Chapter 314: Province, City, County; State, City, Town

After the failure to request help from Prime Minister Canovas, the Conservative Party members who opposed administrative division reform understood that no one in Spain could stop the occurrence of administrative division reform.

Since this was the case, they could only passively accept it and try their best to guide the reform of the action divisions in a more reasonable direction.

At the routine meeting of the Lower House a few days later, the proposal regarding administrative division reform received the approval of the majority in the vote.

This made the members of the Progressive Party very surprised; they originally thought that this meeting would still need a long time of wrangling to push for the reform of administrative divisions, but they did not expect that the Conservative Party members would surrender as soon as they came up, directly voting for approval.

Since the biggest opponent, the Conservative Party, had already chosen to agree, other parties and non-party individuals naturally could not continue to insist on an opposing stance.

The public opinion among the people had already developed to the point where whoever voted against it was a selfish criminal of the country; under such circumstances, no one dared to bear such pressure.

Thus, the proposal for administrative division reform received the approval of the vast majority, and the remaining members were mostly abstentions rather than opposition.

At the meeting, the then Speaker of the Lower House, Ferdinand Avery, announced that the reform of administrative divisions had been passed, and the Lower House would officially launch the negotiation meeting regarding administrative division reform and submit the negotiation results to the Upper House for review and approval after the negotiation ended.

Regarding the reform of Spain's existing administrative divisions, the most mentioned were large regions in the north with relatively small populations, such as Cantabria, Basque, Asturias, Navarre, and La Rioja.

As for large regions in the south like Andalusia, Valencia, and La Mancha, they were basically not on the list of administrative division reform.

The area of these large regions was vast, and the population was also as high as over a million or even millions. They were fully qualified to be independent regions, so they would naturally not face the risk of being abolished and merged.

After several days of negotiation and voting, the Lower House initially decided that the large regions involved in administrative division reform were Asturias, Cantabria, Basque, Navarre, La Rioja, and Murcia—these six administrative divisions.

These six administrative large regions would be abolished or merged, and in the end, only 2 large regions would remain to reduce the number of Spain's administrative large regions and reduce officials and government agencies.

When the discussion results of the Lower House meeting were finally announced, such an administrative division reform plan immediately caused heated discussion in Spain.

For most Spaniards, the reform of administrative divisions had no great relationship with them. Do not look at the fact that six large regions were involved in administrative division reform; the total population of these six large regions did not even add up to the population of one large region of Andalusia.

Coupled with the fact that five of the six large regions were located in northern Spain, it also reduced the impact brought about by administrative division reform to a certain extent.

If one had to say who was most dissatisfied, it might be the Basques.

As one of the most valiant ethnic groups in Spain, the Basques had never integrated into the big family of Spain. Originally, the Basques possessed two administrative regions; the Basque large region and the La Rioja large region were both controlled by the Basques, and they were also the third largest ethnic group in Spain after the Catalans.

If it were according to what the Lower House said, the existing Basque large region and La Rioja large region would both be merged, and whether the Basques could hold onto their existing land was unknown.

More importantly, after merging with other large regions, the number of Basques in the administrative division where they were located would also be significantly reduced.

This was a huge blow to the national independence of the Basques; when they could not maintain their specialness different from other Spaniards, they could only passively integrate into this big family of Spain.

This was something the Basques were unwilling to see; they tried to launch parades to resist the Lower House's decision, at least to retain one of the Basque large region and the La Rioja large region, ensuring that the Basques could maintain control in a certain administrative division.

Regarding the very special Basques, Gao Da's defense had never weakened.

Although Catalans were still the largest ethnic group in Spain and the most eager for independence or autonomous status, the ambition of the Basques and their independence from Spain were definitely the greatest among all ethnic groups on the Iberian Peninsula.

It was not an exaggeration to say that the ethnic difference between Basques and Spaniards was even greater than the ethnic difference between Portuguese and Spaniards.

Wanting to assimilate such a valiant ethnic group was very difficult; the Spain in history had used hundreds of years and still could not do it, and the Basque region in later generations was still the region where Spain's independence movement was the fiercest.

Since this was the case, then naturally there was no need to be polite to the Basques.

As early as before, Gao Da had launched an immigration plan, moving Spaniards from large regions with relatively large populations to the two administrative regions of the Basques to dilute the proportion of Basques in the local population.

Currently, judging from the situation of the local population ratio, Gao Da was still relatively successful.

Currently, the population of the Basque large region and the La Rioja large region added up to as high as 850,000; compared to the population of the two large regions 15 years ago, it had increased by about 200,000.

Undoubtedly, these 200,000 increased people were almost all pure-blooded Spaniards.

The arrival of these Spaniards had a high sense of identification with the country, effectively diluting the proportion of Basques in the two large regions of Basque and La Rioja, allowing Spain to strengthen its control over the two regions.

It was precisely with the help of these Spaniards that the Basques had not yet had time to organize a parade, and the news about the parade had already been learned by the Royal Security Intelligence Agency.

By the time these Basques organized a parade, it would not be so easy to calm down. Gao Da made a prompt decision to arrest several leaders who organized the parade before the Basques' parade was organized, destroying the Basques' parade plan.

On March 16, 1885, following Gao Da's order, an action team composed of dozens of people rushed to the Basque army; their target was a secret manor in the suburbs of Gasteiz.

With Gao Da's investment in the Royal Security Intelligence Agency, the intelligence agency's intelligence work in Spain was also carried out very well.

Demonstrative actions like the Basques organizing a parade could be said to be completely nakedly exposed to the eyes of the Royal Security Intelligence Agency.

Who were the leaders organizing the parade, where were they planning the parade, and how many people were expected to participate in the parade team—the Royal Security Intelligence Agency knew all these important pieces of information clearly, so there was naturally no trouble in taking action.

Soon, the action team arrived at the secret manor in the southern suburbs of Gasteiz and successfully arrested them while a group of Basque parade leaders were holding a meeting.

Later that day, some Basque workers also wanted to contact the leaders to ask when the parade would be held.

They tried all ways to contact the leaders, but in the end, they were surprised to find that they could not be contacted at all.

Some people were quite suspicious of this, but because they could not find any useful information, they could only give up, and in the process, canceled the parade that had been prepared for more than half.

Some people were clearly smarter; they rushed to the secret manor in the suburbs and, after finding no one there and also finding traces of fighting, hid the terrible conjecture in their hearts and tacitly pretended that nothing had happened.

Under such circumstances, the matter regarding administrative division reform did not cause any opposing parades or demonstrations in Spain, and administrative division reform was able to proceed smoothly.

When the Lower House submitted the bill regarding administrative division reform to the Upper House, the Upper House also put forward some of its own suggestions according to Gao Da's instructions.

Of course, the Upper House did not oppose the results discussed by the Lower House. It was just that on top of the results discussed in this meeting, the Upper House added its own few suggestions.

Ma Deli, as Spain's largest city and the location of the capital, was very reasonable to be set up as an independent administrative division. And Barcelona, because of the development of industry and economy in these years, had also become a large city comparable to Ma Deli.

Considering the future economic and industrial development of Barcelona, should it be set up as an independent administrative division?

One must know that currently, Barcelona possessed a population of 631,400, which was more than the population of some large regions.

Barcelona's population growth was also the fastest among all cities in Spain, faster than the population growth of the capital Ma Deli.

If Barcelona could be set up as an independent administrative division, Barcelona's economic and industrial development speed would probably usher in a greater increase.

This was a good thing for both Spain and Barcelona, so it was necessary to discuss the matter of Barcelona setting up a large region.

Of course, it could also not be set up as a large region, but changed to a special city, changing Barcelona from a city under the jurisdiction of the Catalonia large region to a city directly led by the Cabinet government, which could also stimulate the further growth of Barcelona's industry and economy.

The second suggestion was to reform Spain's existing large regions, cities, and villages into administrative divisions of the form of province, city, town, or state, city, town, which were more commonly used in European countries.

Such a reform was conducive to centralization, improving the influence of the Cabinet government on various regions, and facilitating the control of the policies of various regional governments.

Under the existing large region system, the laws of some large regions could run counter to the laws of the Cabinet government.

Just like the previous Catalonia large region, there was once a decree that only the Catalan language could be used within Catalonia, which was clearly too outrageous.

After reforming the existing administrative divisions into administrative divisions similar to state, city, town, it could reduce the legislative power of state-level administrative divisions and avoid the conflict between the decrees formulated by the Cabinet government and the decrees of various local governments.

It was very reasonable for various places to possess a certain legislative power, but such legislative power must be established on the premise of respecting and maintaining the national law.

Although the Upper House's opinion only had these two points, the Lower House dared not ignore these two points at all.

A few days later, Gao Da personally issued an order to convene an expanded meeting of the parliament, with all members of the Upper and Lower Houses voting on the matter regarding administrative division reform.

At this time, because the plan for administrative division reform had already been passed, there was no problem for Gao Da to stand out and convene the corresponding meeting.

The parliament also needed a larger-scale meeting to determine the scope and intensity of the reform, and such an expanded meeting also received everyone's attention.

The first thing voted on at the expanded meeting was the reform of Spain's existing administrative system of large regions, cities, and villages into other administrative division levels, to reduce the legislative power of major large regions.

After a whole round of voting, the number of people who finally agreed to the reform was slightly ahead of the number of people who opposed the reform, and the reform of the administrative division system was also confirmed.

The next was the voting meeting on what kind of administrative division Spain's administrative divisions would be reformed into.

Currently, the administrative divisions Spain could choose from included state, city, town, or province, city, county; these two were theoretically about the same.

State and province were equivalent to Spain's existing large regions, and city represented the cities under the large regions. The only difference was the third level of town and county.

The former was all townships under the jurisdiction of the city, and the latter was naming larger townships or smaller cities as counties, managing smaller villages or towns by the county.

For Spain, the first plan of state, city, town might be more reasonable.

The reason was also very simple, which was that Spain's population was not that large, and there were not many large towns, so naturally, there was no need to set up a county level to manage towns.

From Spain's population distribution map, it could also be seen that Spain's population was mainly concentrated around cities, and most of the population in the inland regions was located around Ma Deli.

In this way, it was more appropriate for cities to manage villages and towns, and it would not increase the burden of management.

The final voting result was indeed the same; many members were indeed optimistic about the state, city, town administrative system, so since Spain's existing large regions were to be reformed, it was better to reform them into state, city, town.

The third topic discussed at the meeting was whether Barcelona should set up an independent administrative region.

It was worth mentioning that after Spain's administrative divisions were reformed from large regions to states, whether Barcelona should be set up as an independent administrative region had more possibilities.

Barcelona could be set up as an administrative division at the state level independently like Ma Deli, and could also be a more special existence, set up as a special city, directly managed by the Cabinet government.

After no longer being under the jurisdiction of Catalonia, Barcelona could obtain more policy bias, and a large amount of resources from the Cabinet government could also be tilted toward Barcelona.

In this way, this second largest city in Spain would likely launch a chase toward Ma Deli, and it was not impossible to surpass Ma Deli to become Spain's largest city in the future.

It was just that like the Basque region, Barcelona being set up as a special city or an administrative division at the state level independently was also unacceptable to Catalans.

Even the opposition force suffered by Barcelona being set up as a special city independently was greater than the resistance of the administrative reform of the Basque large region.

Fortunately, this expanded meeting added a large number of Upper House members, and through the efforts of these members, this proposal was finally passed by a majority vote.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 315 =====