Empire Rising: Spain

If the cultivated land in the Gambia Colony can be quickly developed and planted, Spain can reduce the proportion of domestic farmland and not rely on the relatively fragile agricultural environment of the homeland.

Carlo would naturally not veto the government’s proposal to accelerate the development of the West Africa Colony. The Gambia Colony controlled by Spain is larger than today’s Gambia, and there is naturally more land available for reclamation.

When Portugal’s Guinea and Jijinshao’er Colonies are annexed in the future, the total area of the colony will exceed 70,000 square kilometers, almost catching up with the total area of Portugal.

Portugal has a large amount of plains, and the Gambia Colony is not inferior at all. The Gambia River flows through most of the land in the colony, making it suitable for agricultural development and river shipping.

The grain planted throughout the colony can be transported by rail or shipping to the colonial capital Banjul, and then transported to the Spanish mainland by large transport ships.

The straight-line distance from here to the Spanish mainland is only more than 2,700 kilometers. Plus, passing the Canary Islands and Southern Morocco Colony in Spain, the safety of grain transport can be guaranteed.

Developing the West Africa Colony is certainly a good thing, but it also requires a large amount of funding.

A drought relief fund of 50 million Pessetas has already been allocated. For the Spanish Government, how much money should be used to develop the West Africa Colony is a question worth considering.

The good news is that this drought made many nobles see the shortcomings of the Spanish homeland land. When the Cabinet Government discussed developing the West Africa Colony, the nobles were also planning to collectively engage in agricultural development in Spain’s colonies and establish new grain companies in the colonies.

Carlo certainly welcomes the behavior of Spanish nobles who love farming. If Spain wants to become a strong country, it must ensure its domestic grain self-sufficiency rate.

Food cannot rely on the export of other countries. After all, import and export relations can be disrupted by war.

Only when the country has sufficient grain output can it ensure that when war comes, it will not cause economic disorder due to a lack of grain, leading to more intense conflicts.

A shortage of food is no joke. As they say, food is the most important thing for the people. For ordinary people, they can lack anything but food.

Since the Gambia Colony is so suitable as a large agricultural area in Spain, Carlo naturally will not miss this great opportunity.

At the end of August, the Spanish Government first announced a 50-million-Pesseta drought relief plan, followed by increased import of grains and agricultural products to deal with the drought crisis.

Drought will certainly lead to a reduction in Spain’s grain and agricultural product output. To prevent food prices from rising too much, timely importing more grain is very necessary.

Fortunately, currently only the Iberian Peninsula has relatively severe drought, mainly concentrated in the inland areas occupied by Spain.

Although Portugal has some areas experiencing drought, overall, it is not severe.

After all, Portugal’s annual rainfall is quite abundant, and with most of its territory being coastal due to its long strip-shaped land, there is naturally no need to worry about drought.

Only Spain is experiencing drought, which can be considered a fortune in misfortune.

Spain can purchase enough grain from other European countries to ease the grain crisis caused by the drought domestically.

Of course, the current drought has not evolved into a grain crisis. There are still many grain-producing countries in Europe, and it is very easy to buy grain.

After the government announced the detailed relief plan, the people in the disaster area put their minds at ease.

To appease the emotions of the affected people, on the day the Cabinet Government announced the corresponding relief plan, it issued orders to the governments of the affected major regions.

Prime Minister Canovas personally issued the orders, requiring the governments of major regions to promptly convey the Cabinet Government’s disaster relief decisions and try to soothe people’s emotions, avoiding emotional outbreaks caused by severe losses.

Although the government will save the people in the disaster area as much as possible, there will also be unlucky ones who have suffered heavily before getting relief.

There is nothing the government can do about it, and it cannot make exceptions for more compensation.

Such exceptions will only make future relief work more difficult, and people experiencing family destruction due to natural and man-made disasters will make more demands on the government.

To prevent these unlucky ones from resenting society and even creating chaos as revenge, it is necessary to strengthen the security forces in the disaster-stricken areas during the drought.

The governments of major regions attached great importance to the Cabinet Government’s instructions. Upon receiving the orders, they promptly issued specific documents to the city governments.

Due to Spain’s government official performance assessment system, regardless of the level, government officials attach great importance to orders issued by higher-level governments.

The Cabinet Government only needs to supervise the major regional governments, and then the major regional governments supervise their subordinate city governments.

City governments, by supervising townships and villages within their territories, can complete political oversight from the Cabinet Government from top to bottom.

No matter which level of government has problems, higher-level government can directly be held accountable.