Chapter 254
After the London Games meeting, Arthur summoned Minister Grant again and asked about the current work of the Propaganda Department.
For Australasia, there is another more important event that needs to be added, and that is the 1908 London Olympics held in London, England, at the end of April.
Since the birth of the Olympic Games, it has been successfully held for three times. According to historical data, 22 countries signed up to participate in the 1908 London Olympics, and the number of athletes participating in the Olympics was as high as 2,000.
This means that countries around the world have gradually begun to pay attention to the Olympics as a stage where national strength can be demonstrated through peaceful means. No country in the world wants to lose face on such an occasion.
It is worth mentioning that New Zealand, historically, also participated in the Olympics as part of Australasia.
Australasia did not participate in the last Olympic Games. After all, the scale of the Olympic Games was not too big at that time. In addition, the sports level of Australasia was not too high at that time. If it went, it would only be at the bottom. It was really unnecessary.
It is still necessary to participate in this London Olympics. After all, there are many countries and participating athletes, and it would be good for Australasia to have an appropriate appearance.
More importantly, Arthur wants to host the next Olympics in Australia.
The next Olympic Games will be held in 1912, and Australasia's development will definitely reach another level.
At that time, the army and navy construction had already reached a large scale, and it was time to announce the existence of Australasia to the outside world.
The 1902 Games were originally scheduled to be held in Germany, but because the president of the German Olympic Committee died suddenly of illness in May 1909, Germany gave up the right to host the games and instead moved the games to Sweden.
This is somewhat similar to the experience of this year's 1908 Olympic Games. This year's Olympic Games were originally scheduled to be held in Rome, Italy, but Italy ultimately gave up the right to host it because of numerous earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that caused huge losses to the Italian economy.
In order to keep the Olympic Games as scheduled, the International Olympic Committee asked the United Kingdom for help, and finally the Olympic Games were held in London.
It can also be seen from such incidents that major countries do not attach that great importance to the Olympic Games. To put it bluntly, each country only cares about its own reputation, not the number of medals won in the Olympic Games.
Currently, the Olympic sports include track and field, swimming, water polo, fencing, gymnastics, rowing, cycling, football, Greco-Roman wrestling, tennis and shooting.
Arthur's purpose in summoning Minister Grant was to allow him to quickly form an Olympic team at home, and then rush to London before the Olympics on April 27 to participate on time.
The purpose of participating in the Olympics this time is just to show off, and the number of medals won is not important.
As long as the International Olympic Committee can be made aware of the existence of Australasia, and rely on its relationship with Germany to successfully take over after Germany gives up the hosting rights in the future, then the purpose of going to London this time will be successfully achieved.
The number of participants in the London Olympics was more than the previous three Olympics combined. Of course, this was also because the host country, the United Kingdom, sent the largest participating team of more than 700 people.
You know, in this Olympics, the total number of participating athletes was only a little over 2,000, and more than one-third of them were sent by Britain itself.
In the final analysis, Australasia's functional departments are too rudimentary, and there is no real sports department to manage these things.
Therefore, the task of participating in the Olympic Games was also assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to be precise, the propaganda department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After discussions with Minister Grant, the approximate number of Australasian participants in the Games was finally determined, with a maximum of no more than fifty. The current awareness of competitive sports in Australasia is still very weak. It is better to select elite teams to participate than to form a large participating team.
As for the specific events, it depends on what the athletes recruited later are good at.
After giving simple instructions, Arthur encouraged Minister Grant's work in the Propaganda Department, asking Minister Grant to not forget to continue to supervise the Propaganda Department's actions at home and abroad while preparing for the Olympics.
As time enters early April, the Australasian House of Representatives election has begun to warm up across the country.
Unlike the cabinet election, the election of the House of Representatives can be regarded as a real national election. All legal citizens who are over 18 years old and have lived in Australasia for more than five years have the right to vote.
Of course, the right to be elected is more stringent. In addition to these conditions, you must have lived in Australasia for an additional ten years, and you and your family must have never violated any laws in Australasia.
Walking on the streets of Australasia, you can hear people from various professions discussing this House of Representatives election at any time.
The development of political parties is also becoming more and more formalized, which also means that the game between political parties in the House of Representatives is becoming increasingly fierce.
Because this kind of game and competition has no impact on the rule of the royal family and the government, this kind of competition using peaceful and fair means is allowed.
Anyway, there are only so many seats in the House of Representatives. If you want to get more seats and more public support, you must defeat other political parties. At least your public speeches must be more reasonable and more able to impress people than other political parties.
According to the election regulations, although the election has not yet started, people with the right to be elected can already organize public speeches on their own.
There is only one requirement, and that is that public speeches must use party activity funds, and personal speeches must use personal or family property.
Of course, these public speeches will basically be supervised by the Propaganda Department and are not allowed to spread information that may harm the government and royal rule.
However, most people do not have the courage. After all, the rule of the royal family is very stable, and the rule of the government whose power comes from the royal family is naturally very stable.
As an autocratic monarch, Arthur naturally could not enjoy the leisure time of European monarchs.
Although the cabinet government can handle most government affairs, only Arthur has the decision-making power on some more important matters, and others only have the right to make suggestions.
Especially when it comes to military power and finance, everything basically requires Arthur's intervention.
But there is also good news. Although the government does not have the right to make decisions, the government will generally make suggestions in advance for such news, and Arthur only needs to choose to adopt or modify it.
For the government's undecided decisions, holding a cabinet meeting every once in a while can basically resolve these matters quickly.
Therefore, this is also the reason why Arthur was able to obtain a certain amount of free time while mastering a large amount of power and achieving autocratic rule.
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(End of chapter)