Chapter 345

On October 5, 1867, a poll found that King William IV surpassed his father William III and his grandfather William II to be tied with his great-grandfather William I as the greatest king.

To this end, the Dutch House of Representatives invited him to give a speech. William IV naturally did not refuse.

In the eyes of many Dutch people, a king who refuses an invitation to his own parliament is definitely not a competent king.

So people began to discuss the transcripts of William IV in the past six years since he became the Dutch throne on December 1, 1861.

They found that, just after he took the throne, William IV launched a series of democratic reform measures, including supporting the construction of Dutch newspapers, allowing everyone to comment on the cabinet government and the royal family.

William IV even publicly stated that, in his view, allowing the people to speak their minds and improving their intelligence is the window for the rise of the Netherlands. "

At that time, when the policy was announced, it attracted a positive response from the entire Dutch parliament building.

William IV therefore won a lot of support from the MPs.

It has to be said that this reform of William IV has aroused the feelings of the members present at the time. For the members, is there anything more appetizing to them than the reform of William IV?

William IV formulated a policy to make the work of the Dutch government orderly, and the power must be concentrated in a person who can flexibly use various powers within the scope of limited rights, and can act decisively when encountering problems. on people. Therefore, he wants to start with the government's work order to rectify.

He worked with Prime Minister Tolbek to formulate a work order: all documents approved by the Prime Minister will be handed over to various departments for processing after being signed by the Prime Minister. Hand over to subordinates to implement.

Especially important issues are discussed at a meeting before implementation.

In order to deal with things more quickly and efficiently, he abolished some cumbersome etiquette for receiving foreign guests, and also asked to be as simple and simple as possible in dressing.

In addition, the annual Congress opening and speeches were cancelled, and replaced by instruments. At the same time, many official residences were opened every morning for tourists to visit.

For ordinary people, William IV was a king who sought welfare for them. William IV was very concerned about the living conditions of ordinary people. He advocated economical ways to replace taxation. He also advocated expanding the suffrage of white men.

In places like the Dutch mainland and Suriname, he abolished property restrictions for voters.

He also announced that it will be implemented in the Far East in the future.

In order to successfully integrate all races of color in the Far East into the Netherlands and completely solve the problem of interference and anger in the trade, William IV promulgated the "Slave Trade Prohibition Decree" in 1862, which enabled the Dutch Constitution to set April 1, 1862 as the deadline for slave trade. Realization, although this Constitutional Amendment Act was not interfered and obstructed by domestic supporters of the slave system, it was successfully passed and implemented, and the slave system was legally restricted.

This also makes the management of the Netherlands in the Far East easier after that.

William IV also made some adjustments to the Dutch land policy. After 1858, the Dutch Land Law led by William III raised land prices, which caused an uproar at the time. After he succeeded to the throne in 1861, William IV supported the Netherlands in order to quell public criticism. Congress enacted a new land policy that lowered the minimum purchase amount per person from 100 acres to 50 acres. Some credit purchases with insufficient funds are also allowed, but the unit price of the land remains at the original price.

This is a major benefit for the Dutch folks and for the lower-level people. So William IV received enormous support.

In addition to the native land, William IV also encouraged the development of the Far East. From the first half of 1862, he formulated the Far East Land Law, which stipulated that the minimum amount of land purchased by each person was reduced to 50 acres at a time, and he also gave 100 acres as a gift. The price is less than half of the local price. These preferential policies caused a large number of Dutch natives to flock to new areas in the Far East, and the Eastward Movement began.

In 1863, William IV supported the parliament to promulgate a new land law, which gave preferential treatment to those who purchased land on credit and extended the final repayment date by 5 years. William IV's land policy received good results. The month began to increase from 67,000 acres to 3.5 million acres in 1866. Among them, the Far East accounted for 3.2 million acres, and Australia accounted for 2.8 million acres.

Another democratization reform of William IV was to abolish the destructive-human-rights decree started by William I, so that in 1862 William IV formulated the "Naturalization Law". People who have lived for the 15th anniversary are treated as nationality, that is to say, they are opposed to most people who have this intention... No matter who they are, as long as they show the sincerity that they are willing to share the same destiny with us forever, it is not OK. Do you really qualify as a citizen?"

Therefore, after William IV re-edited the "Naturalization Law" and promulgated, it stipulated that as long as foreign residents lived on the land of the Netherlands for 5 years~www.mtlnovel.com~, they could automatically apply for Dutch nationality. This policy was formulated by William IV for a long time. After all, the population of the Netherlands is there. If it does not absorb the international population, how can it confront and rise with the great powers.

In addition to these, William IV implemented a series of measures at home that helped to consolidate and develop the kingdom. Taken together, these measures can be divided into two categories, protection regimes on the one hand and domestic reforms on the other.

As far as the protection system is concerned, it is mainly through the means of raising tariffs to protect some domestic industries that have just started. As early as 1855, the Dutch Parliament passed the Protection Measures Act to increase the tariff rate on textiles and iron products. After William IV succeeded to the throne, he continued to implement this decree, which made the textile industry and steel smelting industry in the Netherlands and the Far East have a favorable space for development, thus promoting the Netherlands' own industrial revolution- ming process.

As for domestic reforms, the Dutch government and capital consortiums jointly funded the establishment of special funds to vigorously develop the public infrastructure in the Netherlands, and actively improve the local and Far East transportation conditions. Expand the two markets.

William IV's requirement that there must be a broad, 30-meter-wide, 5-kilometer-long hardened boulevard in front of every Dutch town hall is a good example of the facilitation.

This move by William IV and parliamentary legislation has caused a wave of Dutch provincial offices and companies stuck building toll roads.

Areas rich in river and lake resources began to vigorously build small canals, which greatly promoted the development of agriculture and transportation.

The improvement of domestic transportation conditions has also promoted the flow of population in the Netherlands, and a large number of immigrants have poured into the Far East of the Netherlands.

This is also in line with the Far East development policy formulated by William IV.