Alan was multitasking, paying attention to the confrontation in front of him while picking up a copy on the table. This was the first draft of the newly released bill to reduce the number of noble seats in the House of Lords.

The content mentioned that due to the continued economic downturn, in order to save the budget and the imperial finances, the number of seats for noble members in the House of Lords is now adjusted.

In the past... there was no limit on the number of noble members of the House of Lords. As long as they were hereditary nobles, they were born members of the House of Lords. As long as they were over 21 years old and had a title, they could come to the House of Lords to attend meetings (and give orders).

There are at least seven or eight hundred hereditary aristocrats in the whole of Britain. With so many families, each has a House of Lords. Although they cannot get together at ordinary times, the allowances for so many people are not a small amount of money.

Every official member of the House of Lords receives an allowance calculated on a daily basis during normal meeting days. Alan remembers that his allowance seems to have increased to more than 300 pounds a day?

Anyway, he can't remember such small amounts of money, and they increase every year, so no one cares.

Although it may seem like a small amount to each individual, it is not a small amount when added up to an ordinary person. If you count thirty days a month... the allowance for a member of the House of Lords is almost 10,000 pounds.

This amount of money can be said to be higher than the salary of most ordinary people in the UK, and this is just the allowance.

This does not include the travel expenses, food and lodging expenses of the nobles from other places who come to London for meetings. Although these are not a lot of money, when the amount is added up, it is not a small amount.

The preliminary opinion given in this draft is to reduce the unlimited number of noble members to 99 permanent members.

The treatment of these 99 noble members who permanently reside in the House of Lords will continue according to the old rules, but there will be some changes in their selection, as the previous natural-born system will be replaced by an elected system.

Let the nobles first elect a member of parliament from among themselves, and then come to the House of Lords for a meeting.

The first draft contained some high-sounding statements, such as for the purpose of saving finances, improving administrative efficiency, etc.

Alan looked at the photocopy and sneered. Isn't this just a simplified British version of the Enfeoffment Order plus the "Two Peaches to Kill Three Warriors"?

First, eliminate nearly 90% of the number of members of the House of Lords, then let the nobles fight among themselves, and throw out the parliamentary positions that no one cared about before as dog food for them to fight over.

Where there is contention, there is fighting. This is an easy-to-understand conspiracy.

but……

If this document were really implemented, then...the lower-ranking nobles, like the barons and viscounts, could they really compete with the top nobles at the top?

Anyway, Alan is not afraid. Looking throughout Wales, there are twenty or thirty large and small noble families among their local nobles. It's not that he looks down on these people, but if these families are all tied together, would they dare to compete with him?

Even if they had ten times the courage, they wouldn't dare!

Even though times have changed, if Alan asked these local nobles to come to his castle to meet them, and met those timid Welsh nobles, he might really scare them to death!

This is the confidence of a family that has suppressed a region for hundreds of years, and its accumulated power is so terrifying.

But that's not necessarily the case in other places.

Anyway... Alan's idea is that if this group of old men can gain some benefits, then as a member of the aristocratic class, he must be taken along and he will eat their meat. If this group of old men fails to gain any benefits, then Alan will go to Boss Cha to sell them out and eat their meat!

He wants to eat meat anyway!

…

"If the number of MPs is to be reduced, it will be a loss for the entire aristocracy. There has always been a weakening without compensation. If this continues...if the aristocracy does not exist, will Britain still exist?"

"Calm down. This is not a weakening. The current economic situation is not good. This is all for the purpose of saving money and improving administrative efficiency. People are usually not very enthusiastic about attending meetings anyway. Fewer people will make the meeting more efficient."

The Lord Chancellor made a polite remark.

"We can choose not to come to the meeting, but we can't miss out on a spot! I'm so old now. I can't even come to London once a week, let alone come every day for the meeting. Do I still need to keep my body like this? Are you going to kill me?"

"Then what do you say? You can raise any opinions you have, and I will record them."

The Lords Minister picked up the copy and threw it on the table. He looked at it and said, "The draft has been completed and the House of Commons has passed it. The royal family has not responded yet, but the Queen obviously has no objection. In this case, even if we want to stop it, we won't be able to stop it for long. It will take two or three years at most, or one or two years at most. The formal document will almost become a bill. What else can we do?"

…

All eyes were fixed on the old man in front, watching him arguing with the Minister of the House of Lords.

They are not in a hostile relationship. Those sitting here are all nobles!

The argument between them is not only to express their opinions, but also to let outsiders hear them. Today's meeting will have a written record. When the time comes, those who should see it and want to see it will be able to understand the content of this meeting through the written record, and then they will know what to do.

To put it simply, the ministers of the House of Lords are responsible for supporting the audience, the old guy is responsible for negotiating the terms, and the others present today are just there to stand there. The symbolic significance of this meeting is far greater than its practical significance.

…

"What should we do? If it is impossible, then we need compensation! First, lower the inheritance tax standard. I am old and I cannot keep the inheritance left by my ancestors. I cannot leave a mess to my descendants. Otherwise... how should I ask for it when I see my ancestors in heaven?"

The Minister of the House of Lords simply wrote down this request in his notebook. It was a very reasonable request.

The number of seats for legislators is going to be reduced, and it would be unacceptable if no compensation is given.

No matter how the outside world perceives the British aristocracy as a class group, they are the absolute main force in stabilizing society.

There are so many nobles sitting here today, with so many industries under their control, how many workers do they have, and how many families do they support?

If they are not honest and each company fires dozens of workers, there will be tens of thousands of unemployed people in Britain in just one day.

This is no small matter!

If they are even more ruthless, and once they unite and lay off tens of thousands of people, then... even the Prime Minister won't be able to handle it.

The nobles were oppressed too harshly and the factory went bankrupt. It is normal to lay off employees and no one can find fault with it.

But if they dare to do so, it will be a lot of fun.

This is also the reason why many nobles like to engage in heavy assets. Although it may seem unprofitable, this thing is equivalent to a talisman. It looks inconspicuous at ordinary times, and some people even laugh at the nobles for being corrupt and unable to keep up with the times. But when something really happens, a slight tampering with these heavy assets will attract much more attention than those light assets!

…

Alan remembered what the Duke of Marlborough had said before the meeting, that even if teammates died, they had to die with value. Putting the two together, he felt that something was missing. If this was the only compensation, there would not be any need to attract all these old guys. There must be something more important!

What he is most concerned about now is what the purpose of these old guys is.

…

"Anything else? I will write it all down and report to His Majesty when the time comes."

"The inheritance tax issue has been delayed for decades. We don't think it's safe to just compensate for it. What's more... it's easy to reduce the number of seats, but it's not easy to increase it later. Many low-level nobles rely on their status as parliamentarians to make a living. Without this status, how do you want them to live?"

“…”

The Minister of the House of Lords was speechless, but did not dare to refute.

What does it mean to make a living as a member of parliament?

It is because of their privilege as members of parliament that they can take care of their own business, but in this person's mouth, the noble lords who were once high and mighty have become poor people who make a living from this.

It's just the difference in how much they earn. Compared with ordinary people, who is more pitiful?

Just like Allen, no matter how poor his family is, compared with ordinary people, he is as well off as can be. Even when he wrote a letter to Boss Cha saying that he could not eat meat, didn't Boss Cha still send people to deliver truckloads of supplies to him?

Which ordinary citizen needs the crown prince to send someone personally to deliver food?

If this is called miserable? Then what do ordinary people call it? Living in hell?

Is this human language you are speaking?

…

Alan looked at the old man in front of him and came to the key point. He began to talk about how difficult the lives of the lower-level nobles were. After so many years of inheritance tax collection, many noble families could no longer bear it. How many noble families went bankrupt and moved away, and the extinction rate of nobles in the country rose sharply, etc.

Even as noble as a duke, out of the 37 dukes in Britain, only 31 are still alive today. It seems that six of them have become extinct to some extent because of these things!

What is extinction? All their descendants or blood relatives have died out. This is extinction, just like the extinction of animals. It sounds scary, but it is actually happening.

Just like the Duke of Angus, if Allen hadn't helped him, he would have become so poor that his family would probably have been doomed to extinction.

People seldom talk about these things because they are used to seeing them. These are just the upper nobles. The lower nobles were even more miserable, with a much higher number of extinctions. Some of them could not even be counted even though they were extinct.

Now after this old fellow mentioned it, many of the nobles present, no matter they were from well-off or poor families, felt a sense of grief. Even Alan felt a little uncomfortable after hearing it. He was not sympathetic, but... every extinct noble family had some old background. If he could catch up, how much benefit could he get?

What a pity...

…

"If the number of parliamentarians needs to be reduced, then we need some financial compensation. Isn't the empire's finances tight? Isn't the current economic situation bad? Then can some state-owned enterprises be transferred out, privatized, and handed over to us to run? I have to leave something for my descendants, right?"

Finally, it came to the main point of the play. Alan was shocked. He finally understood what this old guy was trying to do after laying the groundwork for so long.

So this was the idea.

The seats of many members of parliament have been reduced, which is... irresistible. In other words, if the "death" of these people is to have value, they must be objectified, and then their remaining value and historical issues must be used to gain sympathy and exchange for some benefits.

As for whether these benefits will eventually fall into the hands of those nobles who have lost their "livelihoods", well...it will depend on how they handle the situation at that time.

As long as he can make such a request today, and if the request is approved, then next year... there is a high probability that some state-owned enterprises will be opened to the nobles, such as electricity, water power, railways, gas and other industries. All of these are possible.

The economy is not doing well now, but if these businesses are handed over to the nobles and run by someone else, they can really boost the economy.

As for who suffered the loss in the end...

Anyway, the politicians have made achievements, the nobles have received "compensation" from new industries, and many ordinary people have kept their jobs. That's enough, and it doesn't matter who suffers the loss.

Even if the situation changes in the future, it will be something that future people will need to deal with. Now all we have to do is get better.

…

The more Allen thought about it, the more he felt that this routine was okay. No wonder so many people came to support the platform today. This was a collective effort to support this old guy, and then to make a gesture to compensate him. The benefits he got in the end...

He has already begun to imagine which industries in Wales he could not get involved in before, but can now try his hand at, such as... railways, electricity and even docks!

These businesses do not seem to be very profitable, but they are all very important. If he really takes over these industries, it is hard to say what kind of power he, the Earl of Carmarthen, will have in the end.

When the Prince of Wales is here, all is well, but when the Prince of Wales is not here, he is just another Prince of Wales!

A prince with more power than the prince himself!

…

Alan returned to Carmarthen the day after the meeting.

That day he called together several secretaries and Councillor Thomas and asked them to prepare in advance and conduct a thorough investigation of all state-owned enterprise information in Wales so that they could be prepared in advance.

Although the old man only proposed compensation in parliament, the final result has not yet come out.

But opportunities come to those who are prepared.

Sometimes, by the time the official results are announced, you won’t even be able to eat the shit that’s still hot!

Although few people dared to compete with him for things in his small piece of land in Wales, he still had to make necessary preparations in advance, whether it was selecting industries or raising funds.

…

Alan stroked his chin and looked at the several corporate documents that Thomas had casually compiled.

He doesn't have much money now. Alan has been short of money recently and he has been working hard to make money.

But now the money has not been received yet, and a new place to spend money has arisen.

I can't miss this great opportunity just because I have no money, right?

Opportunities like this to take advantage of a group of people, or to exchange interests in an open and aboveboard manner, are rare. If you miss it, you may have to wait not just for a year, but even ten years to get there!

So now... he doesn't want to miss this opportunity, but he doesn't have that much money. What should he do?

Open robbery?

He could rob ordinary people or nobles, but this time his target was the country's, so he couldn't rob it openly.

How to deal with this?