Chapter 393: Economic Alliance of Spanish-Speaking Nations

The negotiations between the Liberal Party and the Workers' Party lasted for over another month, finally concluding the negotiation phase at the beginning of 1898.

Starting from 1898, the history of the Liberal Party and the Workers' Party in Spain came to a complete end, and these two parties would henceforth possess a new name: the Workers' Socialist Party.

On the very first day of its establishment, the Workers' Socialist Party made its political demands and party constitution public, providing a detailed introduction to the future political plans and philosophy of the Workers' Socialist Party.

The purpose of doing so was very simple: to introduce this brand-new party to the Spanish public and attract like-minded people to join.

Sure enough, as the news published by the Workers' Socialist Party spread across Spain, discussions among the public regarding this new party were also proceeding enthusiastically.

Although the Liberal Party had already lost public support, the Workers' Party had firmly held onto the votes of the worker demographic. By adding the political concepts of social welfare and social justice to the foundation of the Workers' Party, the Workers' Socialist Party successfully attracted the attention of even more Spaniards.

For the public, they might not be able to distinguish the political ideologies of each party, but they could definitely distinguish which party's political ideology was more beneficial to them.

If one had to support a political party, then why not choose the one that was more beneficial to oneself?

Regarding the changes in the Spanish political situation after the establishment of the Workers' Socialist Party, Gao Da did not pay attention for very long.

After all, whether it was the Workers' Party or the Workers' Socialist Party, both were under the control of Gao Da. These parties would not only fail to affect Gao Da's rule over Spain, but could instead become useful tools for Gao Da to rule Spain.

Under such circumstances, Gao Da naturally had nothing to worry about. What's more, the merged Workers' Socialist Party was only the third-largest party in Spain; before the elections for the Lower House began, the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party still occupied the most seats in the Lower House.

Gao Da also hoped to stimulate the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party through the merger of the Liberal Party and the Workers' Party, forcing them to exhaust every possible means to realize their party platforms in order to gain more public support.

And it must be said, the establishment of the Workers' Socialist Party did indeed have a certain impact on the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party.

This newly established party quickly attracted the attention of a large number of Spaniards through newspaper propaganda, which also made the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party sense a crisis.

The Conservative Party was fine, because it possessed a base of nobles and large landowners, and coupled with the fact that the majority of Spain's population were farmers, the Workers' Socialist Party could not affect the status of the Conservative Party for the time being.

But the Progressive Party was completely different. The target audience of the Progressive Party and the target audience of the Workers' Socialist Party had a certain overlap; those members of the public attracted by the information published by the Workers' Socialist Party in the newspapers might very well be supporters of the Progressive Party.

Facing the potential poaching behavior of the Workers' Socialist Party, even though the Progressive Party was currently the second-largest party in Spain, it could not help but express concern about this.

The Progressive Party's way of responding was also very simple: to imitate the Workers' Socialist Party by promoting its own party constitution and political ideology in newspapers, attracting more people to join the Progressive Party.

Unlike the Workers' Socialist Party, which focused its gaze on workers and social welfare, the Progressive Party, in order to attract attention, added many elements including nationalism and Pan-Iberianism into its propaganda.

Speaking of which, as Spain gradually grew stronger, nationalism also became very prevalent in Spain.

For those who supported nationalism, the addition of some nationalist elements in the Progressive Party's propaganda did indeed make them feel something different.

Pan-Iberianism naturally goes without saying; this was an ideology that was popular throughout the Iberian Peninsula and also drew recognition from many people within Spain and Portugal.

It was just that Gao Da believed it was not yet the best time; otherwise, relying solely on the Iberianists within Portugal, it would have been very easy to annex the country of Portugal.

Of course, conquering the world is easy, but governing it is difficult. Annexing Portugal is a very simple matter, but how to permanently occupy and digest Portugal is a very, very difficult task.

Although there is a high degree of similarity between the Portuguese and the Spanish in terms of language, culture, and other customs, this does not mean that the Portuguese would be easily assimilated by Spain.

Once any problem arises in the assimilation work, it might be like the last time Spain annexed Portugal, forcing Portugal to become independent again.

The establishment of the Workers' Socialist Party drew back the curtain on the arrival of 1898, and Gao Da was also paying attention to the development of the international situation in 1898.

The year 1898 in history was quite a special year. The Spanish-American War broke out in this very year, and it was precisely because of the war with the Americans that the Spanish government, still immersed in fantasies, was brought back to reality.

In the rankings of European countries before the Spanish-American War in history, Spain could still occasionally enter the list of Great Powers.

But after the Spanish-American War ended, Spain had completely bid farewell to the ranks of the Great Powers. At this time, Spain was already far behind the Great Powers in terms of comprehensive strength, international status, and prestige.

Unlike the Spain in history, the Spain at this time had undergone reforms and nearly 30 years of development, and its comprehensive national strength was much stronger.

Gao Da was completely unafraid of a war with the Americans because, due to the fact that Cuba had been swapped to the British, the United States seemed to have no reason to launch a war against Spain.

The facts were indeed so. As two months passed in 1898, Gao Da was surprised to find that the Americans had not taken any additional actions.

As it currently stands, the Spanish-American War in history should not happen again; even if the Americans wanted to declare their strength to the world, they should choose a different target.

After all, at this time, Spain could firmly rank in the top four among the Great Powers, and European countries generally believed that Spain's comprehensive strength was even stronger than that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; there was no need for the U. . government to find such a powerful opponent for itself all of a sudden.

After all, to put it bluntly, the United States only met the status of a Great Power in terms of economy and industry. Although the military strength of the United States was not weak, it was still at the bottom among the Great Powers.

Wanting to defeat Spain by relying on an army and navy of that level was clearly wishful thinking.

Although it had been determined that the Spanish-American War would not happen again, Gao Da did not reduce his attention to the situation in the Americas.

On the contrary, starting from March 1898, Gao Da even strengthened his attention to the situation in the Americas.

The reason was also very simple: the construction of the Panama Canal had already lasted for 15 years, and two-thirds of the originally scheduled construction period had already passed.

If one thought that the Panama Canal was about to be completed, that would be a big mistake, because due to the various reasons mentioned earlier, the current construction progress of the Panama Canal was only one-third of the total project volume.

The remaining two-thirds were mostly the most difficult sections, which not only meant that the budget for the project would be more than the original, but the time required would also be much longer than originally planned.

Although France, in order to hold onto the operation and management rights after the canal was built, organized another company to take over the project after the previous canal company went bankrupt.

But because the construction progress of the canal was severely affected, no matter what, the construction of the canal could not catch up with the originally planned schedule.

What Gao Da was concerned about was precisely this point. French enterprises could not complete the construction of the Panama Canal according to the original plan, which also meant that French enterprises had to face two choices.

Either go and request the Colombian government to grant a grace period, extending the time to build the Panama Canal by several or even ten years. Or find a powerful partner and accelerate the construction progress of the canal by sharing the operation and management rights, so as to avoid the entire construction period of the canal being delayed for too long.

Currently, it was basically impossible to complete the construction of the canal within the originally scheduled time. But there were differences in the length of the delay, and there would naturally be differences in the reputation loss and interest loss for the French side.

Gao Da's goal was also to take advantage of France's inability to complete the originally scheduled project to have Spanish capital participate in the construction of the Panama Canal as much as possible.

In this way, the operation and management rights of the Panama Canal could be obtained through peaceful means. Although such operation and management rights would have to be shared with France, as long as there was no American participation, this was a good thing for Spain.

Of course, whether the French government was willing to share the operation and management rights of the Panama Canal with Spain was not yet certain at this time.

But if they were unwilling to share the operation and management rights with Spain, they would have to request the Colombian government to grant a grace period of several years and make certain compensations.

The main reason why Gao Da was so concerned about the operation and management rights of the Panama Canal was because of the United States' covetousness for the control of the Panama Canal.

Long before the construction of the Panama Canal started, the United States established the Provisional Association of the Panama Canal Project, with the famous general of the Civil War period and former U. . President Ulysses Grant as the chairman of the provisional association.

In 1880, the U. . government dispatched two cruisers to arrive at a Colombian port, flaunting its military power under the guise of a diplomatic visit.

In 1881, the United States signed an agreement with the Colombian government, agreeing that both sides should establish maritime military defense strongholds at strategic points on the Isthmus of Panama.

These defense strongholds were usually guarded by the Colombian army, and if a war broke out, they would be the responsibility of the U. . Marine Corps.

Originally, this agreement had been signed, but because of the strong opposition from the Colombian Congress, it was eventually rejected by the Colombian side.

It was precisely because of the strong pressure from the United States that Colombia had to call on European countries to jointly guarantee the neutral status of the Panama Canal.

European countries were willing to see the Panama Canal maintain a neutral status, but the United States was not willing to see the Panama Canal maintain complete neutrality.

After all, to put it bluntly, the Panama Canal was the lifeline of the United States, not the lifeline of European countries.

Compared to the number of ships from European countries passing through the Panama Canal, the number of ships from the United States passing through the Panama Canal was definitely several times or even dozens of times greater.

Under such circumstances, if the Panama Canal maintained a neutral status, the only one to suffer losses would actually be the United States.