The Speedrun Manual of Miss Witch - Chapter 270

Ciel looked up at the dining room entrance. She could see that Lucy’s condition was noticeably much better.

She wore a black and gold chip mask on her face, her chest held high. She walked steadily to Ciel, bowing slightly, “Good morning, Miss Ciel.”

“Is the meeting over?”

Ciel put down her teacup and asked Lucy, “What was the result?”

“Thanks to Duke Charles’s statement at the hearing two days ago, my restriction order has been lifted,”

Lucy’s voice could not hide her excitement. “Of course, it was mainly your mediation and assistance, Miss Ciel, that led to today’s result.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Ciel smiled and shook her head, asking, “From your appearance, the voting results weren’t affected?”

“Yes, I have successfully joined the board of directors,”

Saying this, Lucy directly faced Ciel and knelt halfway down, looking up at Ciel and saying with deep emotion, “I, Lucy Silva, will use my new identity in the future to properly repay Miss Ciel’s kindness!”

Ciel stood up, walked to Lucy, bent down and extended her hand to help her up, saying with a smile, “Heh heh… Then in the future, if there’s anything you can help with, I won’t be polite.”

“I will certainly do my utmost to help.”

After being helped up, Lucy still maintained a slightly bowed posture.

“Did you come directly after the meeting?”

Ciel noticed the black and gold emblem pinned to her chest and asked.

“Yes, I rushed over as soon as the meeting ended.”

Lucy nodded repeatedly.

“It’s your first day in office. There must be many things you need to hand over, right?”

Ciel reached out and gently patted Lucy’s shoulder, saying, “If there’s nothing else, go back to work. I didn’t ask the chef to make a second breakfast.”

Lucy had only come to deliver good news and express her loyalty. She didn’t bring any special information, so Ciel didn’t chat with her much, directly sending Lucy back to handle her own affairs.

Lucy was also very discerning. She didn’t stay to disturb Ciel further. After expressing her gratitude to Ciel once more, she left Ciel’s house.

Ciel returned to the dining table. After finishing breakfast, she drank red tea while flipping through today’s newspaper.

Due to the high-level power reshuffle caused by Forte’s death, recent news headlines were mostly political topics. Among them, the most eye-catching was William Winston.

He became the new Prime Minister of Ansu City. And immediately after being personally appointed by the Queen, he had the newly formed cabinet begin to directly push for the passage of several bills.

Among them, the most controversial measure was the announcement of the repeal of the 《Corn Laws》, which created two completely different voices among the common people and the nobility.

The vast majority of the public firmly believed that after the repeal of the 《Corn Laws》, they would be able to buy grain at lower prices, their cost of living would decrease, and they could save more money to do other things.

Lower grain prices indirectly equated to an increase in workers’ wages, because the money previously used for purchasing grain would decrease.

Another group of supporting voices came from grain traders and colonies. Colonies could now sell large quantities of grain to the motherland Ansu, without unilaterally accepting the dumping of goods. This could alleviate potential uprisings or counterattacks in the colonies after Forte’s death.

And grain traders, especially the Grain Import and Export Association, had opposed the grain embargo bill from the very beginning. Now, they probably couldn’t even pop champagne fast enough. Any dissenting voices would be fiercely attacked by them. They also spared no expense to fund various newspapers to promote William.

Ciel had indeed anticipated this. After all, back in Berren City, grain merchants had already approached Avena, asking her to inform William, who was then the Minister of the Interior, that if the embargo wasn’t lifted, it would be a lose-lose situation, and grain rotting on ships couldn’t possibly be sold cheaply to North Ansu.

In the past few days, after William announced the impending repeal of the 《Corn Laws》, the Orlando Republican Army uprisings and terrorist attacks across Ansu almost ceased. Without a doubt, this was most likely arbitrated by Princess Vitalis.

The dissenting voices, on the other hand, mainly came from the Conservative Party’s landed gentry, landlords, millers, and farmers. They attacked William like mad, even threatening to directly buy his life.

They were the party most affected by the bill. It was foreseeable that if the bill were successfully implemented, the Conservative Party’s influence would only further diminish, and even its parliamentary seats would decrease.

They even incited farmers to march and resist the repeal of the 《Corn Laws》. One landed noble even directly published a radical statement in the newspaper, saying that the repeal of the 《Corn Laws》 would only accelerate the deaths of North Ansu people, calling on the Orlando Republican Army not to abandon their resistance and trust the new Prime Minister, but to continue opposing this bill.

At this moment, Ciel was looking at this radical statement.

But in reality, that landed noble was not entirely wrong.

While the repeal of the 《Corn Laws》 would benefit urban workers, the industrial bourgeoisie, and overseas colonies, it was not without negative consequences.

If the Rotting Disease could not be eliminated, superimposed with the repeal of the Corn Laws, it would cause an even more severe famine in North Ansu.

Originally, the harvest was poor, and the tiny bit of remaining grain couldn’t be sold… Large amounts of land would be abandoned, the rate of land consolidation would drastically increase, and more North Ansu people would not only have no food but also lose their land.

Ultimately, besides working the lowest-paying jobs in Ansu’s factories or becoming refugees fleeing the country, they had no other options. Staying on that barren land meant only waiting for death.

From William’s published speech, it seemed William had foreseen this point and also knew that reforms would come at a cost… but he seemed to have underestimated that cost.

In his speech, he believed that colonial grain imports could gradually replace domestic agriculture, that industrial expansion could absorb displaced farmers, and that favorable tax policies could be offered to landed gentry for building factories.

In William’s vision, the repeal of this bill would bring temporary pain, but after a complete transformation, there would be a bright future.

If viewed simply like this, the repeal of the Corn Laws was indeed good… but William seemed not to have calculated that the surging imported wheat could very likely, with a crushing force, instantly destroy all small and medium-sized farms within Ansu.

Ciel found it difficult to evaluate whether to support the implementation of the repeal of the Corn Laws. Repealing the Corn Laws would greatly increase Ansu’s industrial competitiveness, possibly even elevating it to a more powerful industrial empire, ushering in an era of free trade.

But the cost would be the millions of starving souls of domestic farmers and North Ansu people.

Ciel closed the newspaper.

Right and wrong, good and bad, could only be judged by later generations.

She had no intention of altering the tide of history. She did not possess the ability to manage an entire vast empire, to dictate the lives and deaths of everyone within it.

She could only, while living her own life well, try her best to secretly develop a vaccine or antidote to eliminate the Rotting Disease.

Time to mind her own business.

“Tara, come here.”

Ciel stood up and returned to her room with the obedient Tara. She sat at the desk, took out the Endless Manual, and began writing on it.

After clarifying what needed to be done, Ciel put the manual back in inventory and thought to herself.

“Future Days.”

“No.0.”

A silver light directly enveloped Ciel.