Empire Rising: Spain

Chapter 178: Chapter 142: Encouraging Childbirth, Three Major Studies (Part 2)

The second largest party is the Conservative Party. The current representative of the Conservative Party is the incumbent Minister of Agriculture, Antonio Canovas del Castillo, holding twenty percent of the total seats in parliament.

The third largest party is the Liberal Party, also the last large-scale legal party in Spain. The members of the Liberal Party have ideologies that lie between conservatism and reform, maintaining a relatively neutral attitude towards the monarchy government, meaning they neither firmly oppose nor strongly support it.

Afterwards, there are smaller parties, either with only one or two parliamentary seats or no seats at all, belonging entirely to minor factions.

The reason the Liberal Party is referred to as the last large-scale legal party in Spain is that within Spain, there is another illegal large-scale party, which is the party supporting the establishment of a Republican Spanish Government during the revolution.

After Carlo was chosen to become the King of Spain, the position of the Republican Party became somewhat awkward. They support a republican system, standing against the new Government of the Kingdom of Spain.

However, at that time, for the stability of the Spanish Government and considering the reason that Carlo had just arrived in Spain, Prime Minister Prim did not target the Republican faction, and the Republican Party remained one of the top three parties in Spain.

But during the Carlos Faction rebellion, many members of the Republican Party supported the rebellion in Catalonia and the Basque Region, causing significant harm to Spain’s stability.

Prime Minister Prim decisively announced the illegality of the Republican Party, the third largest party in Spain, and banned the Republican Party within Spain.

This allowed the Liberal Party to leap into the third-largest faction in Spain, while the Republican Party became a party with considerable support but entirely illegal status.

The good news, however, is that ever since Spain’s reform and development encountered smooth progress, the number of supporters of the Republican Party has been steadily decreasing.

There are not many firm supporters of republicanism, more are those disappointed with the original monarchy government. They hope to establish a new systemic government to change the situation in Spain, with the ultimate goal being changing the current situation in Spain rather than changing the government itself.

Since Carlo became the King of Spain, Spain has indeed been moving in a good direction. The actual income of Spanish citizens has seen a considerable rise, allowing those longing to change Spain’s circumstances to see the benefits brought by the monarchy.

They also realized that it wasn’t the monarchy system that had significant flaws, but rather the original King of Spain had major shortcomings.

This group gradually transformed into the Reform Faction, supporting the Kingdom Government of Spain under a constitutional monarchy, and yearning to reform some of Spain’s more backward and conservative areas, making Spain stronger and more advanced.

Under such evolution, Prime Minister Prim’s Progressive Party became the largest party in Spain, overwhelmingly surpassing the Conservative Party in parliamentary seats.

Indeed, although the Conservative Party does not have the advantage in parliamentary seats, in terms of support numbers, it remains the largest party in Spain.

Because the Conservative Party has a large audience among farmers, most Spanish farmers support relatively conservative parties. They do not wish for the country to undergo significant changes; it is best for nothing to happen so they can live and work peacefully.

Even though reform has tangibly benefited the farmers, making these mostly conservatively minded farmers not opposed to Spain’s reform, some farmers are even keen to see more reforms in Spain.

After all, reforms have genuinely reduced and abolished taxes, lightening the burdens on farmers, naturally lessening the pressure in their lives.

The most evident aspect showing the reduction of burdens on Spanish farmers lies in Spain’s population growth. Previously, during the Kingdom of Spain period, annual population growth was very low, sometimes even less than a hundred thousand.

This is quite exaggerated, and proves that during Queen Isabella’s reign, the Spaniards were not living well enough, causing them to have no extra energy to have children.

But during Carlo’s reign, once the burdens on citizens were reduced, naturally they had more inclination to consider the issue of succession.

At that time, contraceptive methods were not so developed; condom technology was immature, not as thin as those of later generations.

The contraception commonly used by citizens was made from sheep intestines and linen, materials that were neither comfortable nor practical, the sheep intestines even had a smell that was very unpleasant to use.

But it was also impractical to not use them. If one accidentally became pregnant, childbirth was a risky affair. Even if the child was born, infant survival rates were not that high.

Even if the baby survives and is healthy, raising a child was quite an expense.

In the future, Spain will certainly ban abortions entirely, not for any other reason but simply because abortion technology is currently too backward with too high of a risk factor.

Considering the Spanish Government’s upcoming subsidy and reward policies for families with multiple births and children, even if abortion technology were completely banned within Spain in the future, it would not create too much of a burden for Spanish citizens.

The Royal Family and Government might even consider jointly establishing foster homes and orphanages, helping children from impoverished families receive better education.

Of course, foster homes and orphanages are definitely not free. Children raised in these two institutions will have two choices for the future.