Chapter 492: An Indispensable Mistake (Bounty Plus)
Chapter 481 Indispensable Mistake (Bounty Plus)
The industrial industrial layout was not just the steel industry. With the advent of the second industrial revolution, it made copper more versatile.
In 1870, Austrian copper production reached 580,000 tons, while the market demand was as high as 720,000 tons, a shortfall rate of one-sixth.
The main reason for this was the advent of the age of electricity. As the vanguard of the electric power revolution, Austria’s demand for copper naturally increased day by day.
In order to regulate the market supply and demand relationship, the Vienna government did not hesitate to let the state-owned enterprises to increase production by administrative order, but this supply and demand relationship is still not a short period of time can be changed.
This is no way, if the lack of steel can still be purchased in the international market, however, copper do not have to count on.
Austria’s copper production more than the sum of the European countries, even the British, this era of copper production is so pathetic tens of thousands of tons.
It is not that we do not want to increase production, the problem is that there is no mine at home, raw materials need to be imported, want to increase copper production, first solve the problem of copper ore.
Unfortunately, this thing is really not high reserves in Europe, or else the original time and space Chile can not rely on the export of copper ore to get rich.
This is very discordant for Austria, the local reserves are not enough, foreign imports of copper ore and too far away, increased transportation costs to make corporate profits table thin.
The Ministry of Industry was prepared to look for copper ore in the African colonies to make up for the lack of raw materials, but now that copper ore was found, transportation was still a big problem.
……
Franz put down the information, shook his head and said: ”Smelting copper ore on site in Africa, this plan is too radical. Now is not the time to develop industry in Africa, at least until the completion of indigenization, the continent cannot have industry.
Besides, does smelting copper ore in Africa necessarily reduce costs? I remember the Ministry of Industry’s report on energy reserves not long ago mentioned the lack of coal mines on the continent.
The few large coal mines we have discovered so far are concentrated in the South African region, and if smelting in situ requires the same transportation of ore, it may not necessarily be less costly than smelting at home.”
Another political tryst, no doubt. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of capitalists entering the African colonies for development, and many of them are no longer satisfied with providing raw materials for the country and want to develop industries there.
However, because of innate deficiencies, the distribution of resources in the African continent was extremely unbalanced, coupled with the suppression of the Vienna government, it had never been successful.
Now these people want to take advantage of the power of the Vienna government, the development of industry in the region, to earn greater profits.
This kind of petty political tactics naturally could not be hidden from Franz’s eyes. If it were a resource-rich region like the United States or Australia, it would still be difficult to suppress local industrial development.
To the African continent the situation is completely different, more than ninety percent of the coal mines are concentrated in the South African region, the rest of the region wants to develop industry, have to first solve the coal supply.
This will need to build roads, however, the current plan for the Austrian Great African Railway is still in slow progress. The initial planning is only from Guinea to the Congo region, and now although the planned section has been increased, it can not be built in a day or two.
The main road is not even fixed, the branch line is even more do not want to think about. Without the railroad to transport raw materials, Africa’s industrial development is naturally impossible.
Now take advantage of the opportunity of the lack of copper in the territory, many people began to move again, however, they ignored the general distribution of resources in Africa, Franz is more familiar than anyone else.
Specifically to which mine do not know, but that a large area of what resources, in later years is not a secret, as long as a little interested in people, can be searched on the Internet information.
In the African continent is suitable for the development of industry in the region is not unheard of, South Africa is the best choice, all kinds of resources are almost no shortage.
However, wasn’t this still a war? When the war is over, it’s time for the gold to come out again. Once a large gold mine appears, who cares to invest in other industries.
Capital is profit-driven, and naturally flows towards areas with high profits. Once the gold mine is developed, the resources will be robbed, and it is difficult to invest in other industries.
South Africa did not develop industry in the latter part of the world, to a certain extent, is too rich in resources, selling mines can make a fortune, who is still willing to risk investing in industry?
Minister of Industry Kaschin Qu Baker aggrievedly explained: “Your Majesty, Guinea region localization inspection period will soon be over, we continue to suppress the development of local industry, I am afraid it will cause criticism.
The problem of resource distribution is clear to us, and these people are on the African continent, it is impossible that they are not aware of these problems. They still made an application, and this is mostly a test run.
Even if one or two coal mines are found and happen to be suitable for industry, at most one or two factories will be added.
As long as the government doesn’t solve the transportation problem, no matter how they toss it around, it’s impossible to come up with an industrial system in the absence of raw materials, so why should we stand in the way?”
The African continent is more than lacking an industrial system, it is completely destitute. Not only are the raw material resources not available, even the manpower is lacking.
In the sparsely populated African continent, if one wanted to find more than 100,000 workers to establish a large industrial group integrating mining and smelting, that cost could discourage any capitalist.
Franz asked uncertainly, “You mean open up the mining industry, but when building railroads, deliberately put up barriers.
Make it impossible to directly connect between the origin of raw materials and the origin of raw materials, and increase the transportation cost of industrial development?”
If this was really done, it was estimated that Africa’s industry would be finished. There is no problem in wanting to develop minerals, the government will build railroads in areas where resources are concentrated so that the ore produced can be shipped out.
Only this kind of railroad is mainly single line, not a perfect railroad network. Especially between the iron ore mines and coal mines, there is no railroad directly through, from the source to suppress the development of Africa’s indigenous industry.
It has to be admitted that this approach is not just one step higher than directly prohibiting the development of industry in Africa. In the future, excuses can also be found, for example: exploration technology is not in place, wrongly estimated the amount of resource reserves.
A huge mine with 100 million tons of ore reserves is shown on the statement as one million tons, so naturally it is not worth the government’s attention and the need to plan the railroad line.
Or: ignoring technological progress.
Due to the limitations of the times, the exploitation value of the mine was misjudged, and it is understandable that it was ignored when the railroad was built.
……
Anyway, it’s all due to special circumstances, and it’s definitely not the central government suppressing the industrial development of the African continent. In the end, the African continent’s industries didn’t develop, and that was also beyond the reach of inhuman forces.
After a few decades, the indigenization was completed and Austrian rule on the African continent was entrenched. It won’t be too late to correct these particular historical mistakes then.
Minister of Industry Kaschin Querbec replied, “Yes, Your Majesty. Now that we have to concentrate on the development of the homeland, there is no way around making the colonies make sacrifices.”
Kaschin-Warbek emphasized the word “colony”, since a colony could not be compared to the mainland. The treatment is lower, that is also inevitable.
The Austrian economy would not have been able to maintain a high level of growth for a long time without drawing blood from the colonies. Before the era of free trade, the colonies were the objects of sacrifice.
This “mistake”, which was limited to the times, was no longer a mistake, and the failure to build a railroad network on the African continent became a necessity.
Franz finally understood why the Indian Railway had so many potholes in the original time and space, so the root of the problem had already been planted in the colonial era.
It is not that the designers were unreasonable in planning, but the reality needs to be unreasonable. The future looks unreasonable planning, this era is the optimal choice.
Franz nodded and said, “Accelerate the progress of the colonial railroad construction, take advantage of the information asymmetry of the point in time to cause an established fact, do not attract the attention of the civil society.”
Vienna government hands is a resource distribution map, imperfect is inevitable, but compared to the civil government to understand or more.
Industrial development can not be separated from coal, the African continent’s coal mines are concentrated in the South African region, which is destined to really need to design the wrong place is also in South Africa.
To do this is very simple, take the gold mine top cylinder on the line. It is understandable that the railroad network prioritizes gold mining and smelting and ignores other regions.
……
It is natural to keep this kind of hidden program as secret as possible, and the implementation of it naturally falls to the Ministry of Railways.
Inside the Ministry of Railways, Stein who received this special order was directly dumbfounded. This job is not good, obviously be prepared to be scolded.
No matter how well prepared excuse, the future of the public still want to scold the railroad designers, this pot to let who to take the blame has become a problem.
The phone becomes card, I do not know actually used more than two years, and it is time to retire, mourning my lost youth!
(End of chapter)