Chapter 251 Health and Environmental Reform

1879 was a busy year for everyone. While the British were mired in the Zulu War and the Anglo-Afghan War, a new round of reforms was also underway in Spain.

Of course, compared with the comprehensive reforms promoted by former Prime Minister Primo, the reforms at this time were only small-scale targeted reforms.

The reforms were proposed by the Spanish Workers' Party, with the goal of improving the working environment of workers in Spanish factories and providing them with some living conveniences.

As mentioned before, hygiene is not taken seriously throughout Europe. Feces and garbage can often be seen on busy city streets, not to mention in the dark corners inside factories.

Working in such an environment is a double torture for the workers, both physically and mentally.

In addition, the living environment of some workers is quite bad, with dozens of people crowded in a small room, and it is difficult to turn over when sleeping.

This is also a common phenomenon among workers of this era. The industrial process in Europe is actually a history of workers' suffering, and eventually the birth of trade unions, an organization dedicated to seeking welfare and better living conditions for workers.

The proposal to improve the working and living environment of workers has been hotly discussed within the Workers' Party and has also attracted the attention of Carlo, the behind-the-scenes controller of the Workers' Party.

Taking all factors into consideration, it is still necessary to improve the working and living environment of workers. Only by working in a more hygienic and clean environment can workers have enough emotions to devote themselves to work.

At the same time, only by getting enough rest and relaxation can workers have enough energy to work.

If you want to improve the working and living environment of workers, the method is still very simple. The working environment of the factory can refer to the governance of the streets in Madrid. By building public toilets and adding a certain fine system, the cleanliness and cleanliness of the factory can be ensured.

As long as there is a public toilet nearby, I believe that most workers will choose to go to the toilet to solve it, rather than find a dark corner in the factory.

At first, some workers may be fined for their previous habits, but as time goes on, most workers will adapt to the existence of public toilets.

At the same time, improving the living environment of workers can also improve the mood of workers and prevent them from being dissatisfied with the changes in the system.

The way to improve the living environment is also very simple, that is, to build a large number of wooden houses around the factory.

With the development of African colonies, a large amount of cheap wood was shipped back to Spain. Both the Guinea colony and the Congo territory have a large amount of wood.

It only takes a very low cost and a short time to build a wooden house for workers to live in, but the effect achieved may be to make the entire working class more satisfied with the government.

Improving the working and living environment of workers is also a good opportunity to win the hearts of the working class.

After making a detailed plan, Carlo found Prime Minister Canovas, took out the entire detailed plan, and asked the government to rectify the living and working environment of workers according to the plan.

After receiving Carlo's order, Prime Minister Canovas attached great importance to it and immediately issued relevant orders to various departments.

The Spanish government also acted quickly and issued a relevant announcement the next day, stating that it would start to rectify the living and working environment of workers in the factory from now on, and required all factories in Spain to cooperate with the government's actions to rectify the environment in the factory.

Considering that improving the living environment of workers will be a huge expense, this expense will not be entirely borne by the factory owners. The government will also provide some subsidies for factories to purchase raw materials for building houses.

As soon as this announcement was released, the Spanish government immediately began relevant reforms and rectifications. The government's attitude is also very clear. This is not to discuss with those factory owners, but the government has made a decision, and the factory owners and capitalists only need to cooperate.

The Spanish government is also confident enough. Because of the pursuit of state capitalism, several large factories in Spain are in the hands of the royal family and the government.

Privately controlled factories are basically small and medium-sized. These factory owners have no ability to resist the government's decrees, and they can only be forced to obey.

Moreover, the government and the royal family's factories have taken the lead in making changes. If these small factories still resist stubbornly, doesn't it prove that they are completely on the opposite side of the workers?

In this case, the Spanish government does not even need to take any action. The angry group of workers is enough to destroy these stubborn factories.

Facts have proved that if the power of workers is used reasonably, the influence on politics is infinite. For some factories that pretend to obey the government's orders but actually disobey them, they only need to mobilize workers to strike to make these factory owners cooperate.

After all, after the factory strike, it is the interests of the factory owners that are lost. Under the background of Spain's large-scale construction, every day these factories stop working means that the factory owners lose one day's income.

With an announcement from the Spanish government, the work of improving the working and living environment of workers is in full swing.

Major newspapers have also followed up on related reports, praising the new cabinet government and King Carlo for their attention to workers and civilians, praising that this is the government that people need and the king that people should love.

Houses made of wood are built very quickly, of course, these houses are definitely not as strong as houses made of cement and steel.

However, for Spain at present, wooden houses are enough, and improving the living environment of workers is the main purpose.

With the completion and commissioning of the first batch of wooden houses, the living environment of Spanish factory workers has changed from dozens of people squeezed into one house to ten people in one house, and everyone's bed has become a little bigger, at least they can turn over at will.

For the new workers' dormitories, Spanish workers are generally quite satisfied. With the construction of new dormitories, safe water projects were also started at the same time.

The so-called safe water project is actually to provide drinking water to cities, towns and factories through large water companies.

At present, there are still water companies in big cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. But in factories in the suburbs and more distant towns, there are no water companies.

People generally rely on groundwater wells for drinking water, and some people directly take water from rivers and drink it directly after taking water.

When there was no industry in Spain, the water in the river was still relatively clean. But no matter how clean it is, there will be bacteria, and Carlo himself does not advocate drinking raw water.

What's more, with the construction of Spanish industry, some rivers have already been polluted.

This is not the era of sustainable development in later generations, and the existing industrial technology is completely unable to achieve low-pollution industry.

It is no exaggeration to say that the industry of this era is highly polluting industry. If you want to make the country's industry strong, you must bear the risk of land and water pollution.

In this case, it is very important to ensure that the drinking water of the people is filtered and disinfected.

When deciding to rectify the living and working environment of the workers, Carlo also thought of using tap water to replace the previous drinking water method of the Spanish people, and let regular companies supply water to the Spanish people in a unified manner.

Of course, it is definitely a long process to make all the drinking water of the Spanish people become tap water.

Carlo decided to use Madrid and Barcelona as pilot cities. These two cities already have small tap water companies, and because of the large population, they can be the first step in promoting tap water in Spain.

Of course, the first to provide tap water in a comprehensive manner must be the factories on the outskirts of the two cities.

Building wooden houses for the workers is a good opportunity to provide them with tap water, replacing the previous way of taking water from wells and rivers.

The industrial department has also issued regulations for this purpose. All factories outside Madrid and Barcelona must provide tap water to workers. Once it is found that the workers' drinking water is river water or underground well water, the factory will be punished.

Considering that the two cities do not have enough water plants to supply water to all factories, before the water supply of the water plant meets the demand, each factory can use boiled well water instead of tap water to provide it to workers.

Safe water use projects are still necessary, at least they can reduce the incidence of disease among Spaniards.

Drinking boiled water and tap water cannot completely prevent Spaniards from getting sick, but drinking river water and well water will definitely cause Spaniards to suffer from corresponding diseases.

In order to make Spaniards accept the concept of drinking boiled water and tap water, Carlo also deliberately asked newspapers to publish a large number of news about disease transmission, drinking water, and sanitary environment, and achieved good results.

The workers did not accept drinking boiled water at the beginning, but now they urge the factory to provide boiled water, and also urge the government to build a water plant as soon as possible to provide tap water to the factory.

Because of the pressure from the workers, it is impossible for the factory owners not to provide boiled water. Once they refuse to provide boiled water to the workers, the workers will accuse the factory owners of deliberately spreading diseases, and the factory may even be shut down.

In this case, the factory owners dare not not cooperate. Fortunately, it is also very simple to provide boiled water, and it does not require the factory owners to have any large expenses.

With the promulgation of two consecutive government decrees, Baron Angelo Orcajo, the general manager of the Barcelona Industrial Base, immediately became the busiest person in the whole of Spain.

At the beginning of this year, the third phase of the construction of the Barcelona Industrial Base was successfully completed, and the three phases of construction were merged into the Barcelona Industrial Zone.

As the general manager of the industrial base, Baron Angelo Orcajo naturally became the first district mayor of the Barcelona Industrial Zone.

As an industrial zone vigorously developed in Spain, the political status of the Barcelona Industrial Zone is equivalent to that of a city, and it even has its own district council and district government.

The position of Baron Angelo Orcajo as the mayor of the industrial zone is more important than that of the mayor of a city in Spain.

Only the mayors of the two big cities of Madrid and Barcelona can surpass Baron Angelo in terms of status and importance.

From home to the middle-aged and then to the mayor of the industrial zone, Baron Angelo Orcajo certainly knows who helped him.

Therefore, after the government issued the decree, Baron Angelo Orcajo immediately mobilized all departments of the industrial zone government to supervise all factories in the industrial zone to complete the reform.

The good news is that because the Barcelona Industrial Zone was built not long ago, the living and working environment of most factory workers is at a qualified level.

Baron Angelo Orcajo only needs to pay extra attention to those small factories and ensure that these small factories implement the government's orders in an honest manner.

Those who can move into the industrial zone are basically factories with some strength. These factories are still capable of completing the government's reform decrees, and Baron Angelo Orcajo is relatively relieved about this.

In addition to completing the decrees issued by the government, Baron Angelo Orcajo also set up a large number of large garbage bins in the industrial zone to collect the garbage generated by the workers' lives and destroy them in a centralized manner.

This has been achieved in some streets in Madrid. Spain's thermal power plants can also burn these garbage to generate electricity. Although the exhaust gas emitted by burning will pollute the environment, it is better than letting these garbage pile up in every corner of the industrial zone at will.

The disadvantage is that it takes some manpower to clean these garbage bins regularly, which also represents an additional expense.

Fortunately, the industrial zone is not short of money, and it is completely no problem to bear this expense alone. According to the Spanish tax system, all factories in the industrial zone must pay taxes to the industrial zone government on time.

The industrial zone government will intercept a part of it as a fiscal budget, and the rest will be directly transferred to the Spanish fiscal department.

At this point, the fiscal level of the industrial zone government is equivalent to that of the major regional governments. Generally, the tax revenue of cities is to be handed over to the regional governments, which then collect the tax revenue of all cities and hand it over to the Royal Government.

Because the fiscal budgets of the regions and municipal governments come from part of the fiscal revenue obtained by the government, the fiscal situation of the regions and municipal governments is completely different.

The fiscal budgets of large cities like Madrid and Barcelona, ​​or large industrial areas like the Barcelona Industrial Zone, are quite sufficient.

But some small cities and regions with small populations are not so lucky. If the cabinet government had not allocated part of the funds to support these regions with less fiscal revenue, I am afraid that these regions would not even be able to complete the basic construction.

Last year, Spain's total fiscal revenue reached 897.9 million pesetas, of which nearly 80 million pesetas were distributed to the regional governments to help some regions with small populations or poor economies to ease the fiscal pressure.

It is expected that more funds will be distributed to the regional governments this year, after all, the rectification of the living and working environment of workers requires a large amount of expenditure.

Fortunately, the development of Spain's twin cities and Barcelona Industrial Zone is quite smooth, otherwise Spain cannot afford such a large expenditure.

At present, Spain can be said to be fully developing twin cities and an industrial zone. The development of these two cities and one industrial zone is related to the development of the whole of Spain.

Only when the two cities and one industrial zone are fully developed, and the rich first drive the rich later, can other regions in Spain develop.

If there is no key development goal and the regions are allowed to develop blindly, all regions in Spain will not be able to develop.

This plan is still expected to be realized in the development of the government's regions. After all, with the cabinet government in the middle, these regions that have become rich first cannot hide their private interests. They will help other regions develop as much as possible when they are able.

As for other situations, it is hard to say. After all, human nature is always greedy, and not everyone is willing to use their own funds to help others.

Carlo has plans to adjust the existing administrative divisions in Spain.

Spain has only 506,000 square kilometers and a population of less than 20 million, but it has 16 regional-level administrative divisions.

Among the 16 regional-level administrative divisions, there are only 6 regions with a population of over one million, and the remaining 10 regions have different population sizes, and there are even regions with a population of hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands.

In Carlo's view, such administrative divisions are indeed somewhat unnecessary. What is the role of regions with a population of hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands? It is nothing more than adding a set of government systems and a regional parliament.

In addition to having more officials and parliamentarians, there is no benefit for Spain. These additional officials and parliamentarians will also increase Spain's fiscal burden. What do a region with a population of only hundreds of thousands need so many officials for?

In Carlo's view, the 16 regional-level administrative divisions in Spain will eventually be reduced to about 12.

These 12 regional-level administrative divisions will also include the Madrid region and the Barcelona region.

Yes, Carlo plans to set up a separate region for Barcelona, ​​separating it from Catalonia.

There are two reasons for setting up a separate Barcelona region. One is that the population of Barcelona is approaching 500,000. You know, this only counts the population of the Barcelona urban area.

If the population of the suburbs and workers in the industrial zone are included, Barcelona's population will exceed one million, making it the most populous city in Spain.

The population of Barcelona's urban area has exceeded that of some regions, which is one of the reasons why Barcelona is qualified to establish a region.

As for the second reason, it is naturally Carlo's purpose to weaken Catalonia's influence. Barcelona is very important to Catalonia. If Barcelona can establish a separate region, the importance of Catalonia will also be weakened, and the Catalans will not be a big threat.

If the population of suburbs and industrial areas is included, the proportion of Catalans in Barcelona has dropped to less than half. When Barcelona exists as a regional administrative division, it can radiate the entire Catalonia region just as Madrid radiates the entire Spain, ensuring the stability of the entire Catalonia region.

In the future, Madrid and Barcelona will become the two most dazzling pearls in Spain. Madrid will be the cultural center, political center and economic center of Spain. Barcelona will be the largest seaport, sub-economic center and industrial center in Spain.

The two cities complement each other, compete with each other and help each other, which can help Spain's industry and economy develop faster.

In the future, some officials that Carlo values ​​will also serve in these two cities to observe and exercise their abilities.

Although the election conditions for the prime minister in Spain only require members of the lower house, it will not be so simple when the election is actually held.

If there is no brilliant political resume or outstanding work experience, it is impossible to serve as the prime minister of Spain.

Although the position of prime minister in Spain does not require too outstanding abilities, Carlo does not want the leader of the Spanish government to be an incompetent guy.

Whenever Carlo issues a decree, a smart person who can cooperate with Carlo is needed to lead the Spanish government to fully implement Carlo's orders.

In summary, loyalty is more important than ability for the Spanish Prime Minister, but ability is also very important.

In the future, the positions of mayors of Madrid and Barcelona will be very important. Perhaps a considerable number of future Spanish Prime Ministers will have served as mayors of these two cities.

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