Chapter 313: Reform Dispute

As time came to March 1885, a topic that had once been hotly debated was brought up again, which was the re-division of Spain's administrative divisions.

For most countries, the division of administrative divisions was not that important. Administrative divisions that had continued for decades or even hundreds of years were, to a certain extent, relatively reasonable.

If Spain's land was not so bad, logically speaking, such administrative divisions were also completely acceptable.

But there was no way; because a considerable part of Spain's land was mountainous, the existing administrative divisions did not look so reasonable.

Spain possessed a total of 17 administrative divisions at the large region level, while the population was only about 22.87 million. This also meant that on average, each administrative division at the large region level had only a little over 1 million people, not even as many as the population of a city in later generations.

More importantly, large regions like Andalusia, Leon, and Catalonia already had populations exceeding 3 million.

This also meant that those administrative divisions at the large region level in Spain with relatively small populations had populations of less than 1 million, and some large regions did not even have a population of 500,000.

These large regions with only a few hundred thousand people still possessed a complete large region administrative system, which in Gao Da's view was really a bit wasteful.

If a few large regions could be abolished, it would not only streamline the number of officials but also make the populations of Spain's major large regions more balanced and easier to manage.

On March 11, 1885, in a routine meeting of the Lower House, a member of the Progressive Party proposed a motion regarding the reform of administrative planning, which immediately aroused widespread discussion among all members.

This member, named Evans, stated that Spain's current administrative divisions were very unreasonable and that at least five administrative divisions should be abolished, merging those administrative divisions with few people into one, so that Spain's expenditure burden in administration could be reduced.

Evans clearly had an understanding of the situation of Spain's various administrative divisions and put forward his own suggestions.

The total population of the five administrative regions in northern Spain—Asturias, Cantabria, Basque, Navarre, and La Rioja—added up to only 2.3 million, which could only rank fourth among Spain's existing administrative divisions, slightly higher than the population of the Galicia large region.

Spain had to use five times the number of officials and government agencies of the Galicia large region to manage five large regions with similar populations, which was clearly also a waste of political resources.

If these five large regions could be merged into one or two large regions, more than half of the officials and political resources could be saved; such a reform was definitely very meaningful.

Besides the Balearic and Canary Islands being overseas islands where it was inconvenient to merge administrative divisions, Evans believed that except for the capital Madrid, all administrative divisions with a population of less than one million could be merged into large regions with a population exceeding one million.

This could not only reduce Spain's expenditure of political resources but also improve the efficiency of major large region governments and facilitate the government's management of various regions.

Evans's proposal caused an uproar in the Lower House; there were people who expressed support for his ideas, and naturally, there were also many who expressed opposition.

In the free speech session, another member from the Conservative Party, Alva, stood up directly and expressed his opposing view: "Gentlemen, our administrative divisions were obtained from Spain's history, the history of unification, and have been passed down for hundreds of years.

Such administrative divisions have witnessed Spain's unification and also witnessed the process of integration of Spain's various ethnic groups.

Just like the Basque region mentioned by Member Evans, if it were merged, the name Basque would also be deleted from Spain's administrative large regions.

Undoubtedly, this would severely damage the feelings between Spain and the Basque people. We are all part of the country, and we should respect the wishes of these people.

At the important juncture when our country is gradually becoming prosperous and thriving, I do not think administrative division reform is anything necessary.

If administrative division reform destroys our high-speed development, it would be a bit of a loss that outweighs the gain.

Gentlemen, developing industry and economy is the more important thing; we do not need to set our sights on small matters like administrative division reform.

Whether it is 17 administrative divisions or other numbers, it cannot change the fact that we are Spaniards. How to more effectively unite all Spanish ethnic groups is what we should consider."

Alva's view was echoed by some members, among whom the main supporters were members from the Conservative Party.

Some of these members indeed held the view stated by Alva, believing that there was no need for Spain to carry out administrative division reform.

Some also belonged to the vested interests of the existing political divisions; they naturally were unwilling to change political divisions, after all, this was damaging their own interests.

Before Evans proposed the reform regarding administrative divisions, he had thought that such a proposal would be strongly opposed by many members.

Any reform was not so easy, unless one could possess the political status, influence, and military power once possessed by Prime Minister Primo.

Even Prime Minister Primo, who possessed these three items, had encountered assassination, let alone Evans, who was just an ordinary member of the Progressive Party.

However, there were also people who could see the benefits that political division reform brought to Spain and chose to vote for Evans to support his proposal.

For a time, those who supported political division reform and those who opposed political division reform maintained about the same number of people; the opponents could not completely veto the proposal, and the supporters could not push forward the resolution.

This meeting ended up with nothing, but the proposal put forward by Evans and the opposing opinion put forward by Alva caused widespread discussion in Spain.

Some people supported merging administrative divisions; after all, some administrative divisions not only had small land but also had a pitifully small population, which looked really unnecessary.

There were also people who, like Alva, opposed the reform of administrative divisions. Many of the names of Spain's administrative divisions verified Spain's history, such as Galicia, Basque, and Catalonia, etc.

The origin of these regional names was either the names of local ethnic groups or countries that once existed in the local area.

Although these ethnic groups and countries were unified into the big family of Spain because of various reasons, this did not mean that they completely disappeared.

If administrative divisions were merged, it would mean that several large regions would be removed from the list because of this. For those countries that once existed and the ethnic groups that still exist now, this was definitely a kind of damage.

Those who opposed mostly held such a view, believing that it was better to have one less thing than one more thing, and there was no need to make too big a change to the existing administrative divisions.

Such widespread discussion across the country soon attracted Gao Da's attention. Or rather, it attracted Gao Da's overt attention.

As early as before Evans proposed the proposal regarding administrative division reform, Gao Da had already considered whether Spain's existing administrative divisions were reasonable, and the corresponding administrative division reform was also Gao Da contacting members of the Progressive Party, letting the Progressive Party help propose it in the Lower House.

The reason for finding the Progressive Party rather than the Conservative Party was mainly the different attitudes of these two parties toward reform.

Although the Conservative Party was the Royalist Party in theory, most of the Conservative Party members had a relatively conservative attitude.

They would not oppose existing reforms, but they were also unwilling to continue to carry out new reforms in Spain.

After all, they had already become vested interests, so why damage their own interests to push for reform?

Regarding this point, even the representative figure of the Conservative Party, Prime Minister Canovas, could not change the views of the Conservative Party members.

The Conservative Party was composed of a large number of nobles, landlords, and old-school officials; their class determined their thinking, which was something individuals could not change.

This was also the reason why Gao Da retained the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party and let the three major parties compete freely.

If there were only the Conservative Party, any time reform was needed, it would face great resistance. Unless Gao Da personally came forward to push for the reform, but doing so would make Gao Da bear all the responsibilities of the reform, which was something a King should avoid as much as possible.

Seeing that the proposal for administrative division reform was in a stalemate, Gao Da decided to help secretly, helping the Progressive Party push forward the implementation of the proposal faster.

How to help? Naturally, it was to reasonably utilize Spain's folk public opinion.

Whether administrative divisions should be reformed, the Spanish government also needed to refer to the opinions of the people.

As long as the people could reach a unified opinion, these members elected by the people, would they dare to ignore the opinions of the people?

Naturally, they would not dare.

This also meant that as long as Gao Da could guide the Spanish people to support political division reform, he could push the proposal related to political planning reform to pass in the Lower House.

On March 12, the Spanish Sun newspaper published an article "The Benefits and Harms of Administrative Division Reform to Spain," which pointed out the benefits and harms of administrative division reform in one needle and one blood, and cited examples to explain the reasons why members opposed administrative division reform.

This article immediately attracted the attention of readers and made administrative division reform the hottest news in Spain.

This was not over yet; another large newspaper, the Royal Daily, directly interviewed over 5,000 ordinary people in Spain's two core cities, asking them about their attitude toward administrative division reform.

The number of people interviewed was as high as over 5,000, among whom over 3,000 supported administrative division reform, and over 1,000 expressed that whether administrative division reform was carried out or not had little to do with it, because no matter how it was reformed, it would not affect their lives.

Only a few hundred people expressed opposition to the reform of administrative divisions, because this would make the names of representative large regions disappear from Spain's history.

The disparity in the number of supporters and opponents immediately made the people believe the reasons for opposing the reform of administrative divisions pointed out by the Sun newspaper, which was that administrative division reform would damage their own interests.

Such reports directly put the members who once opposed it on the fire to roast; they could not explain it, and they could not not explain it.

If they did not explain, the people's discussion would be vigorous, and the pot they carried would become bigger and bigger, and blacker and blacker.

If they explained, it seemed to confirm the fact that they opposed the proposal beneficial to the country for their own interests.

There was no way; the Conservative Party members could only find the person with the highest status and greatest power in their party, Prime Minister Canovas, and seek the help of Prime Minister Canovas.

To tell the truth, Prime Minister Canovas was unwilling to participate in it.

These members could not see it clearly, but Prime Minister Canovas saw it very clearly.

The one who could mobilize these public opinion forces was only the Cabinet government and Gao Da, who was the King, in the entire Spain.

The Cabinet government had no action during this period, so it could only prove that the one who mobilized the public opinion forces was Gao Da, who was the King.

Although Gao Da did not express his attitude toward administrative division reform, this behavior of mobilizing public opinion forces to help the Progressive Party actually indirectly expressed his attitude.

Prime Minister Canovas was not Primo; he had no military power in his hands, nor did he have the huge influence and status of Prime Minister Primo.

Coupled with the fact that Prime Minister Canovas was promoted by Gao Da, he had no power to resist Gao Da.

What's more, Prime Minister Canovas himself also believed that administrative division reform was a good thing, but as Prime Minister, he could not express his attitude too straightforwardly, otherwise it might cause a large group of people to echo him and lose their thinking and judgment.

When several Conservative Party members led by Alva found Prime Minister Canovas, Prime Minister Canovas had just finished his work.

Hearing the various views of these members about the harms of administrative division reform and asking him to express his attitude in the name of Prime Minister, Prime Minister Canovas smiled and very decisively rejected their request: "In my view, administrative division reform is not a good thing in the complete sense for Spain, but it is definitely a case where the benefits outweigh the harms.

As long as we can overcome some problems brought about by administrative division reform, we can obtain benefits far greater than the problems.

Regardless of whether you truly oppose administrative division reform, you have already been unable to change the choice of public opinion.

Go back; you will know the result after the next Lower House vote. Before that, I hope you can investigate Spain's public opinion well and stand on the side of the Spanish people."

"Prime Minister, if you also support opposing administrative division reform, we still have a chance to stop the reform from happening.

Do you want to see names with long history like Catalonia, Basque, Cantabria, Asturias, and Galicia disappear in our reform?" Still, there were Conservative Party members who were unwilling to see the reform happen and proposed to Prime Minister Canovas.

The smile on Prime Minister Canovas's face stopped; his gaze looked at that member, and after a long time, he said: "First of all, I personally support the reform of administrative divisions. Perhaps some names of large regions will disappear because of this, but for all Spaniards, such a sacrifice is worth it.

We will possess more reasonable administrative divisions, and the saved political resources can also be invested in other departments; isn't this a good thing?

Furthermore, even if I oppose the reform now, I cannot stop the reform from happening.

I suggest you investigate Spain's public opinion more; didn't the Royal Daily list the views of thousands of Spaniards interviewed? Do you want to go against the public opinion of the Spanish people?"

On the word "Royal" in the Royal Daily, Prime Minister Canovas specifically emphasized his tone.

This somewhat deliberate change in tone immediately made these members suddenly realize.

They finally understood the reason why Prime Minister Canovas was unwilling to oppose the reform; it turned out that the one standing behind the reform was the King.

Completely dispelling the doubts in their hearts, these Conservative Party members could only say goodbye to Prime Minister Canovas and give up the last trace of hope in their hearts to stop the reform.

At this time, Gao Da was just like Prime Minister Primo back then, possessing both influence and status, and also mastering Spain's military power.

If it was really a reform that Gao Da wanted to push, then indeed no one could oppose it. These Conservative Party members could not change Gao Da's view even more, so they could only obey; after all, a mayfly could not shake a big tree.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 314 =====

(End of this chapter)