Chapter 131: Colonial Issues

Naturally, this cabinet meeting was not limited to the issue of technical schools alone. The implementation status of the two previously promulgated bills was also within the scope of discussion at this cabinet meeting.

Of course, there were also new issues that had arisen in the colonies, including railway construction and so on; in short, the meeting was very long, and the issues discussed numbered in the dozens.

Gao Da listened to the entire cabinet government meeting, though he rarely expressed his own views. After all, the current cabinet government was still controlled by Prime Minister Primo; while he was happy to see Gao Da attend the meeting, he was not necessarily happy to see Gao Da pointing fingers at government meetings.

Prime Minister Primo certainly had his own plans for pushing forward the reforms of the Spanish government. Regardless of whether such plans aligned with the future development of Spain, it was currently not the time for Gao Da to intervene in government reforms.

Only when Gao Da gradually grasped a certain amount of power in the future would he participate more in government decision-making and carry out a wider range of revisions to the previous reforms of Prime Minister Primo and the systems of the earlier Kingdom of Spain government, ensuring that the great ship of Spain could move forward at a stable speed.

Apart from domestic development and reform in Spain, the most discussed topic in the cabinet meeting was the current issues in the colonies.

The Cuba colony had indeed succeeded in suppressing the rebellion, but the Spanish government had also made a major concession to the Cuba government for this. The Cuba government currently possessed more power, and the large number of Cubans who were hostile toward Spain also made the situation in Cuba not so stable.

Perhaps they could rely on this suppression of the rebellion to remain stable for a few years, but new problems would certainly arise in Cuba in the future, and it was not impossible for a rebellion to break out again in a few years.

Compared to Cuba, Gao Da was actually more concerned about the newly established South Morocco colony of Spain.

Although the annual income provided to the Spanish government by Cuba was dozens of times that of the South Morocco colony, Cuba also had frequent problems internally.

Even if the South Morocco colony had major problems, because of its proximity to the Spanish mainland, the cost of suppressing a rebellion was relatively low.

But the Cuba colony was different. Even if it were just an internal rebellion in Cuba, it would require the Spanish military to travel across the ocean and cross the Atlantic to suppress it.

The cost of transporting supplies across the ocean was enough to give the Spanish government a headache, not to mention that there was another country on the other side of the ocean coveting Cuba.

Even just dealing with internal rebellions in Cuba was enough to cause the Spanish government to waste a large amount of funds, manpower, and material resources, which was not a good thing for Spain's development.

If the Americans were to participate as well, the cost of Spain suppressing the rebellion would increase exponentially, and the difficulty would grow geometrically.

For Gao Da, the Cuba colony was not a question of whether it could be held, but whether it was necessary to hold it.

The role of the Cuba colony to Spain was that it was the only remaining American colony, and it was the only one that could obtain positive returns, with a not-insignificant income.

The Cuba colony had one and only one economic pillar: the sugar industry. According to the Spanish government's intelligence control over the Cuba colony, the current annual sugar production of Cuba was approximately 600, 00 tons, and there were over 2, 00 factories specializing in sugar production.

One must know that the total population of Cuba was only about 1 million, and the proportion of the population that truly belonged to the core of Cuba—that is, those of Spanish descent and mixed Spanish heritage—was only about 55%.

Relying on a population of only several hundred thousand to support over 2, 00 factories engaged in sugar production was enough to witness how important the sugar industry was to Cuba.

The sugar industry not only created a large amount of wealth for Cuba but also allowed Spain, as the suzerain state of Cuba, to obtain a large amount of financial income every year.

But in any case, the scale of the Cuba colony and the scale of its pillar economic industry ultimately had an upper limit.

Moreover, with the large number of Cubans' desire for independence, it would become even more difficult for Spain to control Cuba in the future.

Rather than being trapped in such a small place as Cuba, it would be better to find a suitable opportunity to actively sell off Cuba, while simultaneously expanding colonies in Africa as much as possible to conduct a new round of colonial exploitation.

The era of the Spanish Empire on which the sun never sets was quite distant, which also made many people unfamiliar with Spain's colonial policies.

People only knew about the cruel exploitation of African colonies by European powers in the 18th and 19th centuries, but they did not know that in the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain's exploitation of its colonies was far more cruel than that of the European powers at this time.

Although Europeans generally disregarded the lives of colonial indigenous people, they would not be cruel to the point of slaughtering people like hemp.

For example, the King of Belgium who obtained the Congo in later generations, because of his cruel colonial policy in the Congo, eventually, under the intervention of the great powers, the Congo was transformed from the private territory of the King of Belgium into a colony controlled by the Belgian government, finally ending the cruel colonization of King Leopold II of Belgium.

Spain's rule in the American colonies was similar to Leopold II's rule in the Congo, basically doing only four things: mining, running plantations, capturing slaves, and genocide.

The original inhabitants of Cuba were Indians, but as of now, Spaniards, people of mixed Spanish heritage, and Black people were the three major ethnic groups in Cuba; later on, there were even Asians, with the original Indian population ranking last.

Letting the original Indian population become one of the smallest ethnic groups in Cuba was inseparable from the cruel colonial policy during the period when Spain ruled Cuba.

Spain implemented a national genocide in Cuba, massacring the vast majority of Indians, forcibly making white people the main ethnic group in Cuba.

As for why the scale of Black people was so large, in fact, most of these Black people were slaves on plantations; they had no human rights, just like livestock raised by white people.

Although the Spanish government had long ago, during the provisional government period, that is, in 1869, promulgated laws and regulations regarding the abolition of slavery.

But Spain's laws could not affect the colonies; slavery in the Cuba colony still existed, the vast majority of Black people were slaves of white people, and only a small number of Black people possessed the right to freedom.

However, this did not mean that Black people who possessed the right to freedom could become normal Cuban citizens. Whether in a colony like Cuba or in Europe, Black people, regardless of whether they had so-called rights to freedom, would be discriminated against by white people.

This phenomenon also existed in the United States and was very common. Although the United States abolished slavery through the Civil War and liberated Black people, the actual human rights of Black people had not been effectively improved.

Black people in the United States only obtained legal freedom, but in political, economic, and social aspects, they were still the lowest existence in the United States.

The so-called Black citizens of the United States were subject to extremely strict restrictions in terms of the right to vote and the right to be elected, which also led to the difficulty of having an official of Black descent in the United States.

And those easy positions in factories and enterprises basically did not hire Black people; the jobs that Black people could apply for were all those that were bitter and tiring, and the income was not high.

Besides these, Black people and their children were also subject to greater restrictions in education and medical care.

Although they were all citizens of the United States, it was fundamentally impossible for Black people and their children to go to school with white people; they could only crowd into Black schools with worse conditions, and it was even difficult to finish a complete primary school.

A large number of Black people were restricted to a certain range and could not move freely in the United States. These areas where Black people gathered also gradually evolved into slums in the United States; the order in the slums was quite chaotic, and criminal incidents occurred from time to time.

In fact, even in later generations, there were still Black slums in the United States. Coupled with the reason that the United States did not ban guns, the slums not only had frequent various evil incidents but were even often involved in murder cases.

And in this era, the discrimination against Black people by white people was unprecedented. Because most of the police in the United States were white, this led to the fact that when Black people encountered white police, their life and death could only be decided by that police officer.

However, white police officers generally would not go to areas where Black people gathered; after all, if that group of Black people was pushed to the limit, they would do anything.

But if it were discovered that a Black person had left the gathering area without authorization, what might greet the Black person would be an emptied magazine.

Back to the situation of Spain's colonies.

In fact, compared to the African colonies, Cuba and Puerto Rico, including the previously independent Mexico, Argentina, etc., had more white populations, and they were all Spaniards or of Spanish descent.

But because of the Spanish government's cruel exploitation of the colonies, it led to a strong desire for independence in these colonies, and many people of mixed Spanish heritage did not have much affection for Spain.

Those who truly still loved this country were those Spaniards with pure bloodlines who had not been to the colonies for long.

But the fact that these people could immigrate abroad itself proved that they could not survive in the Spanish mainland, or that there were higher incomes and opportunities abroad.

It was very difficult to make them return to Spain; at least in the short term, it could not be done. Since it was impossible to absorb too many people from Latin America, it would be better to focus the current emphasis on the assimilation of the Moroccan population.

Moroccans were also white, and their appearance was relatively similar to that of Spaniards.

The biggest difference between Spaniards and Moroccans was the difference in language and religion, but these differences could be eliminated in long-term assimilation.

Compared to the Cuba colony far away in the Americas, Morocco, which was only separated from the Spanish mainland by a strait, was clearly the better choice.

In any case, the development potential of Morocco was greater than that of Cuba. The population of Morocco was several times that of Cuba, and its land area was more than ten times that of Cuba.

Although the current Cuba could create economic value that Morocco could not compare to, if it were a matter of the influence and role on Spain in the future, two Cubas might not be able to compare to one Morocco.

Happy National Day to everyone, and happy birthday to our motherland!

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(End of this chapter)