Chapter 354: Candidates for Prime Minister

When the pilot program for the nine-year compulsory education under the Ministry of Education officially began, the time had already arrived at January 1891.

Missing this year would mean waiting another five years; although the Spanish cabinet was dominated by the young and vigorous, not everyone could afford to endure a five-year wait.

What was certain for now was that Prime Minister Canovas would not run for the next term as cabinet Prime Minister.

He was born on February 8, 1828, and was already at the advanced age of nearly 63 this year. For Prime Minister Canovas, he was undoubtedly already a winner in life.

As the longest-serving Prime Minister in the era of Carlos, Prime Minister Canovas's achievements had already been recognized by the public. Although he currently only held the title of Count, Carlos had already hinted to Prime Minister Canovas that once this cabinet's term ended, Carlos would reward all cabinet officials according to their merits, and Prime Minister Canovas would also receive the title of Duke.

Although the status of the new nobility could not compare to the old, a Duke among the new nobility was still a Duke, and in terms of status, he was not lacking at all.

Prime Minister Canovas also knew that his health could no longer sustain another term. More importantly, he also understood that he was not suitable to continue in office.

Spain did not need a Prime Minister with too much prestige, and serving three consecutive terms was already Carlos's greatest tolerance toward him.

Previously, there were simply no candidates who could compete with Prime Minister Canovas; those who were qualified did not have Carlos's trust, and those who had Carlos's trust were not qualified.

But now, the Conservative Party's number two, Jovellar Soler, as well as Minister of Defense Evan Bradley, were both excellent candidates for succession.

Choosing the former, Jovellar Soler could well take over Prime Minister Canovas's policies, and a Conservative Prime Minister would not cause much of a shock to the Spanish political scene.

Choosing the latter, Evan Bradley's loyalty to Carlos was beyond doubt. As Minister of Defense, once he became Prime Minister, Carlos would be able to control more military power, and Spain's military expansion and actions would also become easier.

These two were considered the most likely candidates for the next Prime Minister. Besides them, there were actually several other candidates who could potentially be elected as cabinet Prime Minister.

One could see how much importance each department placed on this year's political performance from the struggle for the fiscal budget at the beginning of the year. The more fiscal budget a department had, the more easily it could complete its tasks.

The more tasks completed, the better, and the more political achievements one would naturally gain. These achievements were not only related to whether one could be re-elected, but also whether one could advance further in the cabinet.

It was precisely for these various reasons that the cabinet entered into unprecedented arguing and stalemate when discussing the fiscal budgets for each department.

The first to be determined was the defense budget. In addition to Minister of Defense Evan Bradley's considerable prestige, the unique status of the defense department was also the reason why the budget was approved so quickly.

The defense department's approved fiscal budget reached as high as 354 million pesetas, an increase of 19 million pesetas compared to last year, which was a fairly large increase.

One must know that last year's military expenditure already included 50 million in shipbuilding funds. To be able to increase military spending by nearly 20 million pesetas on that basis was enough to show the importance Carlos and the Spanish government placed on defense development.

Speaking of this, one must mention Spain's total fiscal revenue and expenditure for the entire previous year.

Last year, Spain's total fiscal revenue reached 1. 421 billion pesetas, and total fiscal expenditure reached 1. 751 billion pesetas; both revenue and expenditure situations set new records.

Benefiting from the continuously growing fiscal revenue, the Spanish government also raised the total fiscal expenditure level for 1891 to a new scale, reaching an astonishing 1. 925 billion pesetas.

The defense department's fiscal budget reached 354 million pesetas, accounting for 27. 9% of the total expenditure for the entire year of 1891; this proportion was slightly lower than last year.

The reason for the decrease was mainly the increase in funding for the education and industrial departments.

Other departments did not have major changes; the industrial department was due to the integration of the shipbuilding industry and subsidies for other industries, while the education department was due to the pilot implementation of the nine-year compulsory education.

In 1891, the education department's fiscal budget successfully broke through 200 million pesetas, reaching a new high of 234 million pesetas. This also caused the education department's fiscal budget proportion to jump from 15. 7% last year to 18. % this year, making it the department with the largest increase in fiscal budget among all departments.

The industrial department followed, with a fiscal budget as high as 219 million pesetas, accounting for 16. 4% of Spain's total annual fiscal expenditure.

After these three most important departments negotiated their shares of the fiscal budget, only then did the other departments receive their own fiscal budgets.

Because the total amount of fiscal expenditure increased significantly, this meant that although the military, education, and industrial departments all increased their funding, it did not affect the budget proportions of other departments.

For the other departments, this could be considered a stroke of luck in misfortune. As long as the fiscal budget was not affected, completing the tasks assigned by the government according to plan was not a problem.

After each department received its own fiscal budget, the cabinet ministers also began to enter the final stage of struggle.

It is worth mentioning that from the beginning of 1891, almost every once in a while, a cabinet minister would report their work situation to Carlos.

Their purpose was also very clear: on one hand, to let Carlos know their abilities and political achievements through reporting their work, and on the other hand, to build up their presence with Carlos.

And let it be said, presence with Carlos was still very important. If a certain position fell into a relatively deadlocked competition stage, once Carlos was relatively familiar with one of the officials, it was very likely that he would choose this more familiar official.

After more than twenty years of development, the cabinet ministers naturally understood who was in charge of Spain at present.

Compared to Prime Minister Primo, Prime Minister Canovas did not hold military power. This also resulted in Carlos gaining more government power; although Carlos would not actively express his opinions most of the time, no one could ignore Carlos's own thoughts, including Prime Minister Canovas.

In cabinet meeting discussions, as long as it was something Carlos wanted to reject, no one could make it pass. By the same token, as long as it was something Carlos wanted to push, no one could successfully oppose it.

However, fortunately, Carlos basically would not use such power, which also made the cabinet government's meetings appear relatively democratic on the surface.

Most of the time, it was decided by the cabinet ministers' votes, and Carlos would not interfere with the final results of the ministers' votes.

Of course, if it were truly a proposal that Carlos strongly opposed, no one would let it appear within the scope of discussion at the cabinet meeting.

Everyone was not stupid; it was impossible to offend Carlos and the Wang Quan so openly. In February 1891, Carlos invited several Spanish writers and musicians, requesting them to write lyrics for Spain's national anthem, the "Royal March," and to compose an exclusive song for each of Spain's Royal Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Guard.

Even in later generations, Spain's national anthem, the "Royal March," was one of the few national anthems without lyrics.

The reasons for this phenomenon were complex, and Carlos did not want his country's national anthem to remain without lyrics forever.

Although the melody of the "Royal March" itself was majestic and grand, if lyrics could be used to add a bit of color, it would definitely be icing on the cake.

The "Royal March" was a song exclusive to the royal family for Spain, only used on some relatively solemn occasions.

As for the military songs of the Army, Navy, and Guard, the usage scenarios were not so restricted.

The reason Carlos wanted to produce exclusive military songs for the Army, Navy, and Guard was also to boost the morale of the troops. If there were a war in the future, letting the soldiers launch a charge accompanied by their respective military songs would definitely be much better than having no musical accompaniment.

A suitable song could not only make the soldiers' hearts surge with excitement but also stir up the soldiers' passion and hot-bloodedness to serve the motherland.

When Spanish soldiers' hearts surged with excitement as soon as they heard the military song, who could defeat this hot-blooded, brave, and fearless Spanish army?

Speaking of which, the achievements of the Spanish in the field of literature were quite good.

Historically, Spain did not have many Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry, but in literature, there were truly quite a few winners.

Carlos gathered almost all the famous writers and musicians in Spain. Under the joint efforts of these people, it took less than three months to compose a satisfactory set of lyrics for Spain's national anthem, the "Royal March."

In addition to praising Spain, the lyrics also praised Carlos's wise rule. Although the combination of lyrics and music was not perfect, it could definitely be considered a masterpiece.

Afterward, the production of military songs for the Royal Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Guard seemed even easier.

These three military songs were named "Royal Army March," "Royal Navy March," and "Royal Guard March" respectively, among which the melodies of the Army and Navy military songs were the same, only the lyrics had certain changes.

And the "Royal Guard March" had a relatively large difference from the other two; the lyrics also mainly told of the greatness of the Spanish royal family and the hot-bloodedness, bravery, and loyalty of the Guard soldiers in serving the royal family.

After these three marches were freshly released, Carlos immediately ordered people to hand them over to the Army, Navy, and Guard, and officially designated these three songs as the military songs of the three branches of the military.

When the military songs were played in the troops for the first time, the soldiers were quite fond of such military songs.

Most of those who joined the army were young men in their 20s; they were quite passionate about their motherland, and naturally, they were also quite fond of this song that praised and loved the motherland.

After the exclusive military songs for the three branches were established, there was no need for the officers to deploy them; the soldiers themselves began the task of learning the military songs.

Under such active learning, it only took the soldiers a few days to initially learn the military song exclusive to their own unit.

Carlos was quite satisfied with such a result. Military songs were quite effective for boosting morale, and Spain's Army, Navy, and Guard should also have their own exclusive military songs.

When the soldiers learned that such military songs were produced by famous Spanish writers and musicians invited by Carlos, they could only be filled with love and loyalty for Carlos.

The three military songs were considered one of the few interludes of 1891. Under the efforts of the cabinet ministers, the Spanish government in 1891 achieved quite good results, and time quickly arrived at 1892.

At the beginning of 1892, there was a very important major event, which was the election of the Spanish cabinet government.

Up to now, Spain had completely experienced five cabinet governments. The improvement brought by these five cabinet governments to Spain was huge, and Spain had gone from a weak country that was not considered a great power to becoming a middle-to-upper-tier country among the great powers in one fell swoop, which could be said to be second only to the four great powers, and its comprehensive strength was not much worse than the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Such an improvement only took 25 years under 5 cabinet governments, which was undoubtedly a quite good achievement. Every cabinet government election also attracted the attention of all Spanish citizens; they were all curious about who would succeed to the important position of cabinet Prime Minister after Prime Minister Canovas.

Currently, according to some newspaper polls on Spanish public opinion, the more popular cabinet Prime Minister candidates included Minister of Industry Jovellar Soler, Minister of Defense Evan Bradley, Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel, Minister of Livelihood Alton Jarvis, and Minister of Royal Affairs Menotti.

Among them, the most popular were the first two: one was Jovellar Soler, who was fully capable of inheriting Prime Minister Canovas's policies, and the other was the military hardliner Evan Bradley.

Carlos was also relatively hesitant about these two candidates. In fact, logically speaking, the current Spanish government should have some changes.

Continuing to extend Prime Minister Canovas's policies could indeed allow the country to continue to develop, but the current European situation was quite chaotic and complex, and Carlos did not dare to guarantee whether the First World War would happen as it did in history.

If there were any special changes in the European situation, Spain might very well join this war for its own interests. If it had to face a war in a short period of time, then the Spanish Prime Minister should be served by Evan Bradley.

As for the Conservative Party's number two, Jovellar Soler, if he were allowed to serve as Prime Minister, he would definitely be qualified.

But there was no difference between Jovellar Soler serving as Prime Minister and Canovas serving as Prime Minister; their political attitudes were roughly the same, and policies would basically continue to be extended according to those policies during Prime Minister Canovas's tenure.

This was somewhat unnecessary for Carlos; after all, if another Prime Minister were changed, these policies would likely continue to be extended.

As long as Carlos was there, Spain's policies would not have major changes, and it would not affect the country's development.

If Evan Bradley were to serve as Spain's Prime Minister, Spain was destined to have greater actions in the military aspect in the future.

If Jovellar Soler were allowed to assist Evan Bradley, perhaps it was a relatively suitable choice at present.

On one hand, as Deputy Prime Minister, Jovellar Soler could continue to extend Prime Minister Canovas's policies, ensuring that Spain's economic and industrial development would not be affected.

On the other hand, a Prime Minister who was a hardliner could also more quickly promote the growth of Spain's military power. If a great war broke out in the next few years, Spain would have stronger military power, and thus have more trump cards and confidence.

(End of chapter)