Chapter 296: 1884

On the second day of the new year, January 2, 1884, Gao Da ushered in good news, which was the birth of his third son, Alexander.

Speaking of which, more than four years have passed since the birth of Martin.

In these four-plus years, Gao Da had completely adjusted Wang Hou Sophie's body before considering having children again.

At this time, Gao Da was not even 33 years old, and Wang Hou Sophie was not even 29 years old; both were still in the golden age of fertility.

After Wang Hou Sophie turned 30, Gao Da would carefully consider the matter of having children. After all, the older the mother, the higher the risk during childbirth.

Time passed very quickly; Gao Da's eldest son, Prince Juan Fernando, was already nearly nine years old. Even Princess Sofia and Prince Martin, who were born later, had reached the ages of seven and four respectively, and were at the age of being naughty and cute.

It was precisely because of these little guys that the vast Royal Palace of Ma Deli looked a bit more lively and much more bustling than before.

For the arrival of their youngest brother, Alexander, the three little guys all showed a quite surprised attitude.

If it weren't for their studies being too busy, I'm afraid they would only try to stay by their brother's side all day. Children always have an innate attraction, and even Gao Da would take time out of his busy schedule to accompany his youngest son, and then throw himself back into busy work.

Compared to the previous few years, 1884 was definitely a special year for Spain.

The first Five-Year Development Plan was proposed in 1869 and ended in 1874, marking Spain's official return to the ranks of European powers through reform.

The second Five-Year Development Plan was proposed immediately in 1874 and should have ended with the cabinet government in 1879.

But because Prime Minister Primo was assassinated, it caused a bad situation where Spain experienced three rounds of government during the second Five-Year Development Plan period.

Fortunately, after Prime Minister Primo was assassinated, he willingly gave up all power, and under the mediation of Gao Da, all three cabinet governments were constantly facilitating the progress of the second Five-Year Development Plan.

In the third year that Count Canovas became the Prime Minister of Spain, the third cabinet government officially proposed the third Five-Year Development Plan, and the goals set were also very grand.

This year, five years later, it is about time to test the third Five-Year Development Plan.

The three Five-Year Development Plans lasted for a total of 15 years, and each Five-Year Development Plan had an extremely important role.

The first Five-Year Development Plan laid the foundation, the second Five-Year Development Plan carried on the past and opened up the future, and the third Five-Year Development Plan reached the time when the fruits were ripe.

On February 3, 1884, after his youngest son Alexander turned one month old, Gao Da also decided to officially throw himself into work and convened a meeting of the House of Representatives at the Spanish Parliament Building to listen to the report made by the Spanish government on the third Five-Year Development Plan.

Still following the old rules, first, the government report was summarized by Canovas, who served as Prime Minister, and then the various departments of the cabinet government made more detailed reports.

In the five years from 1879 to 1884, Spain's development was quite rapid. In terms of population, as of the end of 1883, Spain's total population had exceeded 22.3 million, one step closer to the target of 30 million population set by Gao Da.

Although the population of other European countries also grew during this period, there were also many people flowing out to other continents.

Compared with other European countries, Spain's population outflow is relatively small. After all, there are still many development opportunities on the Spanish mainland, and Spanish people, under the condition that their lives are passable, will not think about actively immigrating to foreign countries.

What can prove this is naturally the growth situation of Spain's per capita annual income.

Since Gao Da became the King of Spain, Spain's per capita annual income has been growing at a relatively high level every year, and it has never been interrupted.

In fact, this is also normal; the funds that the Spanish government invests in infrastructure and other various constructions every year are constant, and even in the first ten years, the government's finance was always in deficit, relying entirely on loans to survive.

It was only after the second Five-Year Development Plan that Spain's economic situation improved, and the government's finance turned from deficit to surplus.

Currently, Spain's per capita annual income has reached the level of 157.22 Pesetas, which is almost double compared to before Gao Da succeeded to the throne.

Such a growth rate is quite exaggerated; after all, the currency of this era is very valuable, and the currency exchange rate pegged to gold is quite stable, basically there is no phenomenon of currency depreciation.

Of course, the fact that the lives of the Spanish people were very poor during the reign of Wang Hou Isabella is also an important factor.

If Wang Hou Isabella at that time had been a little bit human, Spain's per capita income would not have grown so rapidly in these 15 years.

Although per capita income is constantly growing, compared with other European Great Powers, the income of most Spanish people is still relatively poor.

In fact, it is also easy to understand. The vast majority of these 22 million people in Spain are farmers, and most of Spain's land is mountainous, so the grain yield per mu is not high.

Grain yield is not high, so the income of farmers will naturally not be high. Farmers' income is not high, which will naturally affect Spain's overall per capita income situation.

If Spain's land could be the same as the land of Britain, France, and Germany, which have large plains, Spain's per capita income would at least increase by more than 30%.

Fortunately, the Spanish government has opened up quite a few colonies in these few years, and it can completely engage in large-scale agricultural development in the colonies to make up for the shortcomings of the Spanish mainland.

In the entire year of 1883, the Spanish government's financial annual income reached an exaggerated 1.1927 billion Pesetas, which is also a new high for the Spanish government's financial income.

One must know that this achievement was reached after losing the Cuba colony. If the Cuba colony were still in the hands of the Spanish government, the financial income would have broken through 1.2 billion Pesetas.

In terms of financial expenditure, Spain's financial expenditure also reached the scale of 1.0738 billion Pesetas, which can also show that the funds that the Spanish government invests in various constructions every year are really not small.

The good news is that after various expenditures, the financial surplus of the Spanish government for the whole year of 1883 still exceeded 100 million Pesetas, reaching a new high of 118.9 million Pesetas.

However, this money, in addition to leaving a part as the government's reserve funds, most of it is to repay foreign debt.

It has been mentioned before that the financial deficit of the Spanish government in the first ten years was basically spent on debt.

This also led to the fact that in these 15 years, Spain owed a debt to Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and France respectively.

This debt is actually not much, and combined, it is actually only the financial income of the current Spanish government for one year.

About one-third has been repaid in the past few years, and the Spanish government only needs to squeeze out about 100 million Pesetas of funds every year in the next few years to repay the foreign debt.

There is also something worth paying attention to in the government report, and that is the steel production and industrial scale of Spain.

So far, the three-phase construction of the Barcelona industrial base has been completely completed, and the Barcelona industrial base has officially become the largest industrial base in Spain and is also the industrial heart of Spain today.

Benefiting from the improvement in industrial volume brought by the complete Barcelona industrial base, Spain's steel production has also reached a new level and has been completely stabilized.

According to the data results reported by the industrial department, Spain's steel production last year had already broken through 400,000 tons, and this level is enough to rank in the top five in the world among the data announced by various European countries.

According to the rankings announced by various European countries, the country with the most steel production currently is the British Empire, and the steel production has approached 2 million tons.

The United States follows closely behind, and the steel production also exceeded 1.5 million tons.

Germany ranks third in the world, but compared with the first two countries, it is a bit worse. Germany's annual steel production is only about 1 million tons, which is still far ahead of other countries in the world.

France ranks fourth in the world, and the steel production is close to 500,000 tons. Spain ranks fifth in the world, and the steel production of 400,000 tons exceeds the 300,000 tons of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the 250,000 tons of Russia; such an industrial level has already taken shape.

Of course, steel production cannot fully represent the industrial level. From the perspective of steel production alone, 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 roughly at the same level as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, and may even lag behind.

The main reason for this phenomenon is that Spain's mainland population is insufficient, leading to the fact that the sales market for industrial products is inferior to that of 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, it is difficult for Spain's industrial products to enter the markets of other countries; after all, other Great Powers also want to dump industrial products.

Without a sufficient market, Spain naturally will not develop a larger-scale industry. This also led to the fact that Spain's industrial scale has always been restricted; let alone being at the same level as France or even surpassing France, even catching up with France seems a bit difficult.

Of course, the industrial scale is at about the same level as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia, which is already a quite good achievement.

After all, Spain's industrial development has only been for more than ten years, and its own land area and population are far inferior to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia.

The advantages of these two countries wanting to develop industry are more obvious compared to Spain.

Spain being able to catch up from behind and be mentioned in the same breath as these two countries actually already shows Spain's terrifying development speed.

Just look at Italy's steel production at this time to know how difficult industrial development is. According to the data announced by the Italian government, Italy's steel production is only a meager tens of thousands of tons.

Of course, Italy's situation is also relatively special. Industry is generally concentrated in Northern Italy, and coupled with the reason that Italy lacks colonies, it is very normal for steel production to be insufficient.

Because Spain developed relatively rapidly, some data that were relatively valued before are now basically abandoned.

For example, Spain's railway mileage; during the first Five-Year Development Plan, what the Spanish government focused on was the construction of railway mileage.

But after two Five-Year Development Plans, Spain's total railway mileage had already exceeded 10,000 kilometers, and the achievement was quite excellent.

The third Five-Year Development Plan did not overemphasize the construction of railways, which led to the fact that after the end of the Five-Year Development Plan, Spain's current total railway mileage is only about 13,000 kilometers.

But considering that most of Spain's land is sparsely populated, 13,000 kilometers of railway can already cover most cities, which is completely enough for the traffic needs of the Spanish people.

Not to mention that large cities like Ma Deli and Barcelona have also opened urban rail transit, which not only greatly facilitated the daily travel of urban residents but also increased the economic circulation and growth speed of the two cities.

Although the transportation department only built 1,500 kilometers of railway in these five years, Carlos Montoya, the Minister of Transportation, was not panicked at all.

The reason is also very simple, and that is because double-track railways are not repeatedly calculated in railway mileage, which led to the fact that the achievements of the transportation department are more than what the data reflects.

Although the transportation department only built 1,500 kilometers of railway in these five years, the transportation department also converted about 1,000 kilometers of single-track railway into double-track railway, greatly improving the transportation efficiency of that section of railway.

In addition to this, the railways built in Spain's major colonies are not calculated in it.

Colonies have their own separate set of algorithms, but those who go to the colonies to build railways are all officials of the transportation department.

The entire report meeting lasted for several hours, all departments of the cabinet made detailed reports, and the applause in the venue continued constantly.

It is obvious that the members of the House of Representatives are quite satisfied with the efforts made by the cabinet government in the past five years. Even if the achievements reported by various departments cannot reach the level of excellence, they are definitely above the passing line.

Excluding the accidental factor of Prime Minister Primo being assassinated, the cabinet government of Spain has been relatively stable since Gao Da became King.

The three Prime Ministers of Spain basically had no mistakes, and each cabinet government basically completed its term, which also made Spain's political environment tend to be stable, and various industries could develop in a good direction under stable government decrees.

As for the opposite example, that is naturally France, whose political situation is turbulent.

It is not without reason that France's industry gradually lags behind Britain, Germany, and the United States, and the gap is being widened. On one hand, French capital is more fond of foreign loans; loans can allow these capitals to recover funds faster and earn more money than investment, which is simply a deal that is stable and profitable.

On the other hand, it is the turbulent situation of the French government; every Prime Minister wants to develop industry and economy but has no time, because the term of office is only one year at the longest, and even only a few months to one month at the shortest.

What political decrees can be executed in one month? At most, it is just taking office as Prime Minister and getting to know the various officials of the French cabinet government, and then getting familiar with the government affairs of France, and that's it.

Maybe they haven't even fully understood the basic situation of France, and their term of office will end due to various accidental factors.

For example, the former French Prime Minister Armand Fallières, the term of this Prime Minister was only one month in reality. Although he was also a temporary substitute Prime Minister, a one-month term is not to mention Armand Fallières, even if Napoleon were alive, he could not do anything for France.

Gao Da also deeply experienced the shortcomings of political instability, so he laid a tone for the Spanish cabinet government.

Regardless of the ability of the officials and Prime Minister of the cabinet government, as long as they can maintain loyalty, Gao Da will not frequently replace cabinet ministers.

A stable situation is instead conducive to Spain's industrial and economic growth; anyway, the general direction is mediated by Gao Da, and under the condition that the general direction is personally controlled by Gao Da, there will be no major problems.

Of course, if there really is an unloyal cabinet minister, Gao Da will also cut the Gordian knot and completely solve the trouble before the situation falls into crisis.

At this time, Spain still needs development time, and during this development time, what Spain needs most is a stable situation.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 297 =====