Upon all this imported food we placed a small duty in order to accustom the people to the idea, for it was our intention, once agriculture was on a footing in any way commensurate with the needs of Rudarlia, to increase the duty upon such foodstuffs imported, chiefly for the sake of revenue.
I also encouraged breeding horses and cattle, setting the example by starting stud farms on my own lands.
Every day the Ministers would come to me, and we would spend long hours in discussing ways and means.
With regard to the taxation, Count von Maark and the Cabinet settled the necessary changes; the only tax that I interfered with being the income tax, and that, I insisted, should be levied upon every one, even if only to the extent of one penny in the pound.
There was so much to be done in the interests of the army that at first I was staggered; but, as it was futile to sit and weep, we very soon began to make headway.
I will say one thing for my predecessor, he had kept up the military college founded by my father, and the officers were well trained; but the weapons and stores, alas, were conspicuous by their badness or their absence.
We rearmed the troops; and little by little accumulated supplies of ammunition. We reclothed the men, we built barracks, we instituted government factories for supplying the army and our small navy with necessities.
The only branch that was apparently neglected was the artillery, but that was with an object. There, we only showed four batteries of modern guns, two of field, and two of horse artillery. In reality, we had fifteen of horse, and twenty of field artillery; they were kept secretly.
The four batteries mentioned were used for practice, but we kept the old guns also.
I remember causing Count Belen considerable astonishment when I insisted upon the out-of-date artillery being kept, although we had such splendid modern guns at our command.