The wars in the Far East, despite their distances, had a huge impact on Italy.

After all, their own country's army is fighting thousands of miles away, and who can not care.

However, unlike ordinary people who are concerned about the war and the safety of the soldiers who participated in the war, Italian capitalists can open champagne to celebrate. The war that broke out in the Far East was initially unfavorable to them. After all, war will cause business to go down, unless you're in the arms business.

However, as Italy became involved, these capitalists suddenly found that business was doing well, and those Qing people bought their goods, as long as they were not outrageous, they were very happy, especially those officials, which made the Italians not affected, but more prosperous. As for whether it is an order grabbed from merchants from other countries, it is none of their business, and who can control where others buy it.

Even the people of the capital are concerned about the war situation in the Far East, and the Italian government is naturally more concerned. As a way to relieve the financial pressure on Italy, as well as to profit the military. In this Sino-Japanese War, the Italian government still paid more attention to fighting Ethiopia.

No, Prime Minister De Pretis as the head of government is very busy, because in addition to paying attention to the work of the government, he also needs to cooperate with the military in the deployment of materials and personnel for the war in the Far East. This kind of thing must be paid attention to, a careless finger may be cheated by the military, they are all poor and scared goods, if you can take more points for your side, who can not know whom.

"Prime Minister, the Foreign Office has sent a message that the British have finally released the K, which is currently passing through the Suez Canal."

"Tell the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that they send someone to guard Suez, and that there will be no more incidents of being stopped by the British for inspection, and that they will be tough if necessary."

"Yes, Prime Minister."

"Anything else?"

"In addition, the Admiralty has sent a message that they want the government to help them organize another fleet, and Vice Admiral Alvaro's fleet is in urgent need of a batch of repair facilities and equipment, and I hope we can give a reply within three days."

"Well, send the news to the Department of Transportation and ask them to call up another batch of boats. In addition, inform the Admiralty that they will need to pay for this cost. ”

"Also, the Ministry of Education sent a message that they want to ......"

For the next two hours, Prime Minister de Pretis kept giving instructions to various departments. Although some of these things require a short period of thought, they still have not affected the old man who has been in power for more than ten years. That's right, if Prime Minister De Pretis, who is now 81 years old, is not an old man, then there are few people in Italy who can be called an old man.

As an elderly prime minister, de Pretis has felt less and less energetic in the past two years.

Therefore, after dealing with the urgent needs of the matter, the Prime Minister, who is feeling low on energy, needs to take a nap and recuperate.

"Prime Minister, Mr. Neil Napel has arrived."

Secretary Usopp whispered in the prime minister's ear, and when he heard the secretary's words, Depretis's cloudy eyes flashed with a gleam.

"Got it, invite Mr. Napel in."

After Prime Minister De Pretis finished speaking, he got up and went to his desk.

"Prime Minister, Mr. Napel has arrived."

With the secretary Usopp, the short and somewhat bald Napel appeared in front of him.

"Napel, long time no see!"

Prime Minister Depretis opened his arms and stepped forward to hug the visitor, and seeing the Prime Minister's expression of meeting a friend, the clever Usopp naturally left the room, and thoughtfully closed the door when leaving.

And after his secretary left, Prime Minister De Pretis suddenly changed to a serious expression at this time.

"How's it going?"

"It didn't go too well, Cavalotti accepted the prime minister's proposal and was willing to push it in Parliament, while Bertani was a little hesitant, he thought it would be difficult to push the proposal through. In addition, Crispi said that it is better to discuss such a proposal with others and vote on it to avoid misjudgment. ”

The three people Napel is talking about are all three who have enough weight in parliament to influence the outcome of the parliamentary vote. Among them, Cavallotti is the leader of the Republican Party, and the Republican Party, as the name suggests, is the most republican system, so he is very interested in Prime Minister DePretis's proposal, while Bertany is a moderate faction of the same party as the Prime Minister, although the two belong to the same social Democratic Party, but the two have a lot of differences, but it is not difficult for Prime Minister DePretis to convince each other. The only thing that is more difficult is Crispie, which is the centrist wing of the parliament. Although they do not have too many parliamentary seats, they are indispensable if they want to succeed, after all, DePretis is still more willing to deal with centrists than right-wingers who are too deeply involved in the royal family. In particular, the proposal he prepared this time needs the support of the centrists.

What is the proposal that makes De Pretis, who has been sitting in the position of prime minister for more than ten years, still find it difficult to handle?

Of course, it is a major event, a major event related to the interests of political parties. Is it a big deal to revise the conditions for suffrage?

For all those who play politics, for sure.

There is no greater event than this to attract political parties.

And De Pretis, who has been the prime minister for more than ten years, wants to revise some of them. However, the core of this revision is to relax the conditions for Italy to obtain the right to vote. He intends to relax the conditions for the number of years to be eligible for suffrage from 25 to 21 years old, and more importantly, to lower the conditions for obtaining the right to vote from 40 lira a year to 18 lira per year.

It seems that no, the prime minister is also ambitious and wants to gradually change the political base of Italy.

That's right, although Depretis got along well with Carlo I, and he also recognized King Carlo as a very far-sighted ruler. But it still can't change the fact that Depreetis is a politician, and what a politician is needs to be responsible for overall political decisions. And the current political system in Italy, De Pretis thinks it is very unreasonable.

It appears that the Kingdom of Italy has a responsible cabinet system, and the prime minister is accountable to the king and the parliament. But in reality, the parliament is currently an eraser, and the king is the one who actually holds the power. In the long run, the enthusiasm of the people to participate in politics under this system will be suppressed, which will not be conducive to the development of Italy.

The best way to change this situation is to change the kingdom into a republic. However, this condition is not feasible in Italy at present, and the king is still enthusiastically embraced.

Since this path is not working, it is necessary to think differently, and the best way is to expand the number of people who have the right to vote.

In recent years, thanks to the rapid development of the Italian economy, the number of citizens who have been granted the right to vote has more than doubled from 2.89% of the total population when he came to power to 6.27%.

Although it has doubled, what is the use of a low base, but it has risen from more than 900,000 to more than 200,000, which is still not representative in front of the total population of more than 32 million. The fact that parliament has too little or too little power has a lot to do with the size of the population it represents.

Mr. de Pretis's revised election conditions could more than double the number of people with the right to vote from 6.27 to about 13 percent. If you add their families, they can represent at least a third of Italians in Parliament, and this is immediately important.

However, while this is good for all political parties, it is not easy to implement because it encroaches on the rights of many people. For example, the nobles and the king, this is what Depretise fears most.

Having spent more than ten years with the young king, Depretis probably knew the young man's obsession with power better than the king himself, and he had not tried the king to increase the proportion of the people in politics, but he had been fooled by the young king.

This time he plans to do it differently.

"Cavalotti agreed, and as I expected, Bertani was hesitant and I would find a time to talk to him. As for Crispie, you give him a word for me, and let him do so, as long as he is willing to vote in favor of the parliament. ”

Listening to the solution given by Depretis, Napel buried his head in writing it down.

"Okay, I'll go find Crispie tonight."

With that, Napel got up and was ready to leave.

"Napel!"

At this time, Prime Minister De Pretis suddenly stopped him.

"Anything else, old man."

"Be careful, this must be hidden, our young man has a few hounds with a keen sense of smell."

"Don't worry, I know how important this kind of thing is."

Napel gestured to know.

After his old friend and comrade-in-arms left, Depretis was also ready to get up and work, the government had so much to do, how much free time did he have.

But at the moment when he just got up, a violent wrenching pain came, and he hurriedly reached out to find a support point, at this time, a strong feeling of dizziness came up, and then his eyes went black, and he fell heavily to the ground.

Before he fell unconscious, he heard his secretary shouting in horror: "Call the doctor!" Call a doctor! ”