Chapter 495: Many children, many blessings

Time passes quickly, especially for a busy person. June also passed quickly amid the busy schedule of running back and forth between the Administrative Office of the Royal Arthur Palace, meeting with governors of various colonies from time to time, and going to inspect territories.

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

The first two pregnancies gave Arthur two sons, William and Peter, and Princess Anna. As for this pregnancy, Arthur, both male and female, can accept it. After all, having more children brings blessings, and the prosperity of the royal family also includes continued heirs.

Australasia does not have any birth control policy. The government even encourages all people to have children actively. It is common for a family to have three or four children.

This has also led to the annual birth population in Australasia being more than 500,000, and people's desire to have children is still very strong.

In order to encourage more people to actively have children, under Arthur's order, Australasia enacted many policies to encourage childbirth.

With two or more children, each additional child can receive a subsidy of AU$8 per year, and tuition fees are exempted for all children in the family.

The Australasian government will also count the families with the largest number of children. If you have more than five children, you will receive a certificate of "Glorious Mother" issued by the government.

Although this certificate does not bring any practical benefits, after all, it was issued by the national government personally, and it also contains Arthur's encouragement to such a heroic mother. It is still very attractive to Australasians.

According to government statistics, more than 8,000 women have received the title of "Glorious Mother" promulgated by the government, which is the guarantee for Australasia's high fertility rate.

The way to increase the fertility rate is very simple. If people live a good and happy life, they will have enough mood and time to have children.

If the people themselves don’t have enough to eat, don’t have enough clothes to wear, and face high financial and debt pressures, wouldn’t they still suffer the consequences even if they give birth to children?

Because Arthur understood this, he issued an order to the government to reduce the burden on families with a large number of infants and young children, including education and medical care.

Australasia even has the highest fertility reward. 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 exempted.

Don’t underestimate the tuition and fees. If you have ten children and all of them graduate from high school, the tuition and fees will start at least A$200 per child.

The tuition and miscellaneous fees for ten people are at least 2,000 Australian dollars, and this is still subject to government policy exemptions.

If all these tuition fees can be waived, it will definitely reduce a large burden on families with multiple children.

Although there are currently no more than 1,000 households in Australasia receiving this benefit, the people maintain a welcoming attitude towards business, and an increase in the number of people is inevitable.

In order to increase the population's fertility rate, Arthur implemented far more policies than these. In the streets of Australasia, it is easy to find slogans promoting fertility.

There are even many movies that more or less promote the idea of ​​more children, more children, more happiness, and influence Australasians in various ways.

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

Australasian Protestantism is the largest religion in Australasia and has a huge influence on Australasians.

It is precisely because of this doctrine that the number of abortions in Australasia is limited to a very small range, and many hospitals have no abortion business at all.

For Australasia, the growth of the native population is definitely more exciting than the growth of immigrants.

In order to maintain the main ethnic group, that is, the population of British immigrants, Australasia has been desperately attracting immigrants from the United Kingdom, but it still cannot match the speed of the arrival of Russian immigrants.

It would also be a good approach if we could start from the perspective of the fertility rate of the dominant ethnic group and increase the fertility rate of the dominant ethnic group, thus increasing the number of the dominant ethnic group.

Even those who have foresight say that the population born now will reach adulthood around 1937, and it is not impossible to catch up with the tail end of World War II.

The greater the population of Australasia, the greater its potential and combat effectiveness in World War II.

Before the population reaches 50 million, it is still very difficult to develop into a superpower.

Even the most complete industrial system and industrial chain requires a sufficient population to support it.

It is not even an exaggeration to say that an industrial power must also have a supporting market. If there is no market, a simple economic crisis may turn a country from prosperity to decline, or even gradually lead to destruction.

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

Even during his busy schedule, Arthur would occasionally check on the study 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 had high hopes for Prince William, and Prince William did live up to Arthur's hopes.

Arthur also experienced the hard work of exam-oriented education in later generations. Not only was he forced to learn some messy knowledge that was never used in life, but he also had to rely on the results of this knowledge to determine a person's destiny.

It was indeed very hard, but compared with the education that Prince William received, where the elite were aristocrats, Arthur felt that the education in later generations was still a bit easy.

But this is just an example, after all, the environment in Australasia is not so strict.

The education that Prince William and Prince Peter experienced was rigorous simply because they were princes of Australasia and important members and rulers of their country in the future.

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

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

Because of this, the two princes and one princess still do not have any titles. Their real titles will not be enfeoffed until they reach adulthood in the future, but at least they will be the dukes of the country.

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

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

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

But now it is just a kingdom. The Duke is destined to be the highest title of nobility that can be enfeoffed in the kingdom, and it is extremely difficult for ordinary people to obtain the title of Duke. Even Arthur has no intention of enfeoffing a duke from a commoner in his lifetime.

This is actually because Europeans value bloodlines. Fortunately, for a country like Australasia, which has a clear military knighthood system, it is still very possible for ordinary people to become nobles.

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

That is to say, Australasia originally lacked a noble class. Apart from the royal family, they were basically civilian enfeoffed nobles, so there was no such bloodline discrimination.

There is another very important prerequisite for ensuring fertility, which is to protect people’s income.

To put it bluntly, the fertility rate is easy to control. It just depends on whether the country's top leaders are willing and want to control it.

Although this is a relatively dark era, the birth rate of various countries in this era is still very high, generally staying at around 3% to 4%, and the world's population is still growing very rapidly.

But if you look at some regions in Europe, especially Western Europe and Northern Europe, you can actually see traces of a decline in the birth rate.

Why is the birth rate declining? In fact, the 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, the oppression of workers and civilians by capitalists is getting higher and higher.

In addition, the protection of human rights in this era is still relatively fragile, and many pregnant women have to continue working despite their heavy belly, otherwise they risk losing their jobs.

Don't look down on these capitalists. To them, it doesn't matter whether a pregnant woman has a miscarriage, but if there is a lack of people to work, the factory's profits will be reduced.

Losing a job can be devastating to a family. Civilians in this era don't have much savings. After all, the factories of the major powers a few decades ago were all concentration camps for exploitation. It was good to have a small meal, so how could it be possible for workers to accumulate enough income.

Of course, there is another very important point, that is, some factories cause huge harm to people.

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

Some harmful substances cause some people to lose the ability to have children, 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 redress their grievances.

When the civilian class of a country has a sharply reduced fertility rate due to various types of exploitation, it is not the fault of the people, but the fault of the capitalists and the governments that support the capitalists, such as some European countries that are gradually developing.

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