It turns out that Prime Minister Prim dared to put forth such an ambitious five-year development plan, having considered it realistically and prepared sufficiently for contingencies.

In 1873, the Spanish Government’s total financial expenditure for the year soared to 743.3 million Pesseta. Since the Spanish Revolution, the Spanish Government had not faced such high financial expenditures.

However, compared to this year’s total financial budget, 743.3 million Pesseta is not considered a large amount.

Because this year, the total government fiscal budget is as high as 897.2 million Pesseta, an increase of more than 150 million from last year.

Such ample fiscal budget indeed instantly alleviated the worries of Cabinet Ministers and made the ministers of the second Cabinet Government sufficiently optimistic about completing the second five-year development plan.

Under Prime Minister Prim’s insistence, the House of Representatives swiftly passed the 1874 fiscal budget submitted by the Cabinet Government. However, this has not quelled public discussion about this budget, because such high fiscal expenditure is almost double the annual fiscal expenditure during the first five-year plan period.

For the Spanish Government, this can absolutely be considered a gamble. If this nearly 9 billion Pesseta fiscal expenditure does indeed bring more returns, then the public will naturally cheer.

But if the nearly 9 billion Pesseta fiscal expenditure does not yield any good effects, there will certainly be various doubts aimed at Prime Minister Prim.

What is Prime Minister Prim’s confidence for such a bold expansion of the government’s fiscal budget?

It is, of course, derived from the various enterprises and equipment purchased at low prices from different countries, including the technical documentation, production data, and skilled workers from these companies.

Don’t be fooled by the Spanish Government’s apparent continual digging for excellent engineers and researchers; behind the scenes, it is continuously absorbing employees from these acquired companies to move to Spain.

The effect of one or two skilled workers may be negligible, but what if there are hundreds or even thousands? Concentrated in any one factory, these skilled workers can extremely effectively enhance that factory’s production experience and productivity.

For some existing Spanish factories, what they currently lack most are workers possessing such production experience and superior technical skills.

To attract these excellent skilled workers, Spain has offered extremely lucrative conditions. These include providing a three-year free housing scheme to the workers and their families, offering new jobs with income higher than their previous positions, and ensuring their families’ medical and educational conditions, among others.

In normal times, such conditions offer considerable allure, let alone when countries are deeply mired in an economic crisis.

Facing Spain’s high-profile talent acquisition policy, perhaps the most uncomfortable is Spain’s neighbor, Portugal.

Since other countries’ talents still need to consider language issues, Portuguese people basically need not worry. Portuguese and Spanish can be used for short exchanges; understanding Spanish poses no problem for Portuguese people.

These two languages are almost like dialects of two adjacent regions in later generations—they have slight differences but do not hinder mutual communication and exchange.

Although Portugal is less affected by the economic crisis, it depends on who it is compared to. Spain, except for import and export, is hardly affected by the economic crisis.

On the contrary, due to the various domestic developments and grand projects in Spain, not only has the unemployment population decreased significantly, but there are also many positions with not-so-low income urgently needing experienced employees.

In 1873 alone, Spain attracted nearly 10,000 people from Portugal. Among them were a few researchers and senior engineers, while the majority were workers and other talents possessing certain technical skills.

As long as the economic crisis lasts, the situation of Spain absorbing population from Portugal will not change. This is certainly advantageous to Spain but not so great for Portugal.

However, the Portuguese Government currently has no solution, as Spain, despite seemingly taking advantage of others’ plight, has not violated any country’s laws.

Obviously, within this era, no legal system can restrain any country. Only powerful strength can achieve that, while other treaties and laws are mere empty talk.

Last year, Spain spent little on talent acquisition and purchasing foreign enterprises; only 130.6 million Pesseta was expended.

Of course, the main reason is that the economic crisis erupted mid-year, yielding less than half a year for purchasing enterprises and attracting talent.

This signifies that 1874 will be an extremely crucial year. It is the second year after the economic crisis and a full year. The government must complete the enterprise purchasing plans established last year and absorb sufficient technical talents, senior engineers, and researchers within this year.

If another year passes, countries will have gained control to some degree over the economic crisis, and purchasing enterprises or absorbing talent will no longer be so easy.

Because of this, this year’s so-called foreign action budget reaches as high as 270 million Pesseta. If combined with last year’s budget, the total expense on purchasing enterprises and absorbing talent will exceed 400 million Pesseta, with approximately 300 million Pesseta spent on purchasing enterprises and around 100 million Pesseta on absorbing talent, which differs little from previous estimates.