“Your Majesty, with all due respect, our people no longer have the funds to purchase our national bonds.” Hearing Carlo’s proposal, Prim gave a wry smile and reminded Carlo.
“No, Mr.
Prime Minister, our national bonds are not aimed at ordinary citizens.” Carlo shook his head and explained with a smile: “We can issue bonds similar to educational bonds, using interest rates higher than the banks to attract capitalists and factory owners to purchase them.
We don’t need to set the issuance scale too high; perhaps 10 million pesetas will be enough for our initial educational needs.
This batch of national bonds will be used 100% for educational reforms.
This will not only reduce the number of illiterate people in our country but will also be beneficial to those factories that require a certain reserve of knowledge.
Once our first batch of national bonds is repaid on time, it will become much easier to issue such national bonds in the future.
At least for us right now, this is a much more reliable method than borrowing money, and it will also allow the government to bear less interest.” Capitalists are all profit-driven; national bonds with interest rates higher than banks would definitely attract a portion of capitalists to purchase them.
If specific special national bonds were issued specifically for reforms like education, it would also greatly reassure those capitalists purchasing the bonds.
After all, one thing capitalists worried about was what the government would do with these funds.
Investing in an industry like education was certainly much better than squandering it by the government and nobles.
At least the capitalists wouldn’t have to worry that the government wouldn’t have enough funds to repay the bonds in the future.
“We can try.” After pondering for a long time, Prim finally nodded and decided to give it a try.
The first batch of national bonds didn’t need to be issued in a large quantity; they could be used to test whether this method could raise funds for the government.
It would be great if they could raise funds.
Even if they couldn’t, the government wouldn’t suffer a huge loss.
Finally, after cabinet discussions, it was unanimously decided to set the issuance volume of the first batch of educational bonds at 8 million pesetas, which was 307,000 pounds.
Although this was not a lot of money, it could be used to build a batch of literacy classes specifically for wiping out illiteracy.
Literacy classes didn’t even require perfect school institutions; they could just find a house, set up some tables and benches, get some books, and teach the Spanish people simple primary school knowledge.
As soon as the news that the government was going to issue educational bonds spread, it immediately caused a sensation in Spain.
Many Spaniards were still willing to see the government’s efforts in education; this at least proved that the current Kingdom Government placed more importance on commoners than during Isabella’s era.
Even peasants were willing to see the country’s investment in education.
Even if they couldn’t enjoy the benefits brought by the educational reforms, it didn’t mean their children couldn’t enjoy them.
However, support was one thing; the number of people willing to purchase the educational bonds was very small.
Although the issuance volume of the first batch of national bonds was only 8 million pesetas, only 200,000 were sold in two days of issuance, which was not even 10,000 pounds.
Realizing this was a good opportunity, Carlo naturally wouldn’t let it slip by.
On the third day of the bond issuance, Carlo publicly announced his subscription for 3 million pesetas of educational bonds.
3 million pesetas of national bonds was actually not much, only over a hundred thousand pounds, less than half of the total issuance volume of this batch of bonds.
But Carlo’s proactive act of subscribing to national bonds as the King held a different meaning for the Spanish people.
Although it was impossible for them to support Carlo just because of this small matter, many Spaniards still developed a better impression of him and were willing to give Carlo enough time to show his side as an excellent monarch.
At least Carlo had already shown a side far different from Queen Isabella, and the Spanish people had gained patience with him.
After Carlo took the lead, the actions of the capitalists finally became frequent.
It took about another week for the 8 million pesetas of national bonds to finally sell out mostly, providing the government with initial funds to push forward the educational reforms.
In mid-September 1869, many literacy classes popped up in Madrid like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, adopting a voluntary enrollment and free learning approach.
As long as one was a Spanish citizen, they could sign up for the literacy classes to study.
Book fees and tuition fees were all free, but one had to attend the literacy class at least once a week.
The literacy classes still took into account the actual situation of a large number of ordinary people.
In the Spain of 1869, there were no specific working hours.
In other words, encountering black-hearted capitalists and factory owners, the working hours of the Spanish people had never been less than 12 hours, sometimes even up to thirteen or fourteen hours.
Forget about a two-day weekend; even taking a leave of absence when sick wasn’t easy, because capitalists weren’t willing to let factory output decrease due to employees taking leave, which would ultimately affect the speed at which they made money.
As for work-related injuries, they had nothing to do with this era.
Let alone getting injured at your workstation; even if you died at your workstation, there would be zero compensation.
The vast array of welfare benefits in future generations were all fought for by workers and laborers around the world during long processes of oppression and resistance.
The literacy campaign within the educational reforms was carried out vigorously and had a huge impact on Spain.
After all, being a free literacy campaign, the willingness of the Spanish people to participate in the literacy classes was very strong.
Moreover, Carlo added a bit of his own calculation to the literacy classes: the Spanish literacy classes would only use Spanish, and would not use regional languages like Catalan.
The purpose of doing this was also to reduce the sense of division between Spain’s various regions and Spain itself.
Assimilating a nation should start with language; it was very important to speak Spanish in Spain.
The good news was that current Spain had been integrated for hundreds of years, and most of the public was not repulsed by a unified Spain.
Right now, regional separatists and nationalists were still a minority, which wouldn’t have a major impact on Spain’s unification.
While the literacy campaign was ongoing, Prim also launched agricultural reforms.
Although the financial revenue of the Spanish government was not high, this could not stop Prim from lowering agricultural taxes.
On September 27, 1869, while the literacy campaign was still being talked about with relish by the Spanish people, the Spanish cabinet government submitted a brand new “Agricultural Tax Reduction Bill” at a new meeting of the House of Representatives.
The sensation caused by this bill in Spain was even stronger than the literacy campaign, because the vast majority of Spain’s population was agricultural, and tax cuts brought tangible benefits to them.
Unsurprisingly, the House of Representatives passed the bill unanimously with over 70% of the vote, and the cabinet government announced that the tax cuts would begin in 1870 to practically increase the income of the agricultural population.