Chapter 317: Strategic Migration
Chapter 307 Strategic Immigration
The busiest in the economic crisis should be considered the Immigration Department under the Colonial Office, which in just over a year from the end of 1857 to the beginning of 1859 had achieved more than the sum of the past few years.
In the face of survival, many people had to choose to leave their homes, with the largest number of people emigrating to the Balkans, accounting for forty percent of the total number of emigrants.
This is still the result of the government’s intentional control, otherwise more than eighty percent of the immigrants, would have chosen to go to the Balkans.
There are only two kinds of people who voluntarily go to the African colonies: one kind is ambitious and wants to get rich; the other kind is so poor that survival is a problem, and they are forced to go for their livelihood.
Immigrants to the African continent could sign employment contracts with the government, or plantation owners or mine owners, and had a stable income without having to worry about the livelihood of the family.
Many people think of going to the African continent as going out to work. Anyway, it is not mandatory to emigrate, after the contract expires, if you want to stay, you can stay, if you do not want to stay, you can come back.
For those who have no food to eat, as long as they can have an income to support their family, it’s not bad, and if it’s far away, it’s far away.
After completing the personnel adjustments, Franz added: “Colonization Department, talk about the development of the colonies.”
Colonial Minister Josip Jelacic replied, “Your Majesty, currently we have opened up colonies in the Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria, Congo, Cameroon, Libya and other areas.
Sixty-eight colonial strongholds have been established, with 18 cities, more than a million immigrants heading to the colonies, and more than three million square kilometers of colonial territory under our direct control.
Among them: the Gulf of Guinea has 25 colonial strongholds, including 8 cities, and actually controls a territory of about 700,000 square kilometers. The total local population is 1.848 million, of which 284,000 are immigrants and the rest are indigenous.
The Congo region has 14 colonial strongholds, including 4 cities, and de facto control over a territory of approximately 680,000 square kilometers. The total population of the jurisdiction totals about 3 million, of which about 318,000 are immigrants and the rest are local indigenous people.
The Nigerian colony has just recently been opened and we have only established 8 colonial strongholds there, including 3 cities, with a territory of about 280,000 square kilometers. The total population of the jurisdiction is about 2.18 million, of which about 185,000 are immigrants.
The Cameroon region was developed much later and currently has only 5 colonial strongholds, including 2 cities, with a de facto territory of more than 100,000 square kilometers. It has a total population of about 560,000, of which only 58,000 are immigrants.
The Libyan region also continues to implement the strategy of vacating cages and exchanging birds, because of the resistance of the local people, the progress is much slower than expected, about 150,000 people are still stranded in the region, and may be delayed until next year before the completion of the plan.
We have taken control of all the cities in the region, sending 86,000 immigrants, and have all the coastal oases under control, with more than a million square kilometers of desert under nominal control.
The Sinai Peninsula is so poor in resources that we have not developed it, and have only sent two thousand immigrants to nominally rule the 60,000 square kilometers of the peninsula.
The islands in the European region were directly incorporated into the home rule and were not counted as part of the colonization.
Farther overseas, colonial strongholds were established spontaneously by private citizens, and have not yet been incorporated into government administration.
Up to now, except for the Gulf of Guinea colony, which had achieved a balance of payments and a small surplus due to the gold mine excavation, all other regions were in a state of loss.
On the whole, the total income of our colonies in 1858 was minus 9,850,000,000 Guilders, and the expenses of emigration and the military expenses for foreign use of the army still occupied the lion’s share.
It is expected that in the next two to three years, the Congo region, which was developed earlier, will be able to break even. The rest of the colonies will all still need some time, at least five years before they can backfill their finances.”
Franz nodded, it was clear that the Austrian colonies still had a lot of potential to be tapped into, the colonial government was only controlling a small portion of them now, there was still a lot of land waiting to be occupied.
Relying on the income from the colonies to supplement the central government’s finances, Franz was not so optimistic. As long as the colonies could break even, it would be a bloody profit.
After some hesitation, Franz said: “The population ratio of the colony is a big problem, the number of natives is too large, which is not conducive to our long-term rule.
The next focus of the colonial department can be on immigration, as far as possible to send these natives to the American countries to alleviate the hidden danger of our rule.
If it doesn’t go well, then they will be expelled, the degree of which you can grasp yourselves.
Anyway, I don’t care what method you use, within five years the indigenous population should be reduced by three layers, and within ten years our immigrants should outnumber the local natives.”
Under normal circumstances, this was a near-impossible task. But it wasn’t hard to do it in this era, after all, there was no need to doubt the modesty of the colonizers at all.
Even if they didn’t know what to do, they could learn from their British and French counterparts, especially the British, who had the most experience in this area.
“Yes, Your Majesty!” Colonial Minister Josip Jelacic replied in a deep voice
Knowing that this mission was not good to do, but the Emperor had already ordered it, Josip Jelacic would not refuse. After all, not being good at it doesn’t equate to not being able to do it, how do you know it won’t be completed if you don’t even try?
What made Franz laugh and cry was that after the economic crisis broke out, the aristocrats’ enthusiasm to invest in plantations rose all of a sudden.
Compared to the unfamiliar industry, finance, everyone is still more willing to invest in their own familiar industry, after all, the plantation’s income is more stable, the risk is not so big.
Now there are so many immigrants on the African continent, but not only by the government organization, many of them are recruited by these plantation owners.
The royal family was even the best of them, as the first to invest in the existence of the colony, and had now developed tens of thousands of hectares of plantations.
Everyone was keen on growing wheat, cotton, cocoa and coffee, all industries that could see returns in the short term.
In contrast, Franz, who focused on investing in the existence of rubber plantations, instead became an alternative. Nowadays, the use of rubber is not as wide as in later times, and the investment cycle is long, so naturally it is not popular.
If there is enough manpower, Franz is also willing to plant faster yielding cotton, coffee, but unfortunately now is really short of people. In a hurry, he could only plant rubber trees first.
Currently the royal plantation, has recruited more than 30,000 workers, still a drop in the bucket, had to use part of the local indigenous labor.
Recruitment of quality labor from overseas is still in progress. In this era, a trip to Asia will take half a year, want to fast are difficult.
Franz was now very worried that if left unchecked, plantation owners and mine owners would soon become hooked on using cheap local labor, and he didn’t want to see slavery revived in the colonies.
Now it was only the fact that people were inexperienced and these natives were not domesticated, and that there were occasional outbursts, injuries, and escapes, that made the ranchers and plantation owners suspicious of the extensive use of native labor.
The gold miners had already begun to use native laborers on a large scale, suppressing resistance by the strong force at their disposal.
Franz didn’t believe in the modesty of people in the face of profit. The ones who paid attention to the food were nothing more than learning from the royal plantations and hiring people from the native tribal chiefs with salt, cloth, and other supplies.
The ruthless ones directly sent people to capture slaves. The African continent was so chaotic that there was more than the colonial government could control. Gold miners moonlighting as slave owners and then slave traders abounded.
In the short term, this is indeed a good thing, reducing production costs and allowing for more profit.
In the long run, the use of a large number of slave laborers would take away jobs from immigrants, which not only seriously hindered the economic development of the colonies, but also increased social conflicts.
There was also another reason that could not be said, that is, Franz wanted to pit his biggest competitor a hand and weaken their development potential.
Historically, nearly half of the immigrants traveling to the United States during this period came from the German region, the Italian region, and the southern European region, which was now largely diverted by Franz.
The labor shortage in the United States was even worse than it had been historically. This background led to greater conflict between the industrial owners of the North and the plantation owners of the South.
The helpful Franz, naturally, had to help them out. If there were not enough white immigrants, they were made up with black immigrants; if the quality was poor, they were made up with quantity.
Just think, half of the population immigrating to the United States every year is black, then the future must be very interesting. What is a little price to pay for that?
(End of chapter)