Chapter 252 Goodbye Grant Wilson

On January 13, 1908, Arthur had a happy birthday party at Sydney Palace, and also announced that he had reached the age of 26.

It seemed like only yesterday that he came to Australia, but eight years had passed in a blink of an eye.

Arthur had no choice but to focus more attention and energy on the development of the country and use his life to create a strong country, at least it was not in vain.

In the past few days, all officials have congratulated him in an endless stream. If it were not for Arthur's high standards, I am afraid that those who want to attend would have to find a way to join.

At least in Australasia, the royal family is the most dazzling existence, the most powerful, the most distinguished, and the largest family in Australasia.

On January 7, Arthur met with Grant Wilson, the head of the United Party, at Sydney Palace and asked about the current size and plan of the United Party.

Grant Wilson was also an acquaintance. He was someone Arthur met when he first went to New Zealand for political purposes, and Grant's position at the time was the head of the New Zealand Alliance Party.

At present, the political parties in Australasia have gone through many years and are no longer the seven major parties in Australia.

After the integration of Australia and New Zealand, the parties between the two regions have also experienced large and small integrations.

The integration of the Australian Labor Party and the New Zealand Labor Party was very smooth, and it was also the fastest party in the party integration, and there was no opposition.

The party after the integration was called the New Labor Party. The party's program is to unite trade unions, unite workers, and strive to build a better Australasia.

Speaking of which, the Labor Party's program has also been twists and turns. The initial program of promoting Australia to build a unified federation was realized by Arthur, and then the program of protecting the interests of the working class was also realized by Arthur, which is also an important reason for restricting the development of the New Labor Party.

After all, what you want to do has already been realized by Arthur. Doesn't this mean that this party has no practical effect in disguise?

Another party that has experienced a great integration is the newly established Unity Party.

The Unity Party was formed by the integration of the original Australian Independence Party, the Endeavour Party and the New Zealand Alliance Party. It is also the party with the most party integration after the establishment of Australasia.

Because of the combination of three political parties, the Unity Party is currently the largest political party in Australasia, and Grant Wilson has successfully taken the position of head and become a member of the House of Representatives.

The party platform of the Unity Party combines the characteristics of the three political parties, which seems to be somewhat unique.

The party platform can be summarized in one sentence, that is, to maintain the unity of Australasia, the Kingdom of Australasia and the royal family.

Therefore, the Unity Party can also be regarded as a royalist party, and it is also the party that is closest to the royal family at present.

Thanks to this relationship, Grant Wilson was qualified to be received by Arthur. After all, all political parties are subject to the Royal Parliament and the Electoral Commission, and they can't make any waves in Australasia.

In addition to the New Labor Party and the Unity Party, there are currently three political parties in Australasia, namely the National Party and the Democratic Party, two relatively evenly matched parties, and the Country Party, which mainly tends to rural and low-income people.

There is basically a relationship of survival of the fittest between political parties. After all, the political arena in Australasia is so big, and there are only so many members and population that can be won over.

If they cannot obtain too much support, political parties will sooner or later disband due to lack of funds or various reasons.

At present, the five political parties in Australasia can basically be divided into the New Labor Party representing the working class, the Democratic Party of democracy, the National Party and the Country Party of neutralism, and the United Party of the royal family.

Although it seems that there are four parties, in fact, the struggles of political parties are basically under Arthur's control. It is like Arthur has drawn a chessboard for them. The size of the chessboard is determined by Arthur, and the political parties are destined to be unable to jump out.

These political parties are also the greatest democracy that Arthur has given to Australasia. Without harming Arthur's interests, the people of Australasia can completely elect their favorite members of parliament, and then let the members they support elect a new government.

This rule applies not only to the national level, but also to states and territories.

After all, for Arthur, even cabinet ministers and prime ministers are equivalent to working for him.

As long as he can complete the plans and tasks he has deployed, the candidates for specific positions are not important to Arthur.

In a small banquet hall at Sydney Palace, Arthur met Congressman Grant Wilson again.

Compared with a few years ago, Grant Wilson was obviously more mature and humble. After seeing Arthur, he lowered his attitude, and greeted him with humility and respect: "Your Majesty!"

At this time, Arthur's identity had also undergone a huge change, from a small Australian Duke to the King of Australasia.

Although it seems to be only a gap of one level, in the European aristocratic system, the gap between the Duke and the King is very large, and the influence of the European royal family is naturally incomparable.

As a king, Arthur can be said to have reached the pinnacle among the nobles. Even King Edward and William II are actually the same as Arthur in terms of status.

It's just that the strength of the countries they are from is very strong, which also makes Edward's title of Indian Emperor and William II's title of German Emperor highly recognized.

If Australasia could one day develop to the strength of the current British Empire, then Arthur would not be too opposed to having an imperial title.

After all, in the current international status, fists are far more important than legal principles, and the strength of oneself and the country is the hard truth.

"Long time no see, Congressman Grant." Arthur nodded and returned with a little smile.

Grant Wilson hurriedly bowed slightly and said very sincerely: "Thank you, Your Majesty, for meeting you in person. As the head of the Unity Party, we are honored."

"How is the development of the Unity Party now? I remember that when you were in New Zealand, your Alliance Party did very well." Arthur asked with interest.

New Zealand was able to integrate into Australasia so smoothly, and the propaganda done by the Alliance Party in New Zealand at that time made a considerable contribution.

This also made Grant Wilson a little impression in Arthur's heart, and Arthur still had a little good impression of Grant Wilson.

Hearing Arthur's question, Grant Wilson quickly replied, "Your Majesty, since the establishment of the Federation, the Alliance Party has set its sights on the entire country. After reorganization and integration with the Independence Party and the Endeavor Party, we have formed the current Unity Party."

"I know that if the country wants to develop steadily and safely, there must be no accidents in the close union between the various regions of Australasia. Therefore, I boldly decided to set the party platform of the new Unity Party as maintaining the unity of Australasia and maintaining the status of the Kingdom of Australasia and the royal family. Australasia has been able to develop to its current level and go abroad to pursue a higher status, a larger sphere of influence and greater power. All this is inseparable from the leadership of Your Majesty. If the kingdom wants to continue to develop and realize a greater dream of rising, it is absolutely inseparable from the command and leadership of Your Majesty."

As early as in New Zealand, Grant Wilson was clearly aware of the political landscape after the merger of Australia and New Zealand.

Whether in Australia or New Zealand before, Arthur has an absolute position and has sufficient public support and support.

Judging from the speed of Australia's development before, Arthur is definitely not an incompetent monarch.

The status of a monarch who is capable, popular and well-supported will only become higher and higher and more stable. Therefore, Grant Wilson has long been determined to stand in line and use another way to get himself into the upper echelons.

Although Grant Wilson's words are suspected of flattery, Arthur did not blame him too much, and continued to ask: "Congressman Grant, what do you think of the current political parties and election laws?"

The Party Law and the Election Law are laws on political parties and elections established as early as the Australian period, and are also the fundamental laws followed by the current Australasian party system and election period.

The reason for mentioning these two laws is that these two laws have greatly strengthened Arthur's royal power. At the same time, they have greatly weakened the rights of political parties and placed political parties under the rule of the Royal Parliament. Even during the election period, they must be supervised by the royal family and the government.

Although the political parties in Australasian have obtained legal status with the help of the Party Law, they have also successfully lost the opportunity to gain greater power.

Although the development of Australasian has been very smooth so far. But Arthur decided to listen to other opinions and see how other political parties react to the election law and the party law.

"Your Majesty, the party law and the election law regulate the political parties and election system in Australasia, and at the same time, they also weaken the influence of major political parties on the situation as much as possible. I think that although such a system is different from Europe, it is very suitable for Australasia at present. For Australasia, what is most needed now is to unite and develop the country, rather than having new voices." Grant Wilson thought carefully for a long time before speaking.

"As for the reaction of other political parties, it is actually not very important. Your Majesty, as long as the people support it and the government supports it, the reaction of the political parties is nothing. And as far as I know, the five major political parties in the country have not explicitly opposed the party law and the election law, and even the Country Party and the New Labor Party are very supportive of the election law."

The biggest feature of the party law and the election law is that they actually eliminate any political donations and bring the income of political parties to almost the same level.

Political parties want to obtain higher income not by winning over capitalists and executive aristocrats, but by relying on the support of the people to obtain seats in the House of Representatives and allocating more funds based on the proportion of seats in the House of Representatives.

In 1907, the United States received more than 1.2 million Australian dollars in donations from the public. According to the provisions of the Political Party Act, 30% of the donations were distributed equally among the five major political parties, and each party received an average of 72,000 Australian dollars.

The remaining 70% was distributed to each party according to the proportion of seats in the House of Representatives. Grant Wilson's United Party received 30% of the donations, which was 360,000 Australian dollars.

These two incomes allowed the United Party to obtain a total of 432,000 Australian dollars in operating funds. The Liberal Party, which is currently the smallest, also received more than 120,000 Australian dollars.

If we look at the situation in Europe, the party that receives the least operating funds must be the Country Party.

Why? Because the main audience of the Country Party is the rural population and low-income people. It is already very difficult for these people to take care of themselves and their families, so naturally there is less money to donate to the Country Party.

If it develops for a long time, a political party like the Countryside Party that truly cares about rural areas and low-income people will definitely go bankrupt and even risk disbanding.

But it was also the political party law enacted by Arthur that allowed political parties to divide all remaining political funds according to their respective levels of support on the premise of obtaining a minimum income.

This is not very friendly to those larger parties, but for rural parties and small parties, it is the key to maintaining the survival of the party, and it is also the real reason why the political party law has not encountered much opposition.

After all, the largest party at present is the Unionist Party, and the Unionist Party's platform is entirely for the royal family, and it can be said that it is the royal family's own people.

Arthur nodded, looked at Grant Wilson, and asked seemingly unintentionally: "Congressman Grant, what do you think of the current development of the country?"

Grant Wilson was shocked and quickly organized words in his mind, but he did not dare to delay for too long. After thinking for a while, he said: "Your Majesty, I do not dare to make any presumptions about the development of the country. Speech. But some small issues may be more clearly seen outside. I think there are two problems exposed in the current development, and they are almost all related to population.”

Arthur smiled, became somewhat interested, and continued to ask: "Oh? About the population problem? If it is the population size, this problem is already known to everyone, so there is no need to repeat it again."

"It's not the size of the population, Your Majesty." Grant: Wilson explained: "Although the size of the population is a big problem for us, after the efforts of your Majesty and the government, we can have hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year. The issue of scale has been gradually resolved. What I want to say is actually related to the resettlement of these immigrants. Looking at the whole of Australasia, most of our immigrants are located in places. In the southeastern part of Australia and the North Island of New Zealand, more than 60% of immigrants have chosen to immigrate to large cities in these areas.”

"There are good aspects to this situation. Our capital Sydney already has a population of more than 900,000 and is about to become the first city in the Kingdom to exceed one million people. But there are also disadvantages in doing so. Between our cities The gap has gradually become apparent. Our population is not large, and if most of the population is settled in big cities, it will not be a good thing for the development of the country and the region. "

Arthur nodded. This is indeed an obvious problem. Even if the government has introduced certain policies before, it has not been alleviated very well.

Although Australasia has become a popular choice for immigrants, this does not mean that all Australasian regions are popular with immigrants.

The choices of immigrants are diverse, but generally they are inseparable from local development, economy, cultural construction, education, medical care, population and other factors.

Compared with several large cities in Australasia, the competitiveness of small cities is obviously much lower, and naturally they cannot attract many immigrants.

To give the simplest example, the population of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, only increased from less than 140,000 to over 230,000 from 1900 to the beginning of 1908, and the total population growth was only 90,000.

In comparison, the population development of Melbourne, the second largest city in Australasia, appears to be much faster.

Also from 1900 to the beginning of 1908, Melbourne's population grew from 440,000 to 710,000, with the total population growth exceeding 270,000, which was exactly three times that of Perth.

The reason why Sydney is not mentioned is because its development is even more exaggerated. As the capital of the former Principality of Australia and now the Kingdom of Australasia, Sydney has also been a development focus of the government.

Coupled with the fact that the Benz Automobile Factory is a super factory, the popularity of the Capital Territory and Sydney is the highest in Australasia, even ahead of most cities in the United States.

Sydney's initial population size was slightly lower than Melbourne's, but now its population has reached over 970,000, and it is already developing towards a city with a population of one million.

This means that in the past eight years, Sydney has absorbed more than half a million immigrants.

How exaggerated is this number? Looking at all 11 administrative regions in Australasia, there are only seven administrative regions with a total population of more than 500,000.

The total number of new immigrants in Sydney in the past eight years is enough to equal the combined population of Tasmania and South New Zealand.

But this is not a problem in Sydney. After all, there is nothing wrong with developing and building Sydney. It is also the current capital and signature of Australasia. Sydney is largely responsible for attracting so many immigrants.

But after all, the development of other administrative areas must also be taken into account, so it is very necessary to transfer some immigrants to other areas.

Especially Western Australia and South Australia, which have a lot of mineral resources, the combined population of these two states is only about 1.5 million, while New South Wales, even if it loses the big city of Sydney, still has a population of 129 Thousands of dollars.

"This is indeed a big development hazard. Congressman Grant, do you have any good suggestions?" Arthur asked with a smile.

"Your Majesty, the best way is to increase the attractiveness of other cities. Australasia currently lacks a propaganda department to increase the attractiveness of Australasia's major cities both domestically and internationally, so that more Australasia cities can enter the eyes of Europeans and change the flow of immigrants from the source." Grant Wilson seemed to have a plan in mind and answered without hesitation.

Arthur nodded again, and was quite satisfied with Grant's answer. The propaganda department is indeed the department that Australasia lacks at present.

Although Australasia's public opinion has been controlled by Arthur, the government departments do not have corresponding propaganda means, and there is not even a propaganda management agency.

Perhaps it is necessary to set up a propaganda department, but a small propaganda department is not enough to enter the cabinet. At present, it seems that it still needs to be under the name of a certain department.

The most suitable for the propaganda department is definitely the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has the ability to act internationally.

Thinking of this, Arthur nodded and said with a smile: "This is a good plan, Congressman Grant. In addition to this problem, what is the other problem?"

Having already talked about this point, Grant Wilson naturally would not shrink back and continued: "Your Majesty, in addition to increasing the attractiveness of other cities, I think it is necessary to divide foreign immigrants more finely, and distribute immigrants from the same region to different states and territories, so as to eliminate the possibility of these immigrants forming forces from the root."

If it must be divided according to closeness, for Arthur, the closest is naturally Australasian, followed by British immigrants, Russian immigrants, German immigrants, and then immigrants from other European countries.

The number of immigrants coming to Australasia every year has exceeded 600,000, which is good news for Australasia.

But the management of immigrants also needs to be vigilant at all times. After all, these foreign populations are not so safe for the stability of the country.

At least without sufficient time verification, Arthur will not fully trust these foreign immigrants, which is also the reason why the Australian government election must have the length of residence in Australasia.

The parliamentary system in Australasia can be divided into members of the House of Representatives, state (territory) members, city councilors, etc.

Members of the House of Representatives can elect cabinet officials and members of the national government, and state or territory members can elect members of the state and territory governments. The lowest-level city councilors can only elect members of the city government and village governments.

But even for the lowest-level city councilors, one of the requirements for running for election is to live in any area of ​​Australasia for three years.

State councilors are five years, members of the House of Representatives are ten years, and members of the cabinet government are fifteen years.

Generally speaking, under the influence of Arthur's various welfare policies and various propaganda, foreign immigrants who have lived in Australasia for five years have basically integrated into the Australasia environment.

And those who can live in Australasia for fifteen years will definitely have feelings for Australasia and recognize this country.

The method mentioned by Grant is actually to split and disrupt all foreign immigrants, and then distribute them to other administrative districts in an irregular manner based on families.

In this way, immigrants assigned to the same administrative district basically come from different countries, and the number of people who are familiar with each other will be greatly reduced, which greatly reduces the possibility of these immigrants uniting together.

After thinking for a while and confirming that this is a good way, Arthur looked at Grant Wilson again and said with a little seriousness: "Mr. Grant, the two problems you mentioned do exist, and the method you proposed does work. Australasia needs a member like you who can contribute to the country. I believe that the United Party can also become an important support and pillar of the government's work under your leadership."

"Yes, Your Majesty! Please rest assured that the United Party will always be a supporter of the country and the royal family, and will always be the vanguard of the dream of Australasia's rise. Although the members of the United Party come from various regions, we are all Australasians connected by blood." Grant Wilson hastily assured.

At the end of the conversation, before letting the guards send Grant away, Arthur added to Grant seemingly unintentionally: "Mr. Grant, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will set up a propaganda department in a while, and the ministerial candidate will be discussed in the House of Representatives at that time."

Six thousand two hundred words two-in-one chapter, please support, please vote! (Although it is one chapter, it has more words than the normal two chapters), please vote!