Chapter Nine: The First eting
Translator: 549690339
A sliver of morning sunlight pierced through the leaves outside the window, striking the glass of the room, and then reflecting into Arthur’s eyes.
Arthur, unaccustod to it, reached a hand to shield himself from the naughty light beam, but found himself unable to completely block it.
After a while, Arthur finally opened his eyes slowly as his brain suddenly jolted awake. He sat up abruptly, and looking up at the clock on the wall, he realized it was already past seven in the morning.
“Shoot, it’s almost eight o’clock. Let’s hope I can make it to the eting,” Arthur muttered whilst not dallying, and hurriedly got dressed.
Traditionally, Arthur’s all daily routines should be taken care of by his servants, but Arthur was not all that comfortable with the brutish idea of having soone else dress him, so he chose to do so by himself.
After a rushed wash and refreshing, it was already over ten minutes later when he finally managed to make his exit.
Stepping outside, the two guards at the door imdiately saluted Arthur respectfully: “Good morning, Your Highness!”
“Morning, the Pri Ministers did not co looking for , did they?” Arthur inquired.
Today was April 29th, the third day after Arthur and his entourage arrived in Australia.
According to the arrangent made by Arthur and the pri ministers, a preliminary eting about the detailed system of the Australian Principality would be convened at eight o’clock this morning in order to better improve the country’s system.
It’s getting closer to eight o’clock, and Arthur certainly didn’t want to be late to their first eting.
As Monarch, even if Arthur was late, no one would say anything, but being new in his position, Arthur still wanted to leave a good impression on his subordinates and the residents of the colony.
“Not at all, Your Highness,” The guard replied.
Phew!
Arthur sighed in relief and headed downstairs to the eting room.
In his two days visit to Australia, Arthur managed to take a brief tour of the Administrative Building and the nearby city of Sydney.
At present, sleeping in Australia, or New South Wales, gives Arthur initial impressions of tradition and backwardness.
Due to the main sources of inco primarily from mining and agriculture, and significant revenue previously required to be sent back to the British mainland, the economic conditions in these colonies were not particularly good, resulting in low earnings for the colony residents.
Overall, Australia is currently in a phase of reconstruction. However, having gained independence as a new Duchy, the economic conditions would surely improve drastically.
Entering the eting room, the six pri ministers had already been waiting for quite a while.
“Good Morning, Your Highness.” The gathered crowd greeted politely.
“Yes, let’s not dawdle and get started,” Arthur declared after taking his seat at the head of the table.
“Your Highness, although under orders of Her Majesty the Queen, Australia is nominally a unified and independent country. However, to date, our system is still based on the six large colonies. I think we need to change the colonial system first. I suggest changing the six colonies to six self-governing states and the decision on capital location being determined by voting. We can then form a unified federal governnt accordingly, with us, the pri ministers, becoming governors of the new self-governing states, responsible primarily to Your Highness.” New South Wales Pri Minister Evan suggested.
Having previously drafted the federal committee act, Pri Minister Evan has a clear understanding of the present situation in Australia.
The current biggest problem in Australia is that the colonies are each self-governing and do not interfere with each other. Although it is nominally unified into a single country, it actually acts more like six independent countries.
“On this matter, do any of the other Pri Ministers have any thoughts?” Arthur turned to look at the other people, smiling as he asked.
Pri Minister Evan’s suggestion is essentially equivalent to Australia’s historical progression of establishing a federal governnt with nurous self-governing states.
The advantage of this is that it allows the formation of a unified federal governnt with the least alterations while the power in the hands of the Colonial Pri Ministers remains unchanged, only the title has been altered to that of governor.
Perhaps due to the consensus reached by all the colonies in the previous federal committee, no Pri Minister had any other suggestions at this ti.
“I believe, establishing a unified governnt as soon as possible is crucial.” Seeing that nobody was speaking, Arthur chuckled, “However, the structure of the governnt still requires careful deliberation.”
“In my perception, Australia used to consist of you six major colonies, which governed themselves without interfering with each other. But now, as it forms a single unified country, the denomination of ‘colony’ should indeed be abolished,” Arthur stated, looking at Evan and laughed, “Pri Minister Evan’s suggestion is excellent, I agree that the six colonies should be renad to six states, with unchanged nas and capitals, but all unified under the responsibility of a new national governnt.”
“As to whether the newly established states should be granted autonomy, in my opinion, each state should only be responsible for its own state affairs. Defense and other affairs should be managed by a unified national governnt. What do you all think?” Arthur looked at them all and laughed.
“Your Highness, might I ask about how you envision the electoral system of the new governnt? Would it be following the system of the British Empire?” Pri Minister Evan asked cautiously.
If one could na a representative of a constitutional monarchy, then the British Empire would absolutely claim the top spot.
As one of the first countries to implent a constitutional monarchy, the British Empire rapidly beca a world-dominating power with the help of the Industrial Revolution.
The advanced system of the British Empire contributed a lot to this, and this was the reason for Evan’s previous query.
“It’s undeniable that the British Empire’s system was inherently advanced. However, every country has its own national conditions, and we cannot simply copy and paste. But there are many aspects we can refer to. I plan to establish the Houses of Parliant, having Lower House mbers elected by each state, allocating seats according to the proportion of the population,” Arthur spoke, smiling, “The Upper House will contain mbers of the royal family and nominees appointed by along with elected Lower House mbers. The Lower House would responsible for proposing laws, electing cabinet mbers, etc., while the Upper House will be responsible for reviewing the proposed laws of the Lower House, examining the elected cabinet mbers, supervising officials, etc. The Houses of Parliant should be among the most important administrative organizations of our country, so the election of mbers must be handled carefully.”
The Upper and Lower House system Arthur proposed was quite similar to the British system; the Lower House governed by political parties and common people, the Upper House controlled by the Monarch.
Even though the Lower House has the power to propose and and laws and elect cabinet mbers, the Upper House will always have the final say.
Without approval from the Upper House, everything proposed or elected by the Lower House can be declared void, serving as one of Arthur’s trump cards.
According to Arthur’s plan, the future Upper and Lower Houses would essentially land under Arthur’s jurisdiction, Cabinet mbers may also be replaced with those loyal to Arthur.
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