Chapter 244: Achievements Of The Second Five-year Plan
As time moved to 1879, the Philippine Colony was busy dispatching colonial teams to New Guinea to establish colonial outposts, while in Spain, Carlo was also busy holding related meetings with the Cabinet Government.
Of course, this was not an ordinary government annual work report meeting, but the report meeting for the Spanish Government’s second Five-Year Plan.
How important the Five-Year Plan was to Spain naturally went without saying. If Prime Minister Primó’s first Five-Year Development Plan stopped Spain’s weakening decline, then the second Five-Year Development Plan put Spain back on the fast track of rapid development, with industry and economy advancing toward first-class power status.
Because the first Five-Year Plan achieved good results, the second Five-Year Plan attracted high attention from the public.
As early as the end of last year, the public was discussing how much of the second Five-Year Plan had been completed, and the changes in Spain over these five years.
The implementation of the first Five-Year Plan went quite smoothly, with Prime Minister Primó coordinating in the center, Spain encountered no major problems during the execution of the first Five-Year Plan.
But the second Five-Year Plan had only been in execution for two years when Prime Minister Primó encountered an assassination, and Carlo subsequently formed a provisional government until now.
The results of each department in the second Five-Year Development Plan concerned whether all Cabinet members could still remain in the Cabinet, Spain’s highest political institution, and also concerned the Spanish Cabinet Government election to be held this year.
Precisely because of this, from top to bottom across Spain, from the Cabinet ministers of the Cabinet Government to every ordinary Spanish citizen, all were paying attention to the Five-Year Development Plan summary report meeting that the government was about to hold and the details of each department’s work completion that the government would announce after the meeting ended.
Since the promulgation of the official performance appraisal system, whether it was the Five-Year Development Plan or some tasks assigned by the Kingdom government to the regional governments, completion or not and related results all concerned the future and destiny of the officials.
Those who completed work quickly and performed well naturally had the possibility of further promotion. But for officials who completed work slowly, or even could not complete it at all, lightly they would receive poor results in the performance appraisal, unable to be promoted in the next year; severely they would be held accountable, even dismissed from office.
Carlo attached great importance to this aspect, even the Upper House and Cabinet Government organized annual review of appraisal results every year to ensure that the official performance appraisal results reported by the regional governments were correct, with no cheating.
Any cheating in official performance appraisals resulted in all participants being dismissed and held accountable, with severe cases even facing public execution.
Spain did not abolish the death penalty, and for some officials who enraged the public, Carlo’s attitude was very clear: public execution to appease the commoners’ anger.
Facts indeed proved that Spain’s streetlights could hang capitalists as well as some officials who scraped the fat and grease of the people, engaging in corruption.
From the promulgation of the official appraisal system to now, a total of more than 30 officials have been sentenced to death, with more than 20 officials transferred to the Madrid City Center square for public execution.
The act of publicly executing criminal officials also made the public greatly admire Carlo and the current government.
If a king killed innocents indiscriminately, the public would definitely feel panic. But if this king only killed those corrupt officials and corrupt elements, the public would absolutely not panic, and even applaud.
Any grassroots people would hate officials who engaged in corruption and abused power, especially since Spain had experienced the dark period of Queen Isabella’s rule, naturally having no favorable impression of such officials.
Not to mention executing only 30 officials in several years, even if Carlo executed more than 300 officials in a year, as long as there was sufficient evidence proving these officials deserved death, the public would have no opposition or dissatisfaction.
Facts proved that doing so was very effective. Especially after publicly executing some officials, the official performance appraisal results reported by the regional governments, even with some deviations, would absolutely not be too far off.
Precisely because of this, major newspapers and most of the Spanish public paid great attention to the official performance appraisal results announced by governments at all levels every year.
Officials who obtained excellent results would naturally be prominently featured by newspapers, publicizing their political achievements. After learning such news, the public would spontaneously support these officials with excellent results and regard them as good officials among the Spanish officials.
While those officials with poorer results would face angry glares from the public, who would unhesitatingly view them as corrupt officials and scoundrels, and no longer support such people in future elections.
Precisely because the public trusted the official performance appraisal results so much, this also gave Carlo more right to speak in Spain’s political arena.
After all, Carlo controlled the Upper House, which was the highest institution of the Spanish official performance appraisal system and could directly decide an official’s political destiny.
For Carlo, he could already decide an official’s life or death with a word. As long as Carlo deemed an official corrupt, that official would soon be universally condemned, then dismissed due to public outrage, accept investigation and be held accountable.
But if Carlo felt an official had good ability, that official could soon be praised by newspaper and media, and loved by the public.
Although the public’s love would not affect the Cabinet Government election, it could affect the Lower House election.
In other words, Carlo could control the Lower House election through the additional advantages of the official performance appraisal system.
If some parties or individuals harmful to royal power appeared in Spain, Carlo could make that person’s reputation instantly infamous through this method, thereby preventing him from being elected as a member of parliament.
On January 21, 1879, in the giant conference room of the Spanish Parliament building, an ultra-large meeting with hundreds of participants was being held.
Because the Spanish Cabinet Government was nominally accountable to the Lower House, this also led to the Five-Year Development Plan summary report meeting being held in Parliament, and reporting to Parliament.
This large meeting, besides hundreds of members of parliament from the Upper and Lower Houses, also included all members of the Cabinet Government, Carlo as King of Spain, and a small number of invited newspaper and media.
Of course, these invited newspaper and media had one thing in common: they were either controlled by the government or by the Royal Family.
With these officially controlled newspaper and media, it could also ensure they would not leak important data when reporting news.
As for those newspapers without official background, they could only find some reportable hot topics from information disclosed by the Parliament meeting or news published by newspapers with official background, and then produce their own newspapers.
Spain was quite strict in newspaper distribution, and after several crackdowns, basically no newspaper dared to publish news content not allowed by the government and Royal Family.
Of course, news related to the Five-Year Plan was allowed to be reported, after all, this was also a time to publicize government officials’ political achievements.
At Parliament’s large meeting, Grand Duke Serrano, as Prime Minister, spoke first, reporting to the many members of parliament and Carlo on the results of the Spanish Government’s second Five-Year Plan.
“Your Majesty the King, fellow members of parliament. In the past five years, we have achieved quite significant results and progress.
Before the execution of the second Five-Year Plan, our country’s fiscal annual income was 1 million pesetas.
After the second Five-Year Plan was completed, our country’s fiscal annual income has reached 9 million pesetas, with fiscal annual income growth exceeding 8 million pesetas.
Before the execution of the second Five-Year Development Plan, our country had a population of 45 million. As of the end of last year, our population has exceeded 12 million, with a net growth of more than 67 million.
Five years ago, our steel output was only 123,000 tons, and iron output was only 323,300 tons. After the second Five-Year Development Plan was completed, our annual steel output has exceeded 200,000 tons, and iron output has exceeded 670,000 tons.
Currently, our steel output has surpassed the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia. According to our predictions, our total steel output ranks fifth in the world, which also proves that our efforts over the five years have not been in vain.
Five years ago, our per capita annual income was only 32 pesetas, with more than half the population unable to achieve the goal of enough to eat and wear.
After the second Five-Year Development Plan was successfully completed, our per capita annual income has risen to 28 pesetas, with workers and farmers’ per capita annual income reaching 37 pesetas and 22 pesetas respectively, all showing huge growth compared to five years ago.
We believe that His Majesty the King Carlo’s words of making Spain great again have become a reality that is about to be seen. Perhaps in a few years, Spain can achieve a life where everyone has enough to eat and wear, and our future will be even better.”
Although Grand Duke Serrano only briefly introduced some changes in Spain over these five years, he still received warm applause from most of the participating members of parliament.
Of course, the main reason was that Carlo stood up first to applaud. When Carlo stood up to applaud, the other members of parliament, no matter how unwilling in their hearts, could only smile and stand up to applaud.
For Carlo, the Cabinet Government’s work results over these five years were absolutely quite excellent. Through the tempering of the second Five-Year Development Plan, Spain has formally returned to the ranks of European powers.
Although only a second-class great power, compared to the previous situation where it had fallen out of great power status, the current Spain has undoubtedly become much stronger.
But this was only the first step in making Spain great again. Spain still needed more Five-Year Plan tempering to join the ranks of first-class powers and possess the qualification to compete with super great powers like Britain, France, and Germany.
After Grand Duke Serrano’s summary speech, next came the respective summaries of each department’s minister on the Five-Year Development Plan.
The first to take the stage was Spanish Finance Minister Ewald Barthel. On paper, the Finance Department’s results were quite good.
The difference in Spain’s fiscal annual income before and after the second Five-Year Development Plan reached 8 million pesetas, and last year’s fiscal annual income even reached a rare 9 million pesetas.
Such data made Finance Minister Ewald Barthel quite proud, and he had basically secured his position as Finance Minister.
Considering the upcoming Cabinet change, key positions like Finance Minister should not change personnel. This also meant that Minister Ewald could easily continue his third term as Cabinet Minister and then strive for higher power positions.
Spain’s Cabinet Government was quite special, with the Prime Minister not controlling all Cabinet positions.
But the Spanish Prime Minister’s power was still great, with the nine departments of finance, industry, agriculture, livelihood, transportation, public security, medical treatment, education, and diplomacy directly appointed by the Prime Minister.
The ministers of these nine departments had no term limits; as long as they were members of the Upper or Lower House, they could be appointed by the Prime Minister as ministers of a Cabinet department.
Besides these nine Cabinet departments directly appointed by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense elected by the Military Committee also had no term limit.
Considering that officers trained by the military academy had not yet grown to senior officer level, the Minister of Defense position could only be given to Grand Duke Serrano for now.
The Minister of Royal Affairs directly appointed by the King also had no term limit, which was the last position without term limit besides the Prime Minister.
The remaining Minister of Colonial Affairs, Minister of Justice, and Secretary of State, that is, Deputy Prime Minister, all had term limits.
The consecutive term limit for these three positions was two terms, and the service term limit was three terms. After two consecutive terms, they must exit the elections and appointments for these three positions; after three full terms, they could no longer serve full terms in the positions.
Spain’s current Cabinet was special, established as a provisional Cabinet after Prime Minister Primó was assassinated.
This meant the provisional Cabinet was not counted in the Cabinet members’ terms; currently, all Spanish Cabinet ministers had at most two terms.
The Minister of Colonial Affairs, Minister of Justice, and Deputy Prime Minister were all established during the provisional Cabinet period.
This also meant that all current Cabinet ministers had not exceeded their service terms and could continue in their positions.
Of course, this depended on whether the Prime Minister of the new Cabinet Government was willing. The Prime Minister held the appointment power for nine Cabinet departments and could completely change the Cabinet composition single-handedly.
Although the Finance Department reported all good news, this did not mean Spain’s financial situation was very good.
In fact, from 1869 to 1878, over these ten years, Spain’s fiscal revenue and expenditure showed fiscal deficits in eight years.
The only two years of fiscal surplus were only 7 million pesetas and 8 million pesetas respectively.
Over these ten years, Spain’s total fiscal revenue reached 20358 billion pesetas, while fiscal expenditure reached 8531 billion pesetas, with a total fiscal deficit of 52 million pesetas, averaging nearly 65 million pesetas fiscal loss per year, enough to build four or five of the most advanced ironclad ships.
If not for the Spanish Government obtaining loans successively from Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and France, and then gaining a large unexpected wealth from the Indian Temple treasure, the Spanish Government’s finances would probably not have sustained such a huge fiscal deficit long ago.
Especially during the first Five-Year Plan execution, Spain’s annual fiscal loss exceeded 100 million pesetas every year, with 1873’s fiscal loss nearing 200 million pesetas.
Fortunately, although the second Five-Year Plan was mostly in loss state, the fiscal loss had reduced to below 20 million, which was completely acceptable.
After Finance Minister Ewald’s report, it was the turn of Minister of Industry Cánovas, who also served as Deputy Prime Minister.
Besides reporting the growth of Spain’s total steel output, Cánovas also reported on the construction of the Barcelona Industrial Base.
According to the Industry Department’s estimate, the third phase construction of the Barcelona Industrial Base had hope of completion between mid-to-late
This also meant that starting from 1880, Spain’s industry would enter a state of rapid growth. Surpassing the three industrial giants Britain, Germany, and America might be difficult, but surpassing France, the former European hegemon whose industrial growth had clearly slowed, was still very promising.
Although France had not published its full-year steel production total, according to intelligence officers’ investigations and estimates of French factories, France’s steel output last year was at most just over 300,000 tons.
Although 100,000 tons more than Spain, this was also because France’s industrial base was much better than Spain’s.
Given France’s current slow industrial growth speed, as long as the Barcelona Industrial Base could be fully built, Spain’s industry might have hope of surpassing France within the next five years.
Although it seemed very simple, Spain needed at least 15 years to reach this step.
This was still because currently European countries’ industrial totals were not huge, and even previously each country’s steel output was only hundreds of thousands of tons.
When in the future industrial powers’ steel outputs all reached millions of tons, surpassing these industrial powers would not be easy.
After all, millions of tons of steel output was very difficult to build, and consuming that steel output was even more difficult. If only focusing on increasing steel output without considering domestic steel consumption needs, it would absolutely face a serious economic crisis.
Although Spain’s industrial development speed was fast, it was also based on comprehensive consideration of Spain’s demand for industrial products.
Plus, Spain possessed two large colonies, Cuba and the Philippines, so exporting some industrial products was no problem.
Spain could even conduct economic output to Portugal; Portugal’s industry was no match for Spain’s, which also facilitated faster consumption of Spain’s industrial manufactured goods.
At least so far, Spain’s industrial manufactured goods output and demand remained in a healthy proportion, sufficient to ensure Spain’s industrial development would not face economic crisis troubles.
With future growth of Spain’s population and expansion to colonies, Spain’s domestic capacity to consume industrial products would increase again.
This was also why Spain targeted France in the industrial aspect, because Spain with vast colonies was qualified to build larger-scale industry, at least not exploding due to blind development.
5000-word two-in-one chapter, wish everyone Happy Eve of Lunar New Year, Happy New Year!
