Chapter 96: Christmas Arrives
Carlo and Prime Minister Primó’s interest exchange was quickly completed, and Antonio Cánovas del Castillo also smoothly took office as Spain’s Minister of Agriculture, becoming a cabinet member.
The candidate for governor of the South Morocco Colony has also been determined, and after receiving Carlo’s appointment, the framework of the colonial government has basically been established.
The good news is that the entire population of the South Morocco Colony is not large, totaling less than a million, making management quite simple.
The Morocco in the north will also understand after this war that Spain is someone they cannot provoke, and at least in the short term, they will not actively cause trouble.
In this situation, the South Morocco Colony will go through a relatively stable period. In Prime Minister Primó’s report to Carlo, he also mentioned the next task for the South Morocco colonial government, which is the Catholicization of South Morocco.
In Europe’s colonial history, missionary work and colonialism are inseparable. Large numbers of European missionaries travel around the world, spreading Christian ideas to distant foreign lands.
As mentioned before, Moroccans are white people who believe in Islam. What Prime Minister Primó wants to do is to make Moroccans believe in Catholicism, so that they can be assimilated into the Spanish family.
Of course, if they are unwilling to join the ranks of Catholic Spaniards, they can only continue to be indigenous people of the colony, enduring exploitation by the colonial government and indifference from Europeans.
In addition to spreading the Catholic faith, the South Morocco Colony also needs to unify the language within the colony, making these Moroccan indigenous people learn Spanish language.
Although Spain has lost many colonies in South America, Spain’s colonial rule has actually been successful.
Countries like Argentina basically all speak Spanish language; they are mixed-race of Spaniards and local indigenous people, and have a natural closeness to Spain.
Although Spain’s population now lags far behind the great powers, Spain can assimilate these populations originally from Spain’s American colonies at low cost.
Even the populations of Portuguese colonies can be quickly assimilated, since the difference between Spanish language and Portuguese is not great, more like dialect differences evolved in different regions.
Of course, promoting Spanish language cannot only be done in the colonies; it must also be vigorously carried out domestically.
Especially in regions like Catalonia and Basque Country that love to seek independence, first make them generally use Spanish language, then slowly accept the big concept of Spaniards, in order to deal with the independence threat.
In the stage when nationalism is just emerging, wanting to suppress it forcibly is completely ineffective. Only by making Catalans and Basque people truly accept the concept of Spaniards from the bottom of their hearts, like José Echegaray who has Basque descent, can these regions be thoroughly stabilized.
Wanting to promote Spanish language cannot rely on coercion either.
However, this aspect is still very simple; just let Spanish capital massively enter Catalonia and Basque Country, and create more jobs for these regions.
Since factories and enterprises are opened by Spaniards, isn’t it normal for factories and enterprises to recruit people who speak Spanish language?
If local Catalans and Basque people want to work in these factories, they will naturally have to learn Spanish language.
Of course, there will definitely be some more extreme people who have certain opinions about Spanish capital entering the local area and only recruiting people who speak Spanish language.
Carlo hopes these people will jump out. After dealing with these more radical people, the rest will naturally not be so radical.
After all, there are still large numbers of farmers and ordinary people who recognize the ruling position of the Spanish Government; now those more radical nationalists are ultimately a minority.
It is at this time that Spain still has hope to deal with the independence in Catalonia and Basque Country regions.
By the time of posterity, when separatists in the two regions have already reached a certain scale, it will basically be impossible to eliminate them.
Unless another large-scale civil war breaks out, thoroughly annihilating those separatists who oppose the Spanish Government, perhaps Spain’s domestic stability can be restored.
But Spain after the civil war will also be greatly weakened, and the rift between Catalans, Basque people and Spaniards will grow even larger.
In the end, it is because the overall scale of Spaniards is not large. If Spaniards had thirty or forty million in population, Carlo would not have to care so much about Catalans and Basque people.
Prime Minister Primó’s monopoly of power made Carlo feel the ease of being king. Apart from the weekly routine cabinet meeting, Carlo rarely appears in the government and does not inquire too much about the government’s political affairs.
Apart from occasionally caring about the development of royal family property, Carlo seems to have nothing to do. He can only enjoy the massage and attentive service of maids while inspecting the construction and experiment areas of the Royal Academy of Physical Chemistry.
Time progresses very quickly; in the blink of an eye, Christmas of 1870 arrived.
From Carlo’s arrival in Spain until now, almost a year and a half has passed.
This also means that Spain’s reforms have similarly been carried out for a year and a half; Carlo is still very much looking forward to the results of Prime Minister Primó’s reforms and can feel the changes to Spain from the reforms over this year and a half.
However, expectation is expectation. The necessary Christmas holiday still must be had.
As the second Christmas Carlo spends in Spain, it has a completely different mood from the first Christmas.
During the previous Christmas, because less than half a year had passed since arriving in Spain and Spain’s internal strife had not yet been settled, the Christmas was also spent very simply.
Now that internal strife has been settled, Carlo naturally does not mind enjoying life a bit, such as holding a celebration banquet.
Those qualified to join the banquet hosted by Carlo, apart from high-level government officials, are only the nobles.
Of course, because the scale of the royal palace’s banquet hall is not large, not all nobles can receive an invitation from Carlo.
Who makes Spain’s aristocracy too large in total? All nobles added up number at least several thousand even if not ten thousand; if all gathered together, it would definitely cause chaos.
Even if streamlined to marquises and above, the invited nobles alone add up to dozens of people.
Counting their accompanying partners, the number of banquet attendees has already exceeded a hundred.
Plus the cabinet members headed by Prime Minister Primó, it exactly makes up more than a hundred people to attend this banquet.
The attendees of the banquet are all upper-class people in Spain, and it is also one of Carlo’s means to win over the aristocracy.
Two updates for today temporarily, with one more around two o’clock.
