Chapter 259 The candidate for the new position was determined
. In the days that followed, Arthur successively summoned the bishops of the churches of Australia and New Zealand, and sent telegrams to inquire for the opinions of the General Association of the Protestant Churches in England. He then announced the establishment of the General Association of the Australasian Protestant Church and established Title of Archbishop of Australasia.
The Archbishop of Australasia is first of all a clerical title. He is also the Archbishop of the Australasian Protestant Church, coordinating the management of all Australasian Protestant believers.
It is therefore the highest point in the Australasian priesthood and the position to which all Australasian Protestant bishops dream.
The first Archbishop of Australasia was Steed Malbranck, an Archbishop from the British Protestant Council.
If all goes well, Archbishop Steed will come to Australasia to take office in early July and become the first Archbishop of Australasia.
Of course, in exchange for benefits, the Australasian Protestant Association would separate from the British Protestant Association and become an independent Kingdom Protestant Church.
The resident church of the Archbishop of Australasia is Victoria Cathedral in central Sydney. This church has a history of hundreds of years. It is currently the oldest and largest church in Australasia and the church with the most believers.
In order to show his support for the church, Arthur smiled and announced that he would donate 500,000 Australian dollars to the church for various church constructions, and privately donated 100,000 Australian dollars to the Victoria Cathedral to help with the church's maintenance and construction.
After Australasia has its own independent Protestant church, it will be more convenient for Arthur to rule in Australasia.
At least in the future, the royal family only needs to invite the bishop of Australasia for various activities, and there is no need to go to England to personally invite the bishop.
Arthur's construction of the church also aroused the favor of some loyal believers. In addition, Arthur was open to Christianity as a whole, so the establishment of the Protestant church did not affect the arrival of other European immigrants.
In early July, Steed officially arrived at Sydney Port. Arthur also personally received Steed and personally conferred the position of Archbishop Steed, Bishop of Victoria.
Archbishop Steed's attitude towards Arthur was also very deferential. After all, he knew who his archbishop position came from, and he also knew that this was not an era like the Middle Ages where divine power was greater than royal power.
Within a few days, at the suggestion of Minister Grant, Arthur invited Archbishop Steed to co-found the Victoria Language School, with the purpose of helping immigrants coming to Australasia quickly master the English language.
Although the British Empire is currently the world's leading power, this does not prevent most ordinary people in Europe from not knowing the English language.
It's okay if they are immigrants from Western Europe, but immigrants from Russia basically don't know anything about English.
Most of them are the lower class people in Russia. If they can master English proficiently, it will be a ghost.
But Australasia is, after all, a country dominated by British people. The official religion is Protestant and the official language is English.
This also means that these people who are not proficient in English must master communicative English in a short time so that they can better live in Australasian society.
With the increasing number of immigrants from Russia, the problem that many people do not know English has become apparent.
This was also the original intention of Arthur and Archbishop Steed in establishing a language school, which was to allow these Russians to better adapt to life in Australasia.
As for getting the church involved, that was Archbishop Steed's request. As for the reason, Arthur didn't need to think about it. The newly-appointed archbishop had already begun to plan for missionary matters.
However, this is also a good thing for the unification of Australasia, so it is natural for church forces to participate.
At the same time, the election for the House of Representatives is also in progress.
As time enters July, the votes of each state are also unified to the state government for statistical review. This will be a 20-day counting period. After that, each state will report the final election results to the government and Arthur. After the review is correct, announced to the outside world.
This is the most unsettling time for some candidates. Because I was busy with the campaign, although I felt nervous, I wasn't that uneasy.
But now that I'm free all of a sudden, all kinds of psychological troubles make people feel even more panicked.
Fortunately, time passed quickly. On July 21, 1908, as the last state reported its statistical results to the government and Arthur, the vote counting process officially ended.
Next will be a four-day period of random checks. If it is determined that there are basically no problems with the votes in each state, then the list of candidates for the new House of Representatives will basically be determined.
First, all cabinet ministers, without exception, won seats in the House of Representatives.
This is actually acquiescence. After all, they have reached the top of the government, and it is impossible that they cannot even get a small position as a member of the House of Representatives.
It is worth mentioning that not only the current ministers of the cabinet, but also the former Prime Minister Evan and several previous ministers have all won seats in the House of Representatives, which also means that they are likely to attack the cabinet seats again. After randomly checking the reported data of several states, on July 25, 1908, the Australasian government and the royal family jointly announced the list of members of the new House of Representatives and requested that the House of Representatives elect a speaker as soon as possible to join the cabinet government.
This is a direct way to create a cabinet member, and it is also the most promising opportunity for all members to enter the cabinet government.
However, things will definitely not develop as these members thought. The person who finally won the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives was Prime Minister Evan, who had already accumulated huge reputation in the previous two governments.
Of course, a more appropriate title at this time would be Sir Evan.
As the first two Prime Ministers of the government, and was personally given a knighthood by Arthur, Sir Evan has the highest reputation among many members. The position of Speaker, which requires a lot of prestige to preside over the work of the House of Representatives, naturally falls in it. into the hands of Sir Evan.
However, it is obvious that Sir Evan also has a plan, otherwise it would be quite possible for the major political parties to obtain the position of speaker.
In fact, this is normal. Although he is the first two Prime Ministers, Sir Evan has been away from politics for more than a year, and the next cabinet government election will even be three years away.
Seeing that Australasia is developing more and more smoothly, the current Prime Minister Walter and many ministers are also accumulating their reputation.
Sir Evan may not be successful if he directly participates in the next election. After all, even if Sir Evan successfully obtains the position of Prime Minister, it is basically impossible to be re-elected.
This is because under Australasia's constitution, the prime minister can serve a maximum of two terms and a maximum of three terms.
If Sir Evan is elected, it will also be his third term as Prime Minister, and re-election is impossible unless Arthur personally orders it.
Under such circumstances, should we make friends with the Prime Minister who can be re-elected, or with Sir Evan who cannot be re-elected? This is a good question.
Now that he can enter the cabinet again through other means, and continue to accumulate his reputation like others, this will undoubtedly increase the possibility of Sir Evan being prime minister again.
It is worth mentioning that on the day he was successfully elected as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sir Evan or Speaker Evan first asked to see Arthur. After having a close and pleasant chat with Arthur for a long time, he went to the cabinet to see him. of old friends.
No matter what everyone's inner thoughts are, the meeting between the cabinet and government was still very pleasant. Speaker Evan’s old subordinates also expressed their congratulations and welcome to Speaker Evan, and congratulated him on joining the cabinet government again.
Now that the elections to the House of Representatives have been completed, it is time to fill up the remaining cabinet seats.
On August 3, Arthur nominated candidates for the Justice and Minister of State to the House of Representatives. After three days of election and discussion, the final candidate for Justice was determined to be Gerry Harris, and the final candidate for Minister of State was Kent.
Yes, none other than Defense Secretary Kent. Because the Minister of State is a higher level than the Minister of Defense, Kent is also eligible to run.
However, after being elected as Minister of State, the position of Minister of Defense became vacant. Arthur then nominated three military personnel to allow the House of Representatives to hold elections again.
The final new Minister of Defense was also elected, Raul Plange, the former commander of the Guards Division.
At this time, basically all the members of the reformed cabinet have been confirmed, except for the minister of royal affairs directly appointed by Arthur.
But this is a private matter of the royal family after all, so no one mentioned it.
The specific positions of the current Australasian cabinet government are: Chief Minister (Prime Minister) Walter, Minister of State (Deputy Prime Minister) Kent, Archbishop Steed, Justice Gerry, Speaker of the House of Representatives Evan, Foreign Secretary Andrew, Minister of Education Li Chad, Minister of Industry Pierre, Minister of Public Security Thomas, Minister of Livelihood Henris, Minister of Agriculture Mark, Minister of Transport Lauren, Minister of Health Willie, Minister of Finance Roger, and Minister of Defense Raul.
Although the number of seats in the cabinet government has been expanded, the actual changes have not been significant. With the exception of Defense Secretary Kent becoming Minister of State and Guards Division Commander Raul becoming Secretary of Defense, most of the other newly added positions are relatively independent, such as Archbishop, Chancellor and Speaker of the House of Representatives.
These positions have little impact on the daily handling of government affairs by the cabinet government. What they do in the cabinet government is more of voting rights in cabinet meetings.
The only possible impact on Cabinet government was Kent's position as Secretary of State. This is a veritable deputy prime minister, but because he is an acquaintance of the cabinet ministers, and Kent usually keeps a low profile, he did not cause much uneasiness and turmoil to the cabinet government.
Starting from the time when the candidates for the new positions were basically determined on August 5, Arthur gave the new cabinet members two weeks to deal with their respective affairs. Two weeks later, on August 20, a cabinet meeting was held to determine the new positions. The goals and specific division of responsibilities of the cabinet also require a formal meeting with all members.
This comes as a relief to those in the new positions. After all, this is a new position for Australasia and it will take them some time to define their responsibilities and collective message.
If a cabinet meeting is held immediately, I'm afraid they will only be able to ask questions about some things, and then the meeting will be useless.
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