Chapter 671 - 312: Province, City, County; State, City, Town (2)

Without a doubt, the increase of 200,000 people is almost entirely comprised of pureblooded Spaniards.

These Spaniards have a strong sense of national identity, and their arrival effectively diluted the proportion of Basques in the Basque Region and La Rioja, allowing Spain to strengthen its control over these two regions.

It is precisely with the help of these Spaniards that the Basques have not yet had time to organize protests, as news of the demonstrations was already reported to the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau.

Once these Basques organize themselves for a demonstration, quieting them will not be so easy. Carlo promptly decided to arrest several protest leaders before the Basques could organize, disrupting the Basques’ protest plans.

On March 16, 1885, with Carlo’s command, a task force of dozens of people grandly headed to the Basque army, targeting a secret estate on the outskirts of Gastest.

With Carlo’s investment in the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, the intelligence work within Spain has been executed very well.

Demonstrations organized by the Basques were completely exposed to the eyes of the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau.

Who the protest leaders are, where they plan the demonstrations, and how many people are expected to participate, all this crucial information is clear to the Royal Security Intelligence Bureau, and their actions naturally face no obstacles.

Soon, the task force arrived at the estate to the south of Gastest and successfully arrested the Basque protest leaders during a meeting.

Later that day, some Basque workers tried to contact leaders to inquire about when the demonstration would take place.

They tried all means to reach the leaders, only to be shocked when they couldn’t reach them at all.

Some were quite confused about this, but finding no useful information, they had to give up and as a result, canceled the nearly prepared protest.

Some were obviously smarter, heading to the secret estate on the outskirts, finding it empty and seeing signs of fighting, they hid their fearful speculations and tacitly pretended nothing happened.

In such a situation, the issue of administrative reforms in Spain did not trigger any protests against them, and the administrative reforms proceeded smoothly.

When the Lower House submitted the bill regarding administrative reforms to the Upper House, the Upper House also proposed some suggestions according to Carlo’s instructions.

Of course, the Upper House did not oppose the results of the deliberations by the Lower House. They only added several points to the results discussed in the meeting.

Madrid, as Spain’s largest city and the capital, was quite reasonable to be established as a single administrative district. Barcelona, due to industrial and economic development over the years, has also become a large city comparable to Madrid.

Considering Barcelona’s future economic and industrial development, should it be established as a separate administrative district?

Currently, Barcelona has a population of 631,400, which is more than some regions.

The population growth in Barcelona is the fastest among cities in Spain, even faster than in the capital, Madrid.

If Barcelona could be established as a standalone administrative district, its economic and industrial development rates are likely to see even greater growth.

This would be beneficial for both Spain and Barcelona, so the matter of establishing a district for Barcelona needs to be discussed.

Certainly, a district need not be established, but rather a special city could be set up, turning Barcelona from being a city under the Catalonia Region to one directly led by the Cabinet Government, thereby stimulating further growth in Barcelona’s industry and economy.

The second suggestion is to reform Spain’s existing districts, cities, villages, and towns’ administrative division to the more commonly used European format of provinces, cities, and towns or states, cities, and towns.

Such reforms would promote centralization, enhance the Cabinet Government’s influence over various regions, and facilitate the control of policies by regional governments.

Under the current regional system, laws in some regions can contradict those of the Cabinet Government.

For example, the Catalonia Region once had a law requiring the exclusive use of the Catalan language, which was clearly excessive.

By reforming the existing administrative divisions into forms like states and towns, the legislative power at the state level can be reduced, avoiding conflicts between the laws of the Cabinet Government and local governments.

It is reasonable for local governments to have certain legislative powers, but such powers must be built on the premise of respecting and maintaining national laws.

Although the Upper House’s opinions only consisted of these two points, the Lower House did not dare to overlook them.

A few days later, Carlo issued an order personally, convening an expanded parliamentary meeting, with votes from all members of the Upper and Lower Houses on administrative reform issues.

Since the administrative reform plan was already adopted, Carlo convening a corresponding meeting posed no problem.

The Parliament also needed a larger-scale meeting to determine the scope and intensity of the reforms, and such an expanded meeting garnered everyone’s attention.

The first vote in the expanded meeting concerned the reform of Spain’s existing three-level administrative system of regions, cities, and villages into other administrative levels, to reduce the legislative power of the regions.

After a full round of voting, the number of agreeing votes slightly exceeded those against, confirming the reform of the administrative system.

The next step was the meeting to vote on what form the administrative reform would take.

Currently, the administrative division options Spain can choose are states and towns or provinces and counties, both theories being quite similar.

The state and province are equivalent to Spain’s existing regions, and the city represents cities under these regions. The only difference is between the third level, towns and counties.

The former includes all the towns under a city, while the latter names larger towns or smaller cities as counties, managing even smaller towns or villages through counties.

For Spain, the first scheme of states and towns might be more reasonable.

The reason is simple: Spain’s population is not that large, there are not many large towns, so naturally there is no need to set up a county level to manage towns.

The population distribution in Spain clearly shows that most people are concentrated in areas around cities, with the majority located near Madrid inland.

In this way, towns managed by cities are quite appropriate without increasing the management burden.

The final vote confirmed this, with many members favoring the state and town administrative system. Since Spain’s existing regions are about to reform, reforming them into states and towns would be better.

The third issue discussed in the meeting was whether Barcelona should be set up as a separate administrative region.

It is worth mentioning that as Spain’s administrative divisions transform from regions to states, the possibilities for establishing a separate administrative division for Barcelona have increased.

Barcelona could be set up like Madrid as a region-level administrative division, or as a more special entity as a special city, directly managed by the Cabinet Government.

Once not under the jurisdiction of Catalonia, Barcelona could receive more policy tilt, with lots of resources from the Cabinet Government directed toward Barcelona.

In this way, this second-largest city in Spain could catch up to Madrid and potentially surpass Madrid to become Spain’s largest city.

However, like the Basque Region, Barcelona’s standalone status as either a special city or region-level administrative division is unacceptable to Catalans.

Resistance against creating an independent Barcelona was even stronger than opposition to the Basque region’s administrative reform.

Fortunately, this expanded meeting included many Upper House members, and through their efforts, the proposal was ultimately passed by a majority vote.