this year, it was also about time to inspect the third Five-Year Development Plan.
The three Five-Year Development Plans spanned a total of 15 years, and each Five-Year Development Plan played an extremely important role.
The first Five-Year Development Plan laid the groundwork, the second Five-Year Development Plan connected the past and the future, and the third Five-Year Development Plan had reached the time when the fruits were ripe.
On February 3, 1884, after his youngest son Alexander turned one month old, Carlo also decided to officially throw himself into work, and held a Lower House meeting in the Spanish Parliament building to listen to the report made by the Spanish Government on the third Five-Year Development Plan.
As per the old rules, first, Prime Minister Canovas gives a summary government report, then the various departments of the cabinet government give more detailed report content.
From 1879 to 1884, these five years saw quite rapid development in Spain. In terms of population, by the end of 1883, Spain’s total population had exceeded 3 million, getting closer to the 30 million population goal set by Carlo.
Although during this time the populations of other European countries were also growing, there were also many population outflows to other continents.
Compared to other European countries, Spain’s population outflow was relatively small. After all, there were still many development opportunities on the Spanish Mainland, and Spaniards would not think of actively immigrating abroad if their lives were passable.
What can prove this is naturally the growth situation of Spain’s per capita annual income.
Since Carlo became King of Spain, Spain’s per capita annual income has grown at a high level every year, never interrupted.
This is actually normal. The funds invested by the Spanish Government in infrastructure construction and other various constructions every year are continuous, and even in the first ten years the government’s finances were always in deficit, completely relying on loans to get by.
It was only after the second Five-Year Development Plan that Spain’s economic situation improved, and the government’s finances turned from deficit to surplus.
Currently, Spain’s per capita annual income has reached the level of 22 pesetas, almost double that before Carlo took the throne.
Such a growth speed is quite exaggerated. After all, the currencies of this era are all very valuable, with gold-pegged exchange rates quite stable, and basically no phenomenon of currency devaluation exists.
Of course, the fact that Spaniards lived very poorly during Queen Isabella’s rule is indeed an important factor.
If Queen Isabella had been even a little bit competent at that time, Spain’s per capita income would not have grown so rapidly in these 15 years.
Although per capita income is continuously growing, compared to other European powers, the income of most Spaniards is still relatively poor.
This is actually easy to understand. Among Spain’s 22 million population, the vast majority are farmers, and Spain’s land is mostly mountainous, with grain yield per mu not high.
With low grain yield, farmers’ income naturally won’t be high. With low farmers’ income, it naturally affects Spain’s overall per capita income situation.
If Spain’s land could be like the land of Britain, France, and Germany, Spain’s per capita income could at least grow by more than 30%.
Fortunately, the Spanish Government has opened up quite a few colonies in recent years, and can fully engage in agricultural development on the colonies to make up for the shortcomings of the Spanish Mainland.
Throughout 1883, the Spanish Government’s annual fiscal revenue reached the exaggerated 1927 billion pesetas, also a new high for the Spanish Government’s fiscal revenue.
It must be known that such achievements were reached after losing the Cuban Colony. If the Cuban Colony was still in the hands of the Spanish Government, fiscal revenue could at least break through 2 billion pesetas.
On the fiscal expenditure side, Spain’s fiscal expenditure also reached the scale of 0738 billion pesetas, which shows that the funds the Spanish Government invests in various constructions every year are really quite a lot.
The good news is that after various expenditures, the Spanish Government’s fiscal surplus for the whole year of 1983 still exceeded 100 million pesetas, reaching a new high of 9 million pesetas.
However, except for leaving a portion as the government’s reserve funds, most of this money is to be used to repay foreign debt.
As mentioned before, the Spanish Government’s fiscal deficits in the first ten years were basically gotten by through with debt.
This also led to Spain owing debts to Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and France respectively during these 15 years.
This debt is actually not much; added up, it is actually just about the Spanish Government’s current one year’s fiscal revenue.
About one-third has already been repaid in the previous years. The Spanish Government only needs to squeeze out about 100 million pesetas each year in the next few years for repaying foreign debt to pay off most of the debts.
There is also one item in the government report worth paying attention to, which is the situation of Spain’s steel output and industrial scale.
So far, the three phases of construction of the Barcelona Industrial Base have all been completed, and the Barcelona Industrial Base has officially become Spain’s largest industrial base, also the well-deserved industrial heart of Spain currently.
Benefiting from the improvement in industrial volume brought by the complete Barcelona Industrial Base, Spain’s steel output has also reached a new level and has been thoroughly stabilized.
According to the data results from the Industry Department’s report, last year Spain’s steel output had already broken through 400,000 tons. This level is already enough to rank in the world’s top five among the data published by European countries.
According to the rankings published by European countries, the country with the highest steel output currently is the British Empire, with steel output approaching 2 million tons.
The United States follows closely, with steel output also exceeding 5 million tons.
Germany ranks third in the world, but it is somewhat worse compared to the first two countries. Germany’s annual steel output is only around 1 million tons, still far ahead of other countries in the world.
Ranking fourth in the world is France, with steel output approaching 500,000 tons. Spain is exactly fifth in the world, with 400,000 tons of steel output exceeding the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s 300,000 tons and Russia’s 250,000 tons. Such industrial level has already taken initial shape.
Of course, steel output cannot fully represent the industrial level. Solely from the steel output aspect, Spain’s industrial scale should be at the same level as France, slightly ahead of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia.
But the actual situation is that Spain’s industrial scale lags behind France, and is about at the same level as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, or even possibly somewhat behind.
The main reason for this phenomenon is that the Spanish Mainland has insufficient population, leading to an inferior sales market for industrial products compared to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia.
In the international market, Spain’s industrial products do not have much competitiveness. Except for being able to seize the Portuguese market, Spain’s industrial products find it hard to enter the markets of other countries, after all, other great powers also dump industrial products.
Without a sufficient market, Spain naturally won’t develop a larger scale industry. This also causes Spain’s industrial scale to always be restricted. Not to mention being equal to or even surpassing France, even catching up to France seems somewhat difficult.
Of course, having an industrial scale at about the same level as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia is already quite a good achievement.
After all, Spain’s industrial development has only been more than ten years, and its own territory area and population are far inferior to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia.
These two countries have more obvious advantages in developing industry compared to Spain.
For Spain to catch up later and be mentioned in the same breath as these two countries actually already demonstrates Spain’s terrifying development speed.
Just look at Italy’s steel output at this time to know how difficult industrial development is. According to data published by the Italian Government, Italy’s steel output is only a mere tens of thousands of tons.
Of course, Italy’s situation is also quite special. Industry is generally concentrated in northern Italy, plus Italy lacks colonies, so insufficient steel output is very normal.
Because Spain has developed relatively rapidly, some data that was previously paid quite a bit of attention to is now basically abandoned.
For example, Spain’s railway mileage. During the first Five-Year Development Plan, what the Spanish Government emphasized was the construction of railway mileage.
But after the second Five-Year Development Plan, Spain’s total railway mileage had already exceeded 10,000 kilometers, which is quite excellent.
The third Five-Year Development Plan did not overly emphasize railway construction, which also led to Spain’s current total railway mileage being only about 13,000 kilometers after the Five-Year Development Plan ended.
But considering that most of Spain’s land is sparsely populated, 13,000 kilometers of railway is already enough to cover most cities, fully sufficient for Spaniards’ transportation needs.
Not to mention that large cities like Madrid and Barcelona have also opened urban rail transit, which not only greatly facilitates the daily travel of urban residents but also improves the economic circulation and growth speed of the two cities.
Although in these five years the Transportation Department only built 1,500 kilometers of railway, Minister of Transport Carlos Montoya is not panicked at all.
The reason is also very simple: because double-track railways do not count as repeated railway mileage, this makes the Transportation Department’s achievements more than what the data shows.
Although in these five years the Transportation Department only built 1,500 kilometers of railway, the Transportation Department also converted about 1,000 kilometers of single-track railway to double-track railway, greatly improving the transportation efficiency of that section of railway.
In addition, the railways built in Spain’s major colonies are not included in the count.
Colonies have their own separate calculation method, but the ones going to the colonies to build railways are all officials from the Transportation Department.
The entire report meeting lasted several hours, with all departments of the cabinet giving detailed reports, and the applause in the venue continuing nonstop.
Obviously, the members of parliament in the Lower House are quite satisfied with the cabinet government’s efforts over these five years. The achievements reported by various departments, even if not reaching excellent levels, are absolutely above the qualified line.
Excluding the unexpected factor of Prime Minister Primó’s assassination, Spain’s cabinet governments since Carlo became king have always been relatively stable.
Spain’s three prime ministers basically had no major faults, and each cabinet government basically completed its term, which also makes Spain’s political environment tend toward stability, allowing various industries to develop in a good direction under stable government decrees.
As for the reverse example, that is naturally France with its turbulent political situation.
France’s industry gradually falling behind Britain, Germany, and the United States, with the gap being pulled wider, is not without reason. On one hand, French capital prefers foreign loans; loans can allow these capitals to recover funds faster and earn more money than investment, simply a sure-profit deal.
On the other hand, the French Government’s situation is turbulent; every prime minister wants to develop industry and economy but doesn’t have time, because the longest term is only one year, and the short ones are only a few months to one month.
What political decrees can be pushed in one month? At most, take office as prime minister, get to know the various officials of the French cabinet government, and familiarize with France’s political affairs, then it’s over.
Possibly not even fully understanding France’s basic situation, the term ends due to various unexpected factors.
For example, France’s previous prime minister Armand Fallières; this prime minister’s term was solidly only one month. Although he was temporarily filling the prime minister position, one month’s term—not to mention Armand Fallières—even if Napoleon were alive, he couldn’t do anything for France.
Carlo has deeply experienced the shortcomings of political instability, thus laying a tone for Spain’s cabinet government.
No matter the abilities of the cabinet government’s officials and prime minister, as long as they maintain loyalty, Carlo will not frequently replace cabinet ministers.
A stable situation is instead beneficial to Spain’s industrial and economic growth. Anyway, the general direction is mediated by Carlo himself, and under the circumstance where the general direction is personally controlled by Carlo, no big problems will arise.
Of course, if there really is a disloyal cabinet minister, Carlo will also cut the chaos quickly and thoroughly deal with the trouble before the situation falls into crisis.
Spain at this time still needs development time, and during this development time, what Spain needs most is a stable situation.
