Chapter 290: Chapter 258: Confirming the Candidate for the New Position

In the following days, Arthur met with the bishops of Australia and New Zealand in succession and sent a telegram to inquire about the opinions of the Church of England. He subsequently announced the establishment of the New Protestant Association of Australasia and the creation of the Archbishop of Australasia.

The title of Archbishop of Australasia is primarily a religious one, as well as the head of the Australasian Protestant Church, overseeing all the Protestant faithful in Australasia.

As such, it is the apex of the religious hierarchy in Australasia, and the position that all Australasian Protestant bishops aspire to.

Steed Marlborough, an archbishop from the Church of England’s Protestant Association, was chosen as the first Archbishop of Australasia.

If all goes well, Archbishop Steed will arrive in Australasia in early July to begin his term as the first Archbishop of Australasia.

Of course, in exchange for benefits, the Australasian Protestant Association will separate from the English Protestant Association and become an independent kingdom Protestant church.

The resident church of the Archbishop of Australasia is the Victoria Cathedral in the city center of Sydney. This church has a history of over a hundred years, making it the oldest and largest church in Australasia, as well as the one with the most congregation members.

To demonstrate his support for the church, Arthur announced that he would donate 500,000 Australian dollars to church construction and, in his personal capacity,Donate 100,000 Aussie dollars to Victoria Cathedral to help with maintenance and construction.

With its own independent Protestant Church, Australasia can also make it more convenient for Arthur to rule in Australasia.

At least in the future, the royal family’s activities will only require the invitation of Australasia’s bishops and no longer necessitate the cumbersome journey to England to personally invite the bishops.

Arthur’s attitude towards the construction of the church has also won the goodwill of some loyal believers. Coupled with Arthur’s open and receptive attitude towards Christianity as a whole, the establishment of the Protestant Church did not affect the arrival of other European immigrants.

At the beginning of July, Steed officially arrived at Sydney Harbor, and Arthur personally met with Steed and his entourage, bestowing the position of Archbishop of Victoria on Steed.

Archbishop Steed’s attitude toward Arthur is also very submissive, as he knows who his archbishop status comes from and that this is not an era when divine power is greater than royal power like the Middle Ages.

A few days later, at Minister Grant’s suggestion, Arthur collaborated with Archbishop Steed to establish the Victoria Language School, aiming to help immigrants coming to Australasia quickly learn the English language.

Although the British Empire is currently the undisputed world superpower, this does not prevent the majority of ordinary Europeans from grasping the English language at best.

If they are Western European immigrants, it is better, but Russian immigrants are basically completely inexperienced in English.

Most of them are the lower classes of Russia, and if they could master fluent English, something would be fishy.

But Australasia is after all a country dominated by British descendants, with English as the official language and Protestantism as the official religion.

This also means that these people who are not proficient in English must master conversational English in a short period of time in order to live better in Australasian society.

Currently, with the increasing number of Russian immigrants, the problem of many people not speaking English has emerged.

This is the initial intention of Arthur, partnering with Archbishop Steed to establish language schools to help these Russians adapt better to Australasian life.

As for allowing the church to participate, it was Archbishop Steed’s request. Arthur did not need to think about the reason – the newly-appointed archbishop had already begun plotting the spread of the gospel.

However, this is also a good thing for the unity of Australasia, so it is not wrong to let religious forces participate.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives elections are underway in full swing.

With the arrival of July, the ballots from all states will be unified for review and statistics at the state government level. This is a 20-day period for counting ballots, after which the states will report the final election results to the government and Arthur. These results will be released to the public upon verification of no errors.

This period of time is the most unsettling time for some candidates. While they previously felt tense due to their busy campaign schedules, the sudden lull in activity, coupled with various psychological issues, made them even more anxious.

Fortunately, time passes quickly, and with the last state reporting its statistics on July 21, 1908, the voting statistics phase has come to an official end.

Next will be a four-day period of random checks, and if it is determined that there are no major problems with the votes in each state, the list of candidates for the new House of Representatives will basically be confirmed.

First of all, all cabinet ministers, without exception, have won seats in the House of Representatives.

Actually, it is taken for granted, as they have all reached the highest level of government and should be able to obtain the smaller position of a House of Representatives member.

It is worth mentioning that not only the current cabinet ministers, but also the former Prime Minister Evan and the previous ministers have all obtained seats in the House of Representatives, which means that they are likely to challenge for cabinet seats once again.

After randomly sampling the reported data from several states, on July 25, 1908, the Australasian Government and the Royal Family jointly disclosed 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’s seats.

This is a direct way to give birth to a cabinet member and the best opportunity for all members of the House of Representatives to enter the Cabinet Government.

However, the development of events would definitely not be what these representatives had in mind. In the end, the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives was won by Prime Minister Evan, who had accumulated enormous prestige in the previous two governments.

Of course, at this point, a more appropriate title should be Sir Evan.

As the Prime Minister of the previous two governments and ennobled as a knight by Arthur himself, Sir Evan’s prestige among the many members of parliament was the highest. The position of Speaker, which requires a large amount of prestige to preside over the work of the House of Representatives, naturally fell into the hands of Sir Evan.

However, it is clear that Sir Evan also had plans of his own. Otherwise, it would also be possible for the major parties to win the position of Speaker.

In fact, this is normal. Although he was the Prime Minister of the previous two governments, Sir Evan has been away from the political arena for more than a year, and the next Cabinet Government election is even three years away.

As Australasia develops more and more smoothly, the current Prime Minister Walter and many ministers are also accumulating their own prestige.

If he were to participate directly in the next election, success would not necessarily be in Sir Evan’s reach. After all, even if he was successful in obtaining the Prime Minister’s position, it would be virtually impossible for him to be re-elected again.

This is because according to the Australasian Constitution, a Prime Minister can serve for a maximum of two consecutive terms and three terms in total.

If Sir Evan is elected, it will also be his third term as Prime Minister. Unless Arthur personally orders it, re-election is not possible.

Under such circumstances, should they make friends with a potential re-elected Prime Minister, or with Sir Evan, who is unable to be re-elected? This is a good question.

Now that he can re-enter the cabinet in another way and, like everyone else, continue to accumulate his own prestige, this will undoubtedly increase the possibility of Sir Evan regaining the position of Prime Minister.

It is worth mentioning that on the day of his successful election as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sir Evan, or Speaker Evan, first requested an audience with Arthur. After an intimate and enjoyable conversation with Arthur, he went to the Cabinet to meet his old friends.

No matter what everyone’s inner thoughts were, the Cabinet Government’s meeting was very pleasant. Speaker Evan’s former subordinates expressed their congratulations and welcome to the Speaker, and wished him good luck in joining the Cabinet Government again.

Since the election of the House of Representatives has been completed, it is time to fill the remaining cabinet seats.

On August 3rd, Arthur nominated candidates for Chief Justice and Minister of State to the House of Representatives. After three days of elections and discussions, the final Chief Justice was determined to be Gregory Harris, and the final candidate for Minister of State was Kent.

Yes, it is Defense Minister Kent. Since the position of Minister of State is higher than that of Defense Minister, Kent is also eligible to run for election.

However, after being elected as the Minister of State, the position of Defense Minister would become vacant. Arthur then nominated three military personnel and let the House of Representatives hold another election.

Finally, the new Defense Minister was elected, who was the former Brigadier General Raul Prange of the Guard Division.

At this point, the cabinet members after the reforms were basically determined, except for the Royal Affairs Minister directly appointed by Arthur.

However, as this was a private matter of the royal family, no one mentioned it.

The current positions of the Australasian Cabinet Government are: Chief Minister (Prime Minister) Walter, Secretary of State (Deputy Prime Minister) Kent, Archbishop Steed, Chief Justice Gregory, Speaker of the House Evan, Foreign Secretary Andrew, Minister of Education Richard, Industry Secretary Pierre, Secretary of Public Security Thomas, Minister of Livelihood Henris, Minister of Agriculture Mark, Minister of Transportation Lauren, Minister of Health Willie, Minister of Finance Roger, Defense Secretary Raul.

Although the cabinet seats have been expanded, the actual changes have not been significant. In addition to Defense Minister Kent becoming the Minister of State and Brigadier Raul becoming the Defense Minister, most of the other new positions are relatively independent, such as the Archbishop, Chief Justice, and Speaker of the House.

These positions have little impact on the day-to-day affairs of the Cabinet Government. Their primary role in the Cabinet Government is the authority to vote in cabinet meetings.

The only position that could potentially impact the Cabinet Government is Kent’s post as Minister of State. This is a de facto Deputy Prime Minister, but because he is an acquaintance of the cabinet ministers and tends to keep a low profile, he has not caused too much unrest or turmoil within the Cabinet Government.

From August 5, when the candidates for the new positions were basically determined, Arthur gave the new cabinet members two weeks to deal with their respective affairs. After two weeks, a cabinet meeting was held on August 20th. The purpose was not only to determine the new cabinet’s goals and the specific division of duties, but also to allow all members to have a formal meet-and-greet.

This relieved those who were appointed to the new positions. After all, this was a new position for Australasia, and they needed time to determine their responsibilities and gather collective information.

If a cabinet meeting were held immediately, they would probably be ignorant about many things, and the meeting would lose its purpose.