Chapter 495: Many Children, Many Blessings

Time flies by quickly, especially for a busy person. June passed quickly as he ran back and forth between the State Council of Arthur's Palace, met with the governors of various colonies from time to time, and inspected the territories.

As Australasia was about to usher in the election of a new cabinet government, Arthur also received good news, that is, Queen Mary was pregnant for the third time.

The first two pregnancies brought Arthur two princes, William and Peter, and Princess Anna. And this time, Arthur could accept both male and female pregnancies. After all, more children means more blessings, and the prosperity of the royal family also includes the continuation of offspring.

Australasia does not have any policy restricting fertility. In fact, the government strongly encourages all people to actively give birth. It is also common for a family to have three or four children.

This also led to the annual newborn population in Australasia exceeding 500,000, and people's desire to have children is still very strong.

In order to encourage more people to actively give birth, Australasia issued many policies to encourage fertility under Arthur's order.

For families with more than two children, each additional child can receive an annual subsidy of 8 Australian dollars, and all children in the family will receive tuition waivers.

The Australian government will also count the families with the most children. If they have more than five children, they will receive a certificate of "honorable mother" issued by the government.

Although this certificate does not bring any practical benefits, it is issued by the national government after all, and it also contains Arthur's encouragement to such heroic mothers, which is very attractive to Australians.

According to government statistics, more than 8,000 women have been awarded the title of "honorable mother" issued by the government, which is also the guarantee of Australia's high fertility rate.

The way to increase the fertility rate is very simple. Let the people live well and live happily, and they will have enough mood and time to have children.

If the people themselves are not well fed and clothed, and they have to face high financial and debt pressures, even if they give birth to children, won't they suffer?

Arthur also understood this, so he ordered the government to reduce the burden on families with a large number of infants and young children, including education and medical care.

There is even a highest reward for childbirth in Australasia. If a pregnant woman gives birth to more than ten children (including multiple births), her children will enjoy free education from primary school to high school, and all tuition and miscellaneous fees will be waived.

Don't underestimate these tuition and miscellaneous fees. If there are ten children and all of them graduate from high school, the tuition and miscellaneous fees will start at at least two hundred Australian dollars per person.

The tuition and miscellaneous fees for ten people are at least two thousand Australian dollars, and there are still government policy exemptions.

If all these tuition fees can be waived, it will definitely reduce a large burden on multi-child families.

Although there are currently no more than 1,000 families in Australasia who receive this benefit, the people are welcoming the business, and the increase in the number of people is inevitable.

In order to increase the population fertility rate, Arthur has implemented far more policies than these. In the streets and alleys of Australasia, it is easy to find propaganda slogans about promoting childbirth.

There are even many movies that more or less promote the idea of ​​having more children and more children, and influencing Australasia in various ways.

It is worth mentioning that although the Australasian government did not ban abortion, Australasian Protestants condemned abortion, believing that abortion did not respect new life.

Australasian Protestants are the largest religion in Australasian and have a huge impact on Australasians.

It is precisely because of this doctrine that the number of abortions in Australasian is limited to a very small range, and many hospitals do not have abortion services at all.

For Australasian, the growth of the local population is definitely more exciting than the growth of foreign immigrants.

In order to maintain the population of the main ethnic group, that is, British immigrants, Australasian has been desperately attracting immigrants from the UK, but it is still not as fast as the arrival of Russian immigrants.

If we can start from the fertility rate of the main ethnic group, increase the fertility rate of the main ethnic group, and thus increase the number of the main ethnic group, it is also a good way.

It is even foresighted to say that the population born now can fully reach adulthood around 1937, and it is not impossible to catch up with the tail of World War II.

And the more people in Australasian, the stronger the potential and combat effectiveness will be in World War II.

It is still very difficult to develop into a superpower before the population reaches 50 million.

Even the most complete industrial system and industrial chain require sufficient population to support.

It is not an exaggeration to say that an industrial power must also have a matching market. If there is no market, a simple economic crisis may cause a country to decline or even gradually perish.

After Queen Mary became pregnant again, Arthur was undoubtedly in a very good mood.

Even in his busy schedule, Arthur would occasionally check the learning progress of Prince William and Prince Peter, and bring new gifts to Anna.

As Arthur's eldest son, Prince William is now ten years old. Arthur has high hopes for Prince William, and Prince William did not disappoint Arthur's hopes.

Arthur also experienced the hardship of exam-oriented education in later generations. Not only was he forced to learn some messy knowledge that was not useful in life, but his fate was determined by the results of this knowledge.

This was indeed very hard, but compared with the education that Prince William received, which was the elite aristocratic education, Arthur felt that the education in later generations was still somewhat relaxed.

However, this was just an exception. After all, the environment in Australasia was not so strict.

The reason why Prince William and Prince Peter experienced strict education was nothing more than that they were princes of Australasia, important members and rulers of the country in the future.

Arthur has not yet determined the real crown prince. After all, the education of the two princes has not been completed yet, and there is no way to actually test how much knowledge the two princes have learned.

But this is also temporary. After they come of age, they will face a huge test to identify their abilities and decide whether they will become ordinary nobles or rulers of the country.

It is precisely because of this that the two princes and a princess have no titles so far. Their real titles will not be granted until they come of age in the future, but at least they will be dukes of the country.

Anyway, all the noble titles in Australasia are nominal. The nobles have no right to notify the territory at all, and Arthur has no burden in distributing them.

This is also the advantage of these princes and princesses in terms of blood relationship. They are destined to be born dukes, and the lowest title they can obtain can only be dukes.

If Australasia reaches the level of an empire in the future, perhaps the highest title in Australasia will be a prince.

But now it is just a kingdom, and the duke is destined to be the highest noble title that can be distributable in the kingdom, and it is as difficult as climbing to the sky for ordinary people to obtain the duke title. Even Arthur did not think of distributing a duke of civilian origin in his lifetime.

This is actually because Europeans value bloodline. Countries like Australasia, which have a clear system of granting titles by military merit, are fine, and ordinary people still have a great possibility of becoming nobles.

But if it is an ordinary European country, these countries still attach great importance to bloodline. Although ordinary people also have the opportunity to become nobles, it is impossible to enter the middle and high levels of nobles in a short time.

That is to say, Australasia lacks aristocracy. Except for the royal family, it is basically aristocrats who are granted fiefdoms by commoners, so there is no discrimination based on blood.

There is another very important premise for ensuring the fertility rate, that is, to ensure the income of the people.

Fertility rate is easy to control, it is nothing more than whether the top leaders of the country are willing or not to control it.

Although this is a relatively dark era, the birth rate of each country in this era is still very high, generally maintained at around 3% to 4%, and the world population is still growing very rapidly.

But if you look at some parts of Europe, especially Western Europe and Northern Europe, you can still see signs of a decline in the birth rate.

Why is the birth rate declining? In fact, a decline in the birth rate does not necessarily mean that people are less willing to have children.

But there is no way. With the development of capitalism, capitalists are oppressing workers and civilians more and more.

In addition, the protection of human rights in this era is still relatively fragile. Many pregnant women have to continue working with a big belly, otherwise they will face the risk of losing their jobs.

Don't look down on these capitalists. For capitalists, it doesn't matter whether pregnant women have miscarriages, but if there are no people working, the profits of the factory will be reduced.

If you lose your job, it will be fatal for a family. The civilians of this era don't have much savings. After all, decades ago, the factories of the major powers were all exploitation concentration camps. It was good to have a meal. How could workers save enough income?

Of course, there is another very important point, that is, some factories are extremely harmful to people.

Especially some factories in the early stage of industrial development, there were no hygiene standards at that time, and the damage to workers in the environment of these factories could not be verified at all.

Some harmful substances have caused some people to lose their ability to reproduce, which also affects the population fertility rate.

This is also a terrible manifestation of capitalism. The exploitation of civilians by capitalists is endless, but the capitalists control the government, leaving the people with nowhere to seek justice.

When the civilian class of a country has a significant reduction in fertility due to various exploitations, it is not the fault of the people, but the capitalists and the governments that support the capitalists behind the scenes, such as some gradually developed European countries.

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