Chapter 145: Encouraging Childbirth: Three Major Studies

In fact, ever since his marriage, Gao Da had been facing a new problem, which was the issue of bloodline succession.

In other words, Gao Da's biggest task after marriage was actually to have children.

It is not just in the royal family; for the vast majority of noble families, the primary task of title succession is to have children, and only then to find ways to expand their own industries.

If there is no qualified heir to inherit one's industry, what does it matter even if one possesses a kingdom or an empire?

The country will not perish, but if a family has no descendants to inherit, it will face the situation of extinction.

In European history, there are countless examples of extinction leading to the throne falling to branches or even other clans, which also makes European nobles attach great importance to the inheritance of bloodlines.

It is fine if one is not married, but those who have been married for more than three years without offspring will be arranged to find the cause of the problem.

How to find the problem is also simple, which is to arrange many lovers for the noble. If the lover can get pregnant, it proves that it is the noble wife's problem.

If the lover also cannot get pregnant, then it is highly likely that it is the noble himself's problem.

If it is the noble himself's problem, then it is necessary to select a qualified heir from among one's relatives in advance to inherit the title, such as the children of one's brothers or sisters.

Gao Da currently does not have this worry. After all, it has been less than a year since the marriage, and coupled with the fact that both Gao Da and Queen Sophie are still young, there is no plan to have offspring for the time being.

In fact, it is ultimately because the medical technology of this era is too poor. To ensure Queen Sophie's future physical health, Gao Da intends to wait until she is fully an adult and prepared before discussing the matter of having children.

In fact, it is not far off. Queen Sophie was born in March 1855, which is only 3 months away from adulthood.

However, considering the preparations before having children, as well as the time of pregnancy, etc., Gao Da's first child will be born at least two years later.

Out of consideration for the royal family to spread its branches and leaves, Gao Da's children are of course the more the better. Anyway, the royal family does not have to worry about the expenses of raising children, so naturally, the more they are born, the better.

It can also set an example for the Spanish people. If His Majesty the King is working hard to have children, what reason do the people have not to share the worries for the growth of Spain's population?

Of course, if you want to make the Spanish people more keen on having children, you have to solve the worries after the children are born, which is all kinds of expenses.

In addition to popularizing compulsory education of at least primary school, Gao Da also intends to establish subsidies and rewards for having more children in Spain.

However, such subsidy and reward policies must definitely be discussed with the government. After all, it is the government that spends the money, and if it is not agreed upon by the government, there will definitely be some contradictions in the policies in this regard in the future.

Because population is a relatively large defect in Spain at present, the proposal to encourage childbirth should naturally be implemented as early as possible.

Just after Christmas, Gao Da asked Huo Weiliar Suolaier to propose the proposal to encourage childbirth in the House of Representatives to test Prime Minister Primo's attitude.

The current parliament is controlled by Prime Minister Primo, and whether the proposal is passed or not depends entirely on Prime Minister Primo's attitude towards this proposal.

This is also the reason why Gao Da asked Huo Weiliar Suolaier to submit the proposal directly to the House of Representatives. If Prime Minister Primo supports it, this proposal will naturally be passed easily.

But if Prime Minister Primo does not support this proposal, even if he unites with other political parties, it is impossible to occupy the majority of seats in parliament.

This proposal submitted to parliament was soon learned by Prime Minister Primo. Because Prime Minister Primo had long known that Huo Weiliar Suolaier had pledged allegiance to Gao Da, he naturally regarded this proposal as one proposed by Gao Da.

First of all, regarding the content of this proposal, Prime Minister Primo did not have many reasons to refuse. The only thing worth discussing is the content of rewards and subsidies for families with many children, but this point can be discussed within the cabinet government.

After all, it is the parliament that submits and revises laws, but it is the cabinet government that executes this law.

Even if the proposal is passed by parliament, how the bill is actually executed is still decided by the cabinet government.

Huo Weiliar Suolaier being able to submit this proposal in the House of Representatives must have also obtained Gao Da's support.

Since this is the case, Prime Minister Primo naturally will not refuse. He still respects Gao Da quite a bit, just as Gao Da respects his power in the cabinet government.

Gao Da knows that Spain's reforms cannot be separated from the vigorous promotion of Prime Minister Primo, and Prime Minister Primo of course also knows that the success of the reforms cannot be separated from Gao Da's strong support.

The royal power still has great influence in Spain. As a prime minister who supports the monarchy, Primo naturally hopes that he can obtain Gao Da's support, rather than standing on the opposite side of the king he helped to power with his own hands.

With the acquiescence of Prime Minister Primo, this proposal was soon passed in parliament. Although the Progressive Party occupies the majority of parliamentary seats, the Conservative Party is still Spain's second-largest party.

Currently in the Spanish parliament, the Progressive Party is an absolute major party and is also Spain's current ruling party. The leader of the Progressive Party is Prime Minister Primo, and the vast majority of its members are also reformists.

The second-largest party is the Conservative Party. The current representative of the Conservative Party is the current Minister of Agriculture, Antonio Canovas del Castillo, occupying 20% of the total parliamentary seats.

The third-largest party is the Liberal Party, which is also the last large-scale legal political party in Spain. The thoughts of Liberal Party members are between conservative and reformist; they maintain a relatively neutral attitude towards the monarchical government, which is the so-called neither firmly opposing nor firmly supporting.

Further down are all small parties, which either only have one or two parliamentary seats, or have no parliamentary seats at all, belonging to completely tiny parties.

The reason why the Liberal Party is said to be the last large-scale legal political party in Spain is because there is still an illegal large-scale political party within Spain, which is the political party that supported the establishment of a republican Spanish government during the revolution.

After Gao Da was chosen to be the King of Spain, the position of the Republican Party became quite awkward. They support a republican system and are standing on the opposite side of the new Spanish Kingdom government.

It is just that at that time, for the stability of the Spanish government and considering that Gao Da had just arrived in Spain, Prime Minister Primo did not target the Republican faction, and the Republican Party was still one of the top three parties in Spain.

But during the Carlist rebellion, many Republican Party members supported the rebellion in the Catalonia and Basque regions, and caused quite serious influence on Spain's stability.

Prime Minister Primo made a prompt decision, declaring the Republican Party, which was the third-largest party in Spain, illegal, and banned the Republican Party within Spain.

This also made the Liberal Party leap to become Spain's third-largest party, and the Republican Party also became a party with a relatively large number of supporters but completely illegal.

However, the good news is that since Spain's reforms and development have been smooth, the number of people supporting the Republican Party has also been continuously decreasing.

There are not many people who firmly support the republican system; more are those who are disappointed with the original monarchical government. They hope more to establish a government with a brand-new system to change Spain's situation; the real purpose is to change Spain's existing situation, not to change the government.

Since Gao Da became the King of Spain, Spain has indeed been developing in a good direction. The actual income of the Spanish people has been improved quite a bit, which also made these people who longed to change Spain's situation see the benefits brought by the monarchy.

They also understood that it was not that the monarchy had huge defects, but that the original King of Spain had major defects.

This part of the people slowly became reformists; they support the Spanish Kingdom government under a constitutional monarchy and long to reform certain relatively backward and conservative directions in Spain, making Spain stronger and more advanced.

Under such evolution, Prime Minister Primo's Progressive Party leaped to become Spain's largest party, completely crushing the Conservative Party, which had a larger audience, in terms of parliamentary seats.

Yes, although the Conservative Party does not have an advantage in terms of parliamentary seats, in terms of the number of supporters, the Conservative Party is still Spain's largest party.

Because the Conservative Party has a large number of farmers as its audience, most Spanish farmers support the relatively conservative party. They do not hope for the country to have too big changes; it is best if nothing happens, and they live and work in peace and contentment.

It is just that the reforms have actually brought benefits to the farmers, and even made these farmers, who are mostly of conservative thought, not oppose Spain's reforms, and some farmers even long to see Spain carry out more reforms.

After all, the reforms have indeed reduced and abolished taxes; the burden on the farmers has been lightened, and the pressure on their lives has naturally become much smaller.

What best reflects the lightening of the burden on Spanish farmers is in the aspect of Spain's population growth. Originally during the Spanish Kingdom period, the annual population growth was very small, and sometimes even less than 100, 00 people.

This is very exaggerated, and it also proves that during the reign of Queen Isabella, the Spanish people did not live very well, leading to them having no extra energy at all to have children.

And during Gao Da's reign, after the people's burden was lightened, they naturally had more thoughts to consider the problem of continuing the family line.

Current contraceptive measures are not that developed; condom technology is not mature, and it is not as thin as in later generations.

The contraceptive measures commonly used by the people are made of sheep intestine and linen; this kind of thing is neither comfortable nor practical, and sheep intestine also has a fishy smell, which is extremely uncomfortable to use.

But it won't work if you don't use it; if you accidentally get pregnant, giving birth is a life-threatening problem. Even if it is born, the infant survival rate is not that high.

Even if the infant survives and is healthy, raising a child is also not a small expense.

The future Spain will definitely completely ban abortion; there is no other reason, the only reason is because current abortion technology is too backward and the danger coefficient is too high.

Considering the subsidy and reward policy for families with many children that the Spanish government is about to promulgate, even if abortion technology is completely banned within Spain in the future, it will not cause too much burden to the Spanish people.

Perhaps one can also consider the royal family and the government jointly establishing foster homes and orphanages to help the children of those poor families receive better education.

Of course, foster homes and orphanages are definitely not free either. Children raised in these two institutions can have two choices in the future.

Either work directly for the country, which can exempt all expenses spent in the orphanage or foster home. Or work and earn money by themselves to repay the debts they once owed.

Back to the subsidies and rewards for having more children, after it was passed by parliament, it was soon submitted to the cabinet government for execution.

After the promulgation of the previous assessment system, the administrative efficiency of various levels of government in Spain has improved a lot. There is no way if it doesn't improve; as long as the assessment is poor, there will be no mercy for demotion.

Currently, the mayors of several cities have been dismissed by the parliament of the region where they are located; concerning their own positions and future prospects, it is impossible for these officials not to attach importance to it.

What was passed by parliament was only a draft; how to execute it specifically still needs to be decided according to the financial situation of the Spanish government.

When the parliament passed this draft, Prime Minister Primo convened a cabinet meeting and handed the task to the livelihood and finance departments.

After a certain period of discussion, the livelihood and finance departments finally produced a relatively detailed "Bill on Subsidies and Rewards for Families with Many Children".

The bill stipulates in detail that having 2 children or fewer is a normal family. On this basis, for every additional child born, one can enjoy a government subsidy.

The government subsidy is 25% of the local per capita annual income; according to the current national per capita annual income, it is about 26 pesetas. The government subsidy can be received once a year, or directly credited to the official bank account bound to the family.

In addition to government subsidies, there are also certain rewards for families with many children. For example, if the number of children born exceeds 5, Spanish state-owned enterprises or royal enterprises will give priority when recruiting employees.

If the number of children born exceeds 8, they will appear in local newspapers and be awarded the title of "Heroic Parents" by the local government.

If the number of children born exceeds 10, they can be received by Gao Da in person and be awarded the title of Spanish "Heroic Parents", and will be invited to every official event organized by the Spanish government.

Although the corresponding subsidies and rewards are not very generous, for some families that originally had more than 2 children, they can indeed get an extra income.

Although the 25% local per capita annual income subsidy is not much, adding up several children can also reach the annual income level of an adult.

Under the situation where the per capita annual income is continuously increasing, having more children can indeed become one of the choices for Spaniards; after all, reproduction is also one of the few entertainment activities for civilians in this era.

Considering that Spain's population and economic scale are constantly changing, this bill is currently only temporarily executed, and it is very likely to undergo changes in the future.

This bill is not considered a big expense for the Spanish government. If a newborn can receive a government subsidy of 26 pesetas, according to Spain's population growth situation, it is estimated that there will be about 200, 00 newborns next year.

This also means that the government only needs to bear a subsidy cost of about 5. million pesetas to stimulate Spain's population to grow in a higher range.

Even a part of these newborns does not belong to the range of more than two, and the subsidy cost that the government needs to bear will be even lower.

This is almost in the range of spending small money to do big things. The financial revenue of the Spanish government is constantly increasing, and 5 million pesetas is indeed no longer considered a large expense for the current Spanish government.

When the Ministry of Finance approved this budget, it didn't even blink an eye. If it weren't for considering that too high a subsidy is not a good thing, the Minister of Finance even considered increasing a part of the subsidy on the basis stipulated by the bill to stimulate Spain's population growth rate to a greater extent.

After the bill was promulgated, Gao Da didn't pay much attention to it anymore.

After all, executing the bill is the government's business; if Gao Da pays too much attention, it will destroy the current good relationship with Prime Minister Primo.

Regarding Prime Minister Primo, Gao Da is still quite at ease. Since the bill could be passed in parliament, it proves that Prime Minister Primo maintains a supportive attitude towards the bill.

The only possibility of change is the subsidy intensity for families with many children in the bill; this point can also be changed to a certain extent after Gao Da takes power in the future; anyway, there is no rush for a moment.

Christmas in 1872 has passed, and what Gao Da is currently more concerned about is the upcoming economic crisis situation in 1873.

It is fortunate that the upcoming economic crisis seems to have no major impact on Spain.

However, it is understandable to think about it; Spain's industrial and economic volume is not huge compared to the great powers, so it is natural that the impact received is low.

Coupled with the reforms carried out by the Spanish government within Spain, Spain's economy is in a state of steady growth, and there has not been too much exaggerated rapid growth.

Even the production of many industries is not enough to meet the needs within Spain, so naturally there will be no possibility of an economic crisis breaking out.

Gao Da paid long-term attention to Spain's stock market and industrial market, and only after confirming that Spain would not suffer from the impact of a too serious economic crisis did he completely breathe a sigh of relief.

Although the scale of the economic crisis that broke out in 1873 was not very large, the time was indeed quite long, and the impact caused was not low.

If Spain, which had just started, suffered from the impact of a more violent economic crisis, it would be a devastating blow to Spain's industrial and economic development.

It would also affect the time of Spain's rise. Without the impact of the economic crisis, Spain has hope to completely complete the reforms and achieve revival before 1880 arrives.

But if there is the impact of the economic crisis, the time to complete the reforms and achieve revival may have to be postponed for more than ten years.

If so, Spain would definitely miss the best time to carve up Africa. Even if it could wait for Spain's reforms to be completed and economic revival in the future, Africa would basically have been carved up by the great powers, and there would be no place that could be ruled by Spain.

Since the economic crisis affecting Spain would not be too severe, Kaluo naturally did not need to worry too much, instead focusing his attention on the development of royal enterprises, including the research of the talent previously recruited from Europe.

Currently, in addition to the more traditional steel and heavy industries, food industry, and financial sector, the royal enterprises also include military industry, agriculture, mining, and mechanical manufacturing.

There are three research projects that Kaluo is particularly concerned about: the machine gun and smokeless powder research conducted by the Ma Keqin brothers, the engine research conducted by Benz, Dai Mulei, and Maybach, and the electricity research by Gramme.

If any one of these three research projects succeeds, it could have a quite profound impact on Spain. If all three research projects can be completed, Spain could use them to significantly increase its comprehensive national strength and make great progress in both civilian and military fields.

However, the difficulty of these three research projects is very high, and achieving decent results is even more difficult.

For example, with the popularization of electricity, the generator is only the foundation; it is also necessary to research the transmission of electricity and the equipment that uses it.

Currently, Gramme is attempting to build a large-scale thermal power plant to provide lighting for the most prosperous streets in Ma Deli.

If it is determined that this use of electricity is problem-free, in the future, lines will first be laid within the Wang Gong and government buildings to ensure electric lighting for them.

However, the popularization of electricity will take a long time; at least within the next ten years, it will be very difficult for ordinary citizens to use electricity.

The current power plant has limited power generation and cannot achieve long-distance transmission. This also means that to popularize the use of electricity throughout Spain, it is necessary to build corresponding power plants in every city.

Especially in a large city like Ma Deli, a few power plants might not be enough. Before the issues of generator power and electricity transmission are solved, it is basically impossible for electricity to be widely popularized.

The same applies to the engine developed by Benz. While the engine is easy to invent, it is very difficult to popularize machinery that uses engines within the next few years.

An engine installed on a carriage can be made into a simple automobile, but the stability, speed, and safety of such an automobile cannot be guaranteed, so it is naturally impossible to produce them on a large scale for commercial use.

Moreover, the current power of the engine is also very small; it is better to use a few more horses to pull it.

Kaluo is not in a rush regarding the research on electricity and engines. As long as they can have some results within the next 10 years and achieve significant accomplishments within the next 20 years, Kaluo will be quite satisfied.

What Kaluo truly values and maintains expectations for is the machine gun and smokeless powder technology developed by the Ma Keqin brothers.

Smokeless powder was developed in 1884, which is 12 years from now. Considering Kaluo's heavy investment in the Ma Keqin brothers, this time should be able to be shortened by a large margin.

After the invention of smokeless powder, it will be a huge boost to the development of rifles and machine guns. The Ma Keqin machine gun might also be born early and become one of the heavy firepower weapons equipped by the Spanish Lujun Force.

If they can equip machine guns earlier than other countries, perhaps they can make other countries suffer a big loss in future wars.

Especially since Spain will definitely have to recover Gibraltar in the future, it is very necessary to put effort into the equipment of the Lujun Force.

Six-thousand-word two-in-one chapter, seeking support!

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(End of this chapter)