Chapter 330: High Births, High Deaths

If this were a later era, there would be world-famous masterpieces like the "Concierto de Aranjuez" to boost the fame of Aranjuez. But at present, the Palace of Aranjuez truly has little presence throughout Spain, and even in the small town, there are only scattered Spaniards.

Such a tranquil environment is, for Gao Da, a good place to travel. The status of a royal family member is special; this quiet environment not only protects the privacy of the royal family but also ensures that the travels of royal members do not disturb the lives of ordinary Spaniards.

And it is indeed so; after Gao Da arrived at the Palace of Aranjuez, he immediately felt the quiet and peace of this palace and the surrounding small town.

For members of the royal family, this is absolutely a precious environment. The little ones can play here in a leisurely and carefree manner, and Gao Da can also enjoy a period of relaxed and leisurely time without having to worry about Spanish state affairs anymore.

Gao Da is quite at ease leaving state affairs to Prime Minister Canovas to handle. Perhaps his ability is not as excellent as Prime Minister Primo, but fortunately, his loyalty to Gao Da is higher, and he is more obedient.

After living in the Palace of Aranjuez for half a year to spend the hot summer, Gao Da took his family back to the Wang Gong in Madrid.

Although the scenery of the Palace of Aranjuez is indeed good, Gao Da cannot stay away from Madrid, the political center of Spain, for a long time.

Starting from 1886, Spain's focus on colonial work shifted from the expansion of colonial territories to the development of the colonies.

A large number of immigrants were transported to the colonies from all over Europe and Spain, and individual colonial residents who passed assessments were also transported to the Spanish mainland to become true Spaniards.

Throughout 1885, the net population growth of the Spanish mainland was nearly 700, 00. The most gratifying thing among them was the birth rate of newborns; after statistics from all levels of the Spanish government, there were about 920, 00 newborns in Spain in 1885, with a newborn birth rate as high as 40‰.

With 920, 00 newborns alone, one could already predict how exaggerated Spain's population growth was in 1885.

Of course, before calculating population growth, it is also necessary to include population inflow, outflow, and the scale of population deaths.

Because of the relatively poor medical technology of this era, all European countries exhibited the characteristics of high population birth rates and high population death rates.

Especially in agricultural countries, under the premise that the population birth rate ranks at the forefront of the world, the population death rate also ranks at the forefront of the world.

Spain before reform and industrial revival was indeed like this, but after reforms and a series of medical subsidies issued by the government, Spain's population death rate, especially the newborn mortality rate, has had a significant decline.

According to the government's retrospective statistics on infants born in 1885, among these 920, 00 newborns, more than 800, 00 infants survived, with a newborn survival rate as high as 87%.

Although 120, 00 newborns still unfortunately died due to various reasons, in this era where medical technology is relatively backward, it is already quite difficult to have nearly 90% of infants survive.

It is worth mentioning that the death scale of the elderly population over 65 in Spain is even smaller than the infant death scale.

The main reason is also that the average life expectancy in this era is not long; out of 100 people, only 3 or 4 can live to be over 60.

Because of industrial pollution and poor medical conditions, Spain's population death rate is also as high as 21. ‰, with a total death toll of nearly 500, 00.

Subtracting the number of deaths from the number of newborns, Spain's mainland population growth is only about 420, 00. Don't look at the fact that there are only 420, 00 in population growth from 920, 00 births; in fact, such a situation is already quite excellent when looking at the whole of Europe.

Even for other European countries with populations as high as 30 or 40 million, the net population growth is not necessarily comparable to Spain's.

The main reason is that the industries of other European countries are more developed, so they have more workers. European countries have a distinct characteristic, which is that agricultural countries have more population growth than industrial countries.

The main reason is that besides farming, farmers can manage themselves most of the time. In other words, they can choose a more relaxed way to spend their time outside of work, and having children is a very important form of entertainment among them.

But workers are different. Although workers' incomes are higher than farmers', workers' working hours are also longer than farmers'. Coupled with the fact that workers have fixed workplaces and need to stay away from their hometowns, or even away from their families to work in big cities.

This also means that workers in this era have no free time to spend at their own discretion; they are very tired after working all day, so they have no mood to have children.

In addition to the net population growth of 420, 00 on the mainland, Spain also gained a large influx of population in terms of foreign immigration.

With Spain's development of its colonies, many Spaniards chose to go to the colonies to find more opportunities to get rich. This also allowed Spain to have more arable land per capita while the mainland population was growing.

The domestic economic prosperity increased the attractiveness of immigration; Italy, Germany, and Austria alone provided a large number of immigrants to Spain.

For these countries to go to Africa or the Americas, they must pass through the Mediterranean outlet and cross the Atlantic Ocean to get there.

This also means that Spain is their necessary stop; many people, because they saw various welfare conditions regarding immigration while staying at Spanish ports, ultimately chose to immigrate and join Spanish nationality.

Because of the population trade with Russia at that time, Spain attracted a wave of transport fleets. Don't look at the fact that there are only a few military shipyards that Spain can show off; in fact, there are quite a lot of civilian shipyards.

Coupled with the fact that Spain is located at the western outlet of the Mediterranean, it has a natural advantage in geographical location. Currently, Spain controls nearly one-third of the transport fleets from the Mediterranean coast to North America and South America.

This also leads to these fleets under Spanish control stopping at Spanish ports many times; they basically have cooperation with the local government, and the purpose is to attract some immigrants to stay in Spain and eventually become the Spanish population.

Since Spain's administrative division reform, the cabinet government and the parliament have become stricter in their performance assessments of governments at all levels.

From the cabinet government up to the state and municipal governments, they all undergo performance assessments every year, and the most important assessment conditions among them are the growth of population scale, industrial scale, and total economic volume.

Although these assessment conditions are somewhat general, for this era, officials who can achieve simultaneous growth in population, industry, and economy are, even if not particularly excellent officials, at least above the passing line.

Under such a general environment, governments at all levels have become very attached to the population growth within their own lands. However, the Spanish government also has quite strict restrictions on population introduction, and governments at all levels cannot introduce population at will.

First of all, all black people are not within the scope of Spain's population introduction. Of course, this regulation is currently limited to the Spanish mainland; black people still have the opportunity to join Spain's colonies and become local residents.

It is just that even in the colonies, the introduction of black population is quite strict. For a black person to become a colonial resident recognized by Spain, they must either be able to create great economic value for Spain or be a technical talent that Spain needs.

In the dozen or so years that Gao Da has been the King of Spain, the number of black people who have truly had the opportunity to become Spanish colonial residents can be counted on one hand.

The reason these black people were able to become residents of Spanish colonies is because of their special status. For example, some chieftains and emirs of African indigenous countries can obtain the status of Spanish colonial residents.

This is also to divide the local black class, letting black people split from a whole into two factions: those who have common interests with Spain and those who are opposed to them.

These black people who have become colonial residents recognized by Spain must promote Spanish colonial rule and reduce local resistance if they want to maintain their rights.

If an entire indigenous country clearly opposes Spanish colonial rule, then there is naturally no need for the emir or chieftain of this indigenous country to continue to exist.

From this point, it can also be seen that even if black people can be recognized by Spain, Spain mostly uses them for their utility.

When these black people lose their utility value, Spain will still not continue to recognize their rights; the masters of this land will always only be the Spaniards.

According to the results summarized from all cities, throughout 1885, the cumulative number of immigrants obtained by all cities on the Spanish mainland exceeded 300, 00.

According to the relevant information registered by the immigration departments of various cities, among these 300, 00 immigrants, Russia and Italy ranked in the top two, contributing 120, 00 and 80, 00 immigrants to Spain, respectively.

Immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire ranked third, with a total scale of only about 30, 00. Following that were immigrants from many countries on the Balkan Peninsula, which added up to about 20, 00 in total.

Then there were immigrants from Germany and France; the immigrants from the two countries added up to only a little over 10, 00, from which it can also be seen that Spain's attractiveness to immigrant populations from Germany and France is insufficient.

The remaining European countries combined contributed several thousand immigrants, among which the most was Portugal, contributing more than 3, 00 immigrants.

If it weren't for the Portuguese government issuing policies related to restricting immigration, I am afraid that Portugal alone could contribute more than 2, 00 more immigrants.

For great powers, the loss of several thousand or ten thousand immigrants does not hurt their bones. But for a country like Portugal with a population of only a few million, losing several thousand people every year will have a greater impact on the country's development.

In fact, applying Spain's population growth rate and death rate formula to calculate Portugal's actual population growth, one can understand that for a country like Portugal with a population of less than 5 million, the actual annual population growth is less than 100, 00.

Considering that Portugal's medical level and economic environment are worse than Spain's, perhaps Portugal's population growth is even less.

In this situation, losing several thousand more people every year is enough to make the Portuguese government feel the pain. What's more, these thousands of people flowed to their only neighbor, Spain; doesn't this mean that the Portuguese government is indirectly aiding the enemy?

Although they issued corresponding immigration restriction policies, under the pressure of the Spanish government, the Portuguese government still dared not openly restrict immigration to Spain and could only carry out relevant prevention in various policies.

This is also the reason why, even though the Portuguese government issued policies to restrict immigration, more than 3, 00 immigrants still go to Spain every year.

The reason these Portuguese people go to Spain is also very simple: they can get higher-paying jobs in Spain, and the difficulty for Portuguese people to join Spanish nationality is also not high.

Portuguese people can understand Spanish, and there is not much difference between the two sides in terms of appearance and cultural differences.

This also leads to the fact that there is almost no high cost for Portuguese people to transform into Spaniards, which is also the reason why Portuguese people choose to go to Spain one after another.

Perhaps the Portuguese government should be glad that Spain's Extremadura state is an administrative region with a small population and not much industry.

If the positions of France and Portugal were swapped, and if Portugal were adjacent to Spain's Catalonia, the industrial base of Barcelona alone would be enough to attract a large number of Portuguese people to swarm in.

Spain's current per capita income is in the upper-middle level in Europe, which is higher than Portugal's per capita income.

And the income of Spanish workers is even higher than the per capita income; as long as there is a large industrial base on the border between Spain and Portugal, these Portuguese people simply cannot withstand the temptation of high-paying jobs.

All European countries provided nearly 270, 00 immigrants to Spain, and the remaining 30, 00 immigrants were provided by Spain's colonies.

These 30, 00 immigrants were mainly composed of Moroccans, also mixed with a small number of indigenous people from the Philippine colonies and Lanfang people.

Spain has established Spanish-language schools in both the Philippines and Lanfang, and also has corresponding immigration introduction plans.

Currently, these two regions can also provide thousands of immigrants to Spain every year; although not many, it can be considered a relatively stable source of immigrants.

The main reason is that these two regions are too far away from the Spanish mainland, and immigrants need to pay for their own boat tickets. Unless they meet Spain's talent introduction plan, Spain will not provide boat tickets to the mainland.

But being able to attract thousands of immigrants to the Spanish mainland every year under the premise of paying for their own boat tickets also shows Spain's attractiveness to the population of these two regions.

Although there is an inflow of 300, 00 people, this does not mean that Spain has no population outflow.

According to statistics from customs and various cities, in 1885 alone, Spain lost about 30, 00 people.

However, nearly 20, 00 of these were transported out by Spain voluntarily, and a considerable part of them were Catalans or Basques.

Transporting them to Spain's colonies can not only fill the vacancy of the Spanish population in the colonies but also solve the problem of the two ethnic groups in Navarre and Catalonia wanting independence, which is simply killing two birds with one stone.

In addition to these 20, 00 people who were transported out by Spain voluntarily, the remaining more than 10, 00 were true immigrants who actively chose to immigrate to other countries.

For those who want to leave Spain and go to other countries and lands, Gao Da will neither hold them back nor stop them.

In this era, the inflow and outflow of immigrants are very normal. For Gao Da, only those who are willing to stay in Spain and love and recognize this country are his subjects.

Naturally, Spain's various welfare policies and subsidies are only aimed at these true Spaniards who belong to Gao Da's subjects.

Those immigrants who choose to leave Spain and go to other countries, they, of course, can no longer enjoy Spain's various policies and subsidies.

(End of this chapter)