Chapter 259: Convincing
Chapter 251 Convince
After the successful opening of the Guinea colony, the Austrian colonization didn’t stop there and set its sights on the Congo region again.
Anyway, this year, everywhere is unclaimed land, whoever occupies it belongs to whoever, Franz naturally will not be polite.
By October 1854, Austria had opened thirteen colonial strongholds in the African continent one after another, sending more than 40,000 immigrants to the colonies.
……
Franz asked suspiciously, “Chancellor, why did you stop sending immigrants to the colonies?”
It should be known that according to Austria’s initial plan, it was to send all the refugees there, and now this is only less than one-tenth of the completion.
Prime Minister Felix explained, “Your Majesty, the plague in the Balkan Peninsula has already spread, if we need to send immigrants now, I am afraid that the plague will be brought to the colonies.
Despite our efforts to recruit doctors, the healthcare facilities in the colony are still not optimistic, and once the plague spreads the consequences are unimaginable.”
Franz shook his head and said, “Prime Minister, you are worrying too much. How many people are there in the colony, even if there is an outbreak of plague, it would be very easy to disperse and isolate it.
Moreover, winter is coming soon, this plague should have reached its end, even if it is brought to the African continent, the situation will not be too serious.
From the intelligence we have gathered, the death rate of Russian soldiers infected with the plague is only seven or eight points, which is not as high as the natural death rate of African colonization.
The war in the Balkans will soon be over, by then most of these refugees will choose to return home, and it will be harder for us to emigrate in the future.”
This is not an exaggeration, the death rate of immigrants to the African continent in this day and age is that perverse, and a lot of them usually die on the way.
Is the death rate lower if we let the refugees stay in the Balkans? The answer is no!
In fact, their death rate would be even higher if they stayed in the Balkans.
The Austrian government would not have been able to spend a lot of money on the relief of the refugees without enough profit, and the Ottoman Empire even less, so could the French be expected to be the saints of the world?
In this day and age, everyone is struggling to feed themselves. Relief of the millions of refugees in the Balkans would consume a great deal of financial and material resources, who would do it without sufficient benefits?
Without enough relief, these refugees will turn into roving bandits and then go on to plague more areas, turning more people into refugees.
Before the twentieth century, human productivity was limited, and there were only two ways to deal with refugee flows: relief or killing.
Most of the time it was solved by killing, and the feudal dynasties simply could not provide relief. There was no good or evil, right or wrong, everyone was trying to survive, and if there wasn’t enough food then we had to eat the weak.
Austria’s African colonization campaign was very cautious, each time the number of immigrants transported about five thousand to eight thousand people, and then scattered in a dozen settlements. It was not that they did not want more, but food constrained the number of immigrants.
If it was just to send people there, then organizing a hundred or eighty cargo ships at a time could easily send away tens of thousands of people, and then logistics would become a big problem.
The African continent had a limited degree of development, and the local indigenous tribes were too lazy to cultivate land, and survived entirely on natural resources. The initial colonizers who went to Africa also relied on local natural resources to survive.
Obviously, it was only suitable for a few people to colonize. A colonial stronghold spread a few thousand people, not that Franz did not have the population in his hands, but more so for fear of unforeseen circumstances, the colonial stronghold’s logistics were cut off.
When the number of people was small, they could still engage in adventures and get enough food from the local area to survive, not once the population was too large.
Prime Minister Felix continued to explain, ”Your Majesty, we are already emigrating at a fast pace, as far as the number of immigrants is concerned, apart from the French, even the British don’t have as many immigrants on the African continent.
There isn’t enough local output to feed the immigrants, and there isn’t enough return in the short term, and if precious mineral resources can’t be found, these areas will put a heavy strain on the treasury in the future.”
Franz would naturally be concerned about this if he didn’t know about the local resources, but this reason obviously couldn’t be used.
It was even more impossible to be bent on doing it, without the cooperation of the government’s top echelons, it would end up being the Emperor’s colonization alone, and the end result would obviously be tragic.
Franz said calmly, “Then, find a way to solve this problem. Our colonial strongholds are all along the coast, send a batch of fishing boats over to them and teach the immigrants to fish.
With so much fertile land around, planting just a little bit of anything will be enough to feed themselves. Once the initial period is over, the food problem can be gradually solved.
The colony didn’t raise lazy people, so if they didn’t want to do anything, they would organize themselves as cannon fodder, whether they were sent to fight the local indigenous tribes or used to explore the interior.
Once the food problem is solved, there will be less pressure on the back. Once the colony is stabilized, we can prospect locally, and as long as one or two strongholds are productive, we can recoup our costs.
These colonial strongholds can also provide logistical supplies to overseas merchant ships and earn some fees to subsidize administrative expenses.
If we can’t find any minerals, we’ll go logging, I don’t think there’s even a local timber resource; the plains are still fine for sustaining the colony, whether it’s growing food, cash crops, or raising livestock.”
This was not Franz bragging; it was not possible to get rich by farming or livestock, but it was still possible to be self-sufficient.
This kind of industrialized operation can’t make much money, but it definitely can’t lose money either. Historically, one of the main reasons why colonies lost money is that there were not enough immigrants.
The number of immigrants was insufficient to effectively develop the local natural resources, the basic industries could not be developed, and the colonial government could not get enough tax revenue, so it was normal to lose money.
Prime Minister Felix reminded, “Your Majesty, all of this requires a large amount of investment, right now we’ve already invested millions of guilders in the colonization business, and to achieve a balance of income and expenditure in these areas, this investment will exceed tens of millions of guilders.”
Franz replied smilingly, “Of course, I know very well what this is doing, with these tens of millions of guilders invested, the Guinea and Congo regions will also be completely under our control.
With such a large area of land, I just grow coffee, palm, cotton, cocoa, rubber, tobacco, and tea on it, and I can make a profit of several million guilders per year.
And that’s not even counting the mineral resources. It’s not like we’ll be so unlucky that we won’t get anything, right?
This is a good account, Britain, France and other colonial powers did not do this, not because they did not want to do it, but they did not have enough immigrants in their hands.
There are still 400,000 to 500,000 refugees in Dalmatia right now, waiting to be resettled there.
We can first engage in food-for-work to keep them in the area to improve local transportation, and then slowly migrate them to the African colonies.
Everything is difficult at the beginning, as long as the first stage of investment is completed, the later is the harvest period. If the government’s financial resources are insufficient, it can raise funds from the private sector.
The colonies are different from the mainland, there is no need for the government to be directly involved in the management, it is the same to give these businesses to the private companies to do.
I’m even considering whether or not to allow individuals to participate in the colonization business and encourage nobles to go overseas to open up colonies.”
Prime Minister Felix was persuaded, the colonization business was different from others, as long as it could guarantee cost recovery, the government had earned it.
Among the management of the colonies, perhaps not earned a lot of profit, but can provide enough industrial raw materials for domestic industry, the newly opened market, and promote the development of domestic industry and commerce.
The colonies also had the advantage of reducing the outflow of native population. Now this situation is not obvious, the future industrialization is completed, this situation will be more serious.
Especially after the outbreak of the economic crisis, the domestic can not find jobs, the people forced to make ends meet have to emigrate overseas, this time the role of the colony comes out.
As long as the development is okay, and the government guides it a bit, it can attract a large number of immigrants to avoid the outflow of population.
Now the number of outflow immigrants in the German region can be quite a lot, do not need more as long as one-third of them, or even one-fifth of them were snubbed to the Austrian colony, in the African continent will not be afraid of any enemy challenge.
Want to retain these immigrants, the development of the local economy is also inevitable. Without sustainable basic industries, it is obvious that it can not attract people to settle.
There is strength in numbers, and as long as the population of the Austrian African colonies is large enough, then Austria will have the advantage in the new round of the African colonial carving up movement.
This advantage, in the future, will be directly reflected in the economic development of the country, promoting the development of domestic industry and commerce.
(End of chapter)