I Became The Crown Prince Of The Mexican Empire - Chapter 111



Only Noblemtl

Core Cities and Capitalists (5)

The Basic Labor Law was passed.

From my perspective as a modern person, I know there are many shortcomings, but I think we should apply standards that fit the times.

‘It may be too much to ask for minimum wage, but I think they should have made it mandatory to write an employment contract…’

No. It’s still 1843.

Even the laws that have been passed so far are quite progressive for this time period.

If we add more than this, it will be difficult to handle the backlash, and there is also concern that it will actually have a negative impact on industrialization.

What I’m thinking of may not seem like much by modern standards, but our competitors in Mexico are the United States, which has no labor laws, and the United Kingdom, which has very limited labor laws.

In today’s world, where the law of the jungle reigns blatantly, falling behind in industrialization can have dire consequences.

As someone who always prefers to start small and build steadily rather than going radical, this is a satisfactory bill.

“Has the number of capitalists buying peons decreased somewhat?”

It has been a month since the bill was passed. Immediately after the bill was passed, I instructed the intelligence unit to investigate the trend of peon trading.

They say that they are trading ‘bonds’ and that it is different from trading people, but in the end, people end up being taken in anyway.

“It barely decreased.”

The agent answered, pulling a document out of his bosom and handing it over politely.

It was a report.

“It barely decreased?···Really. This bill must have been quite damaging to the factory owners who use peons.”

Factory owners or landowners who employ ordinary workers may not be hit hard, but the merits of factory owners buying peons will certainly have decreased.

“It is understood that many factory owners have learned the new method of purchasing Peón bonds from landlords and using them to hire workers as a result of this incident. In fact, what was secretly happening only in factories near Mexico City is now happening all over the country.”

under.

The response was that I found a good method.

“···Even so, the restriction on working hours and the additional pay for early morning shifts. Aren’t these two things going to be fatal?”

“The reaction is that the work hour limit is definitely a big blow, but even so, there is still merit in being able to force wages that are overwhelmingly lower than those of ordinary workers. Since the original wages are small, the additional allowance for early morning work naturally becomes small as well.”

The amount of the additional allowance was not set in stone. It was simply an amount that was given as a percentage of the original wage.

However, since there is no minimum wage system, the wages of peons who have to accept their employers’ conditions in order to make a living are so low that they are no longer useful.

Then isn’t it a failure?

They even went so far as to instigate large-scale protests to pass this basic labor law.

“···”

“Well, even so, there are safety measures in place, so if overwork causes death at the workplace, the employer will be fined a huge amount, or in severe cases, they may be imprisoned, so the working environment itself will be much improved compared to before. Isn’t that right?”

As my expression became serious, Diego, who had been quietly listening to me and the agent’s story, stepped forward.

That certainly makes sense. The peons’ wages may remain the same, but their working conditions may improve.

“Yes, that’s right. The Labor Basic Act also includes punishment provisions, so it’s impossible to ignore them. In fact, it seems that each factory is devising its own countermeasures.”

“Yeah. Well then, that’s good. Good point, Diego.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Workers’ rights are important and should be protected, but they are not simply a concept of higher being better.

Labor rights are problematic when they are too weak or too strong. They are currently at a level where they are non-existent, so it is a good thing that they were created, but if labor rights themselves are raised too high in an attempt to solve the suffering of the peons, there could be serious side effects.

In the current situation, it is difficult to raise it, but it will be tens or hundreds of times more difficult to bring it down once it has been raised.

“Ultimately, we will have to devise a strategy to solve the Peon problem itself.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“I agree.”

When I said that after thinking for a moment in silence, Diego and the intelligence agent agreed.

This incident has led to the capitalists, whose size had been rapidly growing for several years but whose political influence was relatively weak, to begin to increase their political influence.

There are quite a few cases where landowners have transformed into capitalists or have received investments from landowners, but these people do not make up the majority.

In other words, from my perspective, capitalists have been added to the list of forces most likely to oppose the policies I am envisioning, following landlords and churches.

‘We have to respond to these people… There are quite a few capitalists who have pro-imperial tendencies.’

Among the Emperor’s faction, there are many who follow me in investing or doing business, and even if they are not, there are a lot of people who are simply related to my business or have invested in my investment company.

Rather than being a unified force that can be regarded as an enemy without question, it is more likely that the capitalists will be divided into imperial, landlord, and republican factions, just as the landlords were divided into imperial, landlord, and republican factions.

In that case, the merits of the Emperor faction are not insignificant. First of all, no one in this Mexican Empire is doing business bigger than me, and I am actively pursuing various national development projects, and I also own an investment company with enormous capital.

‘If you do it well, it could actually become an opportunity.’

***

Construction of Chihuahua City is progressing smoothly. The construction of the water supply and sewerage system, which is the first and therefore the most difficult, is progressing slowly but steadily, and the chemical plant to produce disinfectants is also progressing well.

“···So, what this means is that urban planning must consider systematic urban expansion from the beginning.”

“okay.”

So, just as I was teaching architects in the field, I am teaching civil servants at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. This includes the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, who is the head of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The new Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, a new branch of the executive branch, was to handle work related to land development, such as railroads, dams, irrigation facilities, and planned city construction. Considering that all of this was previously handled together by the Ministry of Finance, it should have been there a long time ago.

As I was pushing for the establishment of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, I strongly insisted that architects with practical experience should be appointed as civil servants, and as a result, many people from construction companies were assigned to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Among them, many people from Ortega Construction were scouted, and I sent those who wanted to go. In this way, even the position of Prime Minister was given to someone from Ortega Construction.

‘I never thought that the guy who once hammered with me in Sacramento would become my substitute.’

The Minister of Lands was one of the 30 carpenters who were there when the first settlement was built in Sacramento, and after working for Ortega Construction for many years, he rose to the position of Minister of Lands.

He asked questions without hesitation, as he had already learned from me many times.

“But Your Majesty, if we take the example of Chihuahua City, the area currently under construction is already more than five times the size of the old city center, and it is not certain whether the space will be filled as planned. In this situation, wouldn’t it be wasteful to plan further expansion in advance?”

“It could be wasteful. As you pointed out, the expansion plan may or may not be used, and in addition, advances in technology or changes in various natural, social, and economic conditions may render the previously planned expansion plan useless and require re-planning. However, it is better to accept the possibility of waste than to have the city expand disorderly and without planning, which is called ‘sprawl.’”

“Are you talking about ‘urban sprawl’?”

“Yeah. Just think about the outskirts of Mexico City and the port of Veracruz.”

“Ah… That’s what it means.”

As for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Rodrigo understood immediately.

When we think of urban sprawl, we tend to think of the image of America’s massive single-family housing complexes “spreading out” around city centers, but this term refers to all unplanned urban expansion, including that.

“Sprawl is a phenomenon that we must be wary of more than the various wastes you are concerned about. Since it is developed without any plan, numerous problems such as the environment, transportation, land use efficiency, and economic imbalance are not considered. And the biggest problem is that it is really difficult to redevelop land that has been developed in this way so that it can be used efficiently again.”

“Well… I guess so. There must be people who actually live there.”

“That’s right. That’s why in Mexico City and Veracruz now you have to get a permit to build a building.”

Now that industrialization is underway, it may already be considered pretentious. In fact, sprawl began with the full-scale spread of automobiles in the mid-20th century.

The problem is that it is very difficult to redevelop a place that has been developed without a plan. Not only in Korea but also in advanced countries, there are many places in important locations that have been developed without a plan and inefficiently, and it is not easy to redevelop such places. Even in important locations, there are places that have been given up on by the government because various problems are complicatedly intertwined.

Although it is not a serious phenomenon, it is true that sprawl is still occurring, and there is no reason for modern people who are aware of its side effects not to be wary of it.

All that’s needed is to establish a city expansion plan and encourage expansion accordingly, so the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport needs more manpower. But our government is not short on money, so it can more than afford to do that.

‘Just because the country is large doesn’t mean we can develop it haphazardly.’

As a crown prince and a civil engineer in my past life, the country I want to create is not simply a hegemony where Mexico takes the place of the United States.

It makes sense to create a country that is safer, healthier, more efficient, and more beautiful than the United States.

I was a civil engineer, and the only thing I know about urban planning is the theory I learned in my previous college years when all the architecture-related departments were merged, but where was that?

In this day and age, this is knowledge that you can’t learn even if you pay a billion dollars. I have to teach them as much as I can before they forget any more.

***

“Your Majesty, I have a report that preparations will be completed soon.”

Colonel Ricardo reported. It was an important story, so he came in person.

This is something that has been prepared with a lot of budget and manpower over the past few years.

The second place to experience a revolution after France is Haiti.

“Can you guide us in the direction of joining Mexico?”

“Yes, we have been working steadily in Haiti as well, and especially in the former Spanish colonial areas where there is a great deal of discontent with the rule of Haiti, the situation is so bad that even a spark could explode.”

It was a story about the people of the eastern part of Hispaniola, the former Dominican Republic. For a long time, the western part of the island was a French colony, and the eastern part was a Spanish colony, but in 1795, with the Treaty of Basel, Spain ceded the eastern part of Hispaniola to France.

Haiti’s independence was centered on the western part of the island of Hispaniola. The eastern part remained politically unstable for several years after independence, and the Haitian government had no real control over the eastern part.

The real change came in 1821, when the eastern part of the island declared independence and formed a self-governing government, but this ended in 1822 when Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer occupied the eastern part with the goal of unifying the entire island.

For over twenty years, we had been under Haitian rule, and resentment had been building up, and it was soon to explode in a way that would be very advantageous to our Mexican Empire.