บท 9: Chapter Nine: The First Meeting
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, unaccustomed 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 meeting," 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 someone 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 immediately saluted Arthur respectfully: "Good morning, Your Highness!"
"Morning, the Prime Ministers did not come looking for me, did they?" Arthur inquired.
Today was April 29th, the third day after Arthur and his entourage arrived in Australia.
According to the arrangement made by Arthur and the prime ministers, a preliminary meeting 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 meeting.
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 meeting 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 income 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 meeting room, the six prime 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 government accordingly, with us, the prime ministers, becoming governors of the new self-governing states, responsible primarily to Your Highness." New South Wales Prime Minister Evan suggested.
Having previously drafted the federal committee act, Prime 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 Prime Ministers have any thoughts?" Arthur turned to look at the other people, smiling as he asked.
Prime Minister Evan's suggestion is essentially equivalent to Australia's historical progression of establishing a federal government with numerous self-governing states.
The advantage of this is that it allows the formation of a unified federal government with the least alterations while the power in the hands of the Colonial Prime 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 Prime Minister had any other suggestions at this time.
"I believe, establishing a unified government as soon as possible is crucial." Seeing that nobody was speaking, Arthur chuckled, "However, the structure of the government 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, "Prime Minister Evan's suggestion is excellent, I agree that the six colonies should be renamed to six states, with unchanged names and capitals, but all unified under the responsibility of a new national government."
"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 government. 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 government? Would it be following the system of the British Empire?" Prime Minister Evan asked cautiously.
If one could name a representative of a constitutional monarchy, then the British Empire would absolutely claim the top spot.
As one of the first countries to implement a constitutional monarchy, the British Empire rapidly became 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 Parliament, having Lower House members elected by each state, allocating seats according to the proportion of the population," Arthur spoke, smiling, "The Upper House will contain members of the royal family and nominees appointed by me along with elected Lower House members. The Lower House would responsible for proposing laws, electing cabinet members, etc., while the Upper House will be responsible for reviewing the proposed laws of the Lower House, examining the elected cabinet members, supervising officials, etc. The Houses of Parliament should be among the most important administrative organizations of our country, so the election of members 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 amend laws and elect cabinet members, 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 members may also be replaced with those loyal to Arthur.
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