Chapter 1022: The “Loving” People Are Out in Force
Chapter 1002 – The “Loving Heart” People
Facts once again proved that the boss is not easy to be, the critical moment must also be for the little brother to resist the thunder. The debt between Prussia and the British, that is a well-known thing, no one can deny.
“It is only right that debts should be paid.”
Even though the political situation had changed, the Kingdom of Prussia, the lord who owed money, was still there, and the debt naturally existed. No one can say that it is not right for the English to collect the debt as agreed in the loan contract.
Originally this did not have much to do with Franz, the debts of the states were not the debts of the central government, and the Empire was not obliged to bear them for them. Even if the British were to collect the debt, they could not find it on the head of the Vienna government.
The problem is that now the Berlin government pretended to be dead, the “debt problem” to the maintenance of national sovereignty, things fall on the head of the Vienna government.
It is impossible to fulfill the contract. If the treaty were to be implemented, Vienna would be drowned by the public’s spittle.
It was impossible to pay the money. If we helped the Kingdom of Prussia to pay off its debts today, there was no telling how many state governments would go bankrupt tomorrow. In the face of profit, politicians are always low.
Defaulting was even less likely, and as the newly rising hegemon, the Vienna government had to maintain its international image.
In particular, the Vienna government still has a butt of debts to collect, if they take the lead to play a rogue, people can use “international practice” as an excuse to renege on the debt in the future.
It can be said that the Vienna government is now forced to a very embarrassing situation. William II personally came to Vienna to ask for help, not only to ask for help, I’m afraid that more is still to “apologize”.
After causing such a big mess, it is obviously not acceptable not to give an explanation. Even if the state is highly autonomous, the central government can also give them small shoes.
Now come to sell misery, in addition to face a little bad, but the actual loss is minimal. Even if the Vienna government had the intention to settle the score with them, after this wave, there was no way to do it.
The rules of the game is so, the Kingdom of Prussia this time did not moral, but the king personally came to apologize, even if things come to an end, and then pursued would seem aggressive.
Rubbing his forehead, Franz asked with concern: “The cabinet is ready to deal with Prussia’s debt problem?”
Prime Minister Karl: “The most desirable outcome, naturally, is for the British to make concessions. Allow the Prussian government to defer payments, or restructure the debt and offset some of it with Prussia’s share of the reparations from the war against France.
This is almost impossible to do; Britain has likewise extended its economic crisis, and the London government is now in need of funds, and it makes no sense for them to accept a debt deferment without a greater benefit.
Debt restructuring would be even more problematic; the Kingdom of Prussia was in pretty good shape, and had it not been for a bunch of crappy projects by the Berlin government earlier, it wouldn’t have been financially bankrupt.
France is the real giant pit, from the current situation, the Paris government can not go bankrupt even if God blessed. As for war reparations, you can’t expect much in the next two or three years.
We screwed the British earlier on the debt of the German Confederation, and I’m afraid that they won’t accept the transfer of their claims again, even if we say anything now.
Without defaulting and sacrificing the sovereignty of the country, I am afraid that the only way is to make a secret deal of interest in return for concessions from the British on the Prussian debt.”
While the gains from a successful gamble on the nation’s fortunes are great, the costs of failure are equally steep. In recent years, the Kingdom of Prussia has been paying the price for the failure of its previous bets on national fortunes.
Even after becoming the victor of the war against France, the reparations they shared were still unable to fill the hole left before.
Thinking about this, Franz suddenly understood the decision of Wilhelm II. Without getting rid of the mountain of debt, the Kingdom of Prussia would always be at the bottom of the Holy Roman Empire.
That’s right, the bottom of the heap. With tens of millions of guilders in reparations to be paid every year, the Berlin government did not have the financial resources to build up the country.
After the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, there was also a major event in the Berlin government, in which someone in the government proposed that the two infantry divisions in the country be converted into a centralized army.
There was no other reason, it just couldn’t be afforded. By losing the army to the central government, not only would it save a fortune in expenses, it would still be these men who guarded Prussia’s security.
In the opinion of the government officials, even if the army was retained, command would be taken away from the central government anyway, and even if the king still had the right to command, it would have nothing to do with the Berlin government.
Only this move was strongly opposed by Wilhelm II himself. The command of the army taken away by the central government was only in time of war; in time of peace the supreme military officer of the army of the state was the king.
In times of peace, the king was the supreme military officer of the state’s army, but it was a different story once the centralized army was transformed into a centralized army. Even though the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire stipulated that the monarch of the state was the supreme military officer of the garrison in his region, it was still his own state’s army that was in command of the army.
As for the central army, the military expenditure was allocated by the emperor, and the generals were appointed by the emperor. William II would not be naive enough to think that after losing these rights, a mere nominal supreme command would be able to control the army.
In normal times, it seems to be nothing, but if something happens and you need to use the army, you suddenly realize that you can’t command the army, that will be the end of the story.
In a sense, the loss of military power is the loss of the ability to overturn the table. The following people can be unscrupulous over the king, purely according to the rules of the game to play, I am afraid that not many kings can play over the following ministers.
Just take a look at the many states of the Holy Roman Empire, but wherever there is a bit of family money, there is no one to give up the army. Including those real feudal overseas big nobles, one by one in the law within the scope of permission, formed their own private army.
According to the statistics of the Vienna government, the total strength of the armies of the states in the Holy Roman Empire and the private armies of the nobles occupied about one-third of the total number of the imperial army.
If we add the various colonial groups and private armies, this ratio is likely to be more than half. In other words, it is these miscellaneous armed forces that are equal in number to the central army.
This is the inevitable result, and the state is a historical legacy. If the Vienna government doesn’t watch what it eats, why should people hang around with you?
Not to mention the private armies of the nobility and the civilian colonial armies, without which, where did the Empire’s colonies come from?
All the mountains and rivers were fought down by others, and when it came time to share the cake, could you still kick them out?
Even if it’s a case of crossing the river and tearing down the bridge, that’s something that needs to be considered only after the river is crossed. The Holy Roman Empire’s territory has exceeded that of any other country in history, and if you really want to play with the central government, even if you don’t get dragged to death by administrative expenses, you will also get killed by the endless uprisings.
Do you really think Franz was willing to make a big division? It’s all a matter of practical necessity. If you don’t share the cake, why would the people below you work for you.
Just look at the results. All the major colonial empires were plagued by national uprisings, but the Vienna government never had to worry about it.
In fact, the Holy Roman Empire didn’t even have the largest private army. It was the British who had the most private armies under their command, only to be labeled as companies, colonial governments, and self-governing territories.
Simply put, when you started a colony, the British government authorized you to form a colonial government, such as the East India Company.
Of course, in the end, whether you could keep it or not depended on your ability to move around, or your background in the country.
If you were to govern directly, with the number of lobster soldiers, you could at most rule one Canada. No more than that, and then it would be too much to handle.
Everyone is struggling for the rights and interests, William II has already got his hands on the natural reluctance to give up. If you analyze carefully, it is not difficult to find that the bankruptcy of the Berlin government is the result of the compromise of all parties in Prussia.
After contemplating for a while, Franz shook his head: ”Prussia owes the British a lot of money, even if the London government is willing to compromise, the consortium behind it will not stop.
Benefit exchange, also have to we have the benefit and they exchange. We can’t make major strategic concessions just for the sake of the debt, right?
Let’s wait for the British to come to our door and then talk to them slowly. Stall as long as possible, and maybe when the economic crisis passes, the Kingdom of Prussia will have the money to honor its debts.”
In the face of interest, the gods of modesty were not worth mentioning. The current situation is very obvious, to solve the problem you have to be in trouble left and right. If you don’t want to solve the problem, then there will be no trouble at all.
In any case, it is the Kingdom of Prussia that owes the debt, not the Holy Roman Empire. It was not the responsibility of the government of Vienna to fulfill the debt in a way that contradicted the laws of the empire.
The big deal is to let the British go to the Imperial Court to sue, let the court guys headache. It’s a good time to use this opportunity to push the Legislative Council to introduce a law on “Prohibition of Local Mortgages of Public Power to Raise Debt”.
Prior to this, Franz has long been put out the wind, only to see the state governments to resist the strong will to delay the proposal. The Prussian debt crisis was just the opportunity that came to his door.
The definition of “public power” is very broad, national sovereignty, government revenue, state-owned industries, including government buildings can be considered part of public power.
Once the law is passed, state governments will not be able to put up any collateral if they want to borrow, and the only thing they can rely on is the government’s creditworthiness.
Pure credit loans, that would not need Franz to worry about. Not to mention the fact that no one would dare to lend a huge amount of debt, even if they did and defaulted on the debt, it would not involve the sovereignty of the state.
If you can’t pay it back, then you can’t pay it back, if you go bankrupt, then you go bankrupt, and these days there are plenty of bankruptcies of local governments in continental Europe. No matter how much you kick the ball, you can’t kick the head of the central government.
……
The Prussian debt crisis is just a small episode, the economic crisis ravaged the world, the European people are now very anxious, the meal is about to eat, there is no heart to eat melon.
Even if there are newspapers published, it is not possible for people to have no money in their pockets to subscribe to newspapers. In the midst of the overwhelming wave of unemployment, what people are most concerned about now is the job announcements.
Taking the Holy Roman Empire as an example, after the economic crisis broke out, the unemployment rate in the country directly quintupled, and there are still signs that it will continue to expand.
This was still considered a good situation, after all, the Holy Roman Empire had a piece of the African continent to vent its pressure. Before the outbreak of the economic crisis, the domestic unemployment rate was already very low.
Like all previous economies, this time after the economic crisis broke out, the colonial government and noble lords still came to the mainland to pull people in.
Just take a look at the newspapers and you will see that there are job advertisements all over the place, all of which are for jobs in the colonies.
After so many years of emigration, those who wanted to emigrate had already left, and the rest were those who didn’t want to leave their hometowns, or couldn’t leave the mainland for some reason.
In order to keep up with the times, the current advertisements do not directly ask for immigrants. Only require the signing of a long-term labor contract, the past work 5 years, 10 years on the line.
After all, time is the best catalyst. After five or ten years in the colony, even if you want to leave, you have to think twice before doing so.
There was no way around it – the treatment. These days, the noble lord, all are “good people”, not only to give a high salary and treatment, the key is also very “love”, encountered a problem is also willing to help subordinates out.
Especially like subordinates with their families together in the past, not only willing to provide free housing, but also be able to guarantee the placement of work, even the children’s education have been solved.
Really very “loving”, look at the empire’s orphanages to know, the vast majority of them are deserted, the only remaining a few families only some physically unsound children, physically able-bodied orphans are all adopted by these “loving” people.
Even the problem of orphans and refugees, which had agonized the Vienna Government at the border some time ago, was solved by these “loving” people.
After the outbreak of the economic crisis, the scope of activities of the “caring” people has expanded from the empire to the entire European continent. Wherever they were, people no longer had to worry about having too many children to feed.
In a sense, this is one of the bright spots of the economic crisis. Fewer people are starving to death than in the past. When you are hungry, you can go to these “loving” people.
Of course, not just anyone. The “caring” people are very lenient with children, but they are very strict with adults.
They don’t want street thugs, they don’t want people with criminal records, they don’t want people with bad intentions, they don’t want people with big grievances against society, they don’t want people who hate …….
None of these requirements had anything to do with Ives, who, as a good young man, had at least a hundred employers to choose from if he was willing to work in the colony.
That’s right, a choice of employers. Almost all of the Holy Roman Empire’s fiefdom nobles were short of people, and everyone had tried everything to increase their labor force.
If they weren’t worried about the language barrier, which was not conducive to the management of the territory, it was estimated that everyone would have to go abroad to snatch people.
As a matter of fact, agencies specializing in immigration for fiefdom nobles were born a long time ago. If they couldn’t pull in people locally, they went abroad to think of ways.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak the language, they can provide training; the eating habits are different, they are all starving masters, what else to be picky about?
Even labor skills, obedience, can be trained. Some agencies can even train immigrants to do whatever they are told to do.
The only problem is that this kind of trained immigrants are too expensive. The vast majority of nobles couldn’t afford to enjoy this kind of high-specification service, so in order to save on costs, everyone still preferred to pull their own people.
An honest local youth like Ives happened to be the most welcomed talent, so naturally, he didn’t worry about work.
The problem was that Ives didn’t want to leave his hometown, he just wanted to find a local job where he could support his family. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really one.
If it was before the economic crisis broke out, naturally there wouldn’t have been any problem finding a normal job locally.
Unfortunately, this was a time of economic crisis, and it was too late for most businesses and factories to lay off workers, so who wouldn’t figure out how to recruit at this time?
After rummaging through today’s newspaper, Ives finally found a local business recruitment information in a small corner.
Before he had time to be happy, Ives’ face instantly fell. It couldn’t be helped, the recruitment conditions above were just too high.
Not only did it require a secondary school education, but it also required professional work experience, all of which happened to be things he didn’t have.
(End of chapter)