Chapter 491: Industrial Tuition Fees

  Chapter 480: Industrial Tuition

There are really quite a few types of minerals, with coal, iron and oil being the most important.

Russia, Brazil, China, Australia, India, Canada and the United States, seven countries with high iron ore reserves;

Coal mines should be counted in the United States and Russia, Asia, Europe and North America coal quality is good;

Oil distribution is very concentrated, the Middle East, Russia, the United States, China, Mexico and Britain.

……

Franz still remembers this passage from his geography class in his previous life clearly, and summarizes it as a lack of mines in Europe.

On the one hand, it was developed too early, and by the 21st century many resources had been depleted; on the other hand, there were really not many mineral reserves.

With the sole exception of Russia, all European countries are mineral-poor countries, or rather a single distribution of mineral resources. A typical example is Germany, which lacks almost everything except coal and iron ore.

This is also the envy of many countries, the industrial age, the two most basic elements have, next door to the French still lack of coal?

In contrast, Austria is happy, perhaps a slightly larger territory, basically all the mineral resources are ready. Just this reserves, it is a little out of hand.

Of course, this is also a relative sense. Compared to European countries other than Russia, Austria’s mineral resources are still dominant.

These resources laid the foundation for Austria’s industrial development, and by 1870 Austrian steel production surpassed that of the British for the first time, leaping to the top of the world with an annual output of 6.48 million tons.

Of course, the advantage was not obvious, only exceeding the British by 20,000 tons. The main reason for the rapid growth of Austrian steel production was the increase in demand on the domestic market.

A local market of more than 30 million people, and a local market of more than 70 million people, both completed industrialization, steel demand is obviously the latter is greater.

In fact, this production was still not enough to meet the market demand, in addition to the home market, the African colonies are also a large consumer of steel.

According to the data provided by the Ministry of Industry, in the next ten years Austria’s steel demand will be doubled, of which the demand for steel up to one and a half million tons.

Seeing this figure, Franz had a headache. The current steel production in Bohemia had already hit a bottleneck, the growth rate of production had slowed down, and if he wanted to rapidly expand production capacity, he would not be able to do so unless he made further technological innovations.

However, this was not very realistic, steel technology was revolutionized only a short time ago, another breakthrough in the short term was almost impossible with the current industrial technology.

The second steel production site in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although developing rapidly, still has a long way to go to fill this gap and will not be reached in ten years.

Now Austria’s most important steel companies, mostly concentrated in the Bohemian region (later Czech region), occupies 63% of the national steel production.

In addition to this, the regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Linz, Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, Galicia and Silesia are all located.

The main reasons for this situation are manifold; the steel mills in Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony are historical legacies that were not developed due to resource constraints.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the industry started too late, the government is still busy repairing roads, and although the steel companies have settled down, they can’t realize the maximum capacity in a short time due to the transportation constraints.

Galicia is the government did not pay enough attention to be able to compete with Bohemia; Silesia that is the pot of the Prussians, they ran away and left a mess, the Vienna government has just finished cleaning up.

Human factors can be overcome, the most troublesome is the distribution of resources. Austria has a lot of coal and iron ore, but unfortunately it is not concentrated.

Iron and steel companies to develop, inevitably close to the origin of raw materials, it creates a situation of four sides.

In Franz’s opinion, the capitalists have made all the right choices. Since they want to invest, the main purpose is to make money. If away from the origin of raw materials, the competitiveness of the product naturally cannot be guaranteed.

By nowadays, the centralization of heavy industry is no longer suitable for Austria. The supply of resources in each place is limited, can only provide one million tons of raw materials for steel, you can not make two million tons of steel.

To meet the growing domestic demand, it became inevitable to open several more industrial bases. Except for Germany, where resources are concentrated, almost every large industrial country has multiple industrial bases.

Carefully read through the information, Franz made a decision: “This multiple choice question do not have to do, with the development of the domestic situation, the demand for steel will only increase.

It would be better to add a heavy industrial base today and another heavy industrial base tomorrow than to develop them at the same time.

Serbia, Silesia and Galicia all have the potential to be developed into heavy industrial bases, so let’s list them together this time!

Other regions can also be developed as long as they also have coal and iron mines and relatively easy transportation.

The government should formulate appropriate policies, find ways to solve the transportation problem, and leave the final development to enterprises and the market.”

Governments in this era were laissez-faire about industrial development, and what industry developed into was basically determined by the market economy.

This government solution to the infrastructure problem in Austria is actually already an administrative means of intervening in the market economy, only done in a relatively subtle way.

This point look at the next door to Russia to know, as Europe’s most resource-rich countries, steel production is less than one-twentieth of Austria.

This is not the Russian capitalists did not see the business opportunities, mainly because the transportation is too pitiful. The tsarist government does not give to solve the transportation problem, to build their own roads to the past, who dares to do this deal?

It was only after the Tsar’s government paid attention to transportation that Russian industry began to really develop. Unfortunately, the Russian Empire is too large, the road is too difficult to repair.

In the original space and time before the First World War, the Russians only repaired more than 70,000 kilometers, and that has been the result of the efforts of successive tsars.

Before crossing over Franz also used to spit on the Russians’ transportation, and after arriving in this world, his perception changed.

The Russian Empire’s roads are really hard to repair, building railroads in the land of ice and snow, the technical difficulties and construction costs are much higher than European countries, and the Tsar’s government is a poor man.

“Want to be rich first to build roads”, this saying is not wrong at all. However, there was not even money for road construction, which was tragic.

What is even more tragic is that the Russian railroads were not only expensive to build, but also far more expensive to maintain than the European countries. Even if the railroad is built, there is no guarantee that it will be open to traffic all year round.

In order to ensure that the railroad is open, the railroad company had to invest a large number of workers in the winter for maintenance, and many sections of the road only need a few hours, the snow will cover the railroad.

In this way the operating costs of the railroads also went up, and the freight costs naturally increased. Originally cheap industrial raw materials, after thousands of miles of transportation, also became less cheap.

Having started late and having to face such harsh conditions, coupled with the corruption of the Tsarist government, it is not surprising that the Russians’ industry did not develop.

It is estimated that these problems, Alexander II has not had the heart to consider, he was still busy leading the Russian people to the great opening of the land.

No, the Great Exploitation had been going on for almost two years, and by now he should be worrying about what to do with the additional grain.

If you want to sell the grain, you must first be able to transport it. Not to mention the grain from the Ukraine region, which is where the Russian Empire gets the bulk of its grain exports from.

There was also a way for grain from the Moscow region to be transported out by river. For grain in the Caucasus, let’s build roads first, the lack of railroads is a real headache.

The most tragic is the Siberian plains, where the Russian people to open up the land on the tragedy, the harsh climatic conditions, not to mention, after all, the tsar gave more land to endure the past.

Transportation problems on the headache, the river is there, the prerequisite for your family’s land must be along the river, and also to ensure that the river can be normal navigation.

Fortunately, Alexander II exempted newly reclaimed land from taxes, otherwise the tax collectors would have collapsed. The people had no money in their pockets, so did they pay taxes on grain or not?

Perhaps for the Russian people this was happy trouble. There was no more fear of starvation, and if a few more years had passed, everyone’s warehouses would have been full of grain.

Time is still short, for the time being can not see the power of the great opening of the land, but look at the big data Franz know Alexander II this reform is half successful.

More grain means lower prices, in addition to being able to fill the stomachs of farmers, it can also feed a large number of workers at the lowest possible cost.

With everyone fed, the country was stabilized. Most of the Russian population would be content for at least a few decades.

The only question was whether or not they could withstand the counterattacks of the conservatives. With so much newly reclaimed land, how could the Russian nobles not be moved?

When the reclamation was over, someone would jump out and pick the peach. If land annexation could not be curbed, then the Russian Empire would still be in crisis again.

Land annexation was still a problem for the future, the biggest trouble right now was grain sales. If so much grain could not be sold on the international market, then the fun would be great.

This time does not need to be too long, next year or the year after, the Russian Empire will have the dilemma of oversupply of food.

As of now, the Russians have opened up at least 200 million acres of new arable land, a figure that is already almost half of Austria’s native arable land.

Fortunately, the newly developed land of the Russians is relatively rotten, with relatively low grain yields, and many places can only grow potatoes for one season.

If according to Austria’s land output standards, this food production, can be the international food market directly to burst.

In order to cope with the Russian grain impact on the international market, Austria has already begun to go to the inventory, many shrewd farmers are ready to switch to cash crops.

As for the grain processing industry, it is still Austria’s world. Utilizing the advantages of self-production and self-marketing, it has beaten many competitors over the years, controlling the terminal pricing of the grain market.

Even if the Russians exported grain, most of it was first exported to Austria, and after completing the finishing process, it was then sold to European countries.

This advantage will not change in the short term. Unless the Russians complete industrialization, the development of their own processing industry.

This in turn involves industry, want to change is not an overnight problem. Take the flour milling industry as an example: the flour produced by Russian companies is not only costly, but also of poor quality.

Now a lot of cities in the Russian Empire market sales of flour, actually still Austria production, we know how strong the competitiveness of the products of Russian enterprises.

This era of machinery is not so good to use, unlike the latter days of the flour mill, are foolproof operation, any person can master.

Now the machinery belongs to the high-tech, no professional technicians, simply can not play, talent on the short board is not so easy to make up for.

It’s not easy to make up for the shortcomings in talent. It’s also not easy to send people to train skilled workers. In this era, countries export machinery and equipment, are pre-buried a lot of mines.

For example, the Austrian exports of machinery and equipment, manuals are all clear German, or to the key places, but also in a few local dialects.

Even professional interpreters must be able to figure out the meaning. Then what to do? Naturally, experts are invited, relying on the late labor export, the enterprise can make another fortune.

If a little black hearted, but also in some places to ambush, deliberately let the buyer because they do not know the operation is not appropriate, continue to earn late maintenance fees.

This is why everyone imported the most advanced equipment in Europe, are going back and forth, do not let the manufacturer earn enough money, do not want to start work smoothly.

Even some unscrupulous businessmen first low-priced sale of machinery and equipment, luring buyers to fall for it, and then in the machinery and equipment on the hands, relying on late maintenance to earn huge profits.

If not for these invisible barriers, in this era of no technical barriers, the level of industrial production in all countries of the world, can be pulled to a line.

In the industry as a whole, this is not considered a secret, and even many buyers are aware that there may be loopholes in the transaction.

However they have no choice, this is the later to pay the tuition fee. If you don’t pay now, you will pay more in the future.

Want to directly obtain the industrial technology of the Great Powers and quickly climb to the world’s advanced level, or wash your hands of it!

The great powers are not charity, in order to ensure their own technological leadership, deliberately buried nails is only the most conventional operation.

Otherwise this catching up with the industrial powers, as long as the entire copy of the other side of the technology, you can quickly close the gap.

How can such a good thing be possible? If it were so easy, it would not be so many years have passed, France and Austria are the British catching up.

Had it not been for the outbreak of the Second Industrial Revolution, it is estimated that the British advantage could have been maintained for a long time.

(End of chapter)