Chapter 392: Safety First

  Chapter 382: Safety First

The tax policy was still just an intention, and how far it would go in the end would ultimately depend on the actual situation. Apart from the parties involved, most people are indifferent.

Colonial and native integration, that was different. The Vienna government had just when out of the wind, and it quickly triggered a hot debate in society.

Supporters and opponents tore through the newspapers every day, and even such hot topics as the Russo-Prussian War, the American negotiations, and the bullying of the Russian Navy by pirates, were suppressed.

Public opinion was not lopsided, and supporters and opponents killed each other equally. This reassured Franz, and it looked like the integration had a better chance of passing in the Reichstag.

As an emperor, although he had the ability to force a decision through, Franz had never done it before.

On the surface it looked like it was a very powerful thing to do, demonstrating the monarch’s authority, but in reality the potential political threat was very great. A correct decision is desirable, but a wrong decision is the responsibility of the emperor.

No one can guarantee not to make mistakes, not to mention the correct decision in the wrong time, place, is also a mistake.

The Reichstag, the highest authority in the new Holy Roman Empire, had a role to play in taking the blame for big political decisions.

This was the political fallback that Franz had prepared, in case something went terribly wrong and he didn’t want the cabinet to roll over, he could still hold the Reichstag responsible for it.

After so many years of reorganization, the current Reichstag is no longer the same as it was when it was just a few people, the number of MPs has increased dramatically, but the state-based system has not changed.

That even the smallest free city has at least one seat, and then every three million people produce a seat, in order to take care of the small states, after the population exceeds three million people, directly add a seat.

Anyway, no matter how you get it, Austria takes half the seats. But a motion can be vetoed with one-third of the members opposing it, and to amend the constitution, more than ninety-five percent of the members must agree.

It is worth mentioning that the question about the constitution was not something that Franz came up with, but something that the states asked for on their own initiative.

Because the constitution of the empire guaranteed their autonomy, in order to eliminate the possibility of Austrian meddling in their internal affairs, a condition was directly proposed that was almost impossible to fulfill.

Of course, the favorable clauses in the constitution protecting the emperor and the king also contributed to this provision. Everyone was smart enough to support it as a clause in their favor, of course.

The rights of the central government were naturally limited, and the bureaucratic clique, no matter how awesome they were, had their rights legally constrained.

Each state government has a set of teams, and the cabinet of the new Holy Roman Empire government now has a lot of power, and that’s based on the premise that they doubled as the Austrian cabinet.

If one day Franz got upset, he could just have them split up. Then the Imperial Cabinet would be embarrassed to find out that they can’t do anything without the state government to go along with it.

The army belonged to the emperor and the king below, and the cabinet had no right to mobilize it; the states had a high degree of autonomy, and the central government had no right to ask questions about internal affairs.

The central government could print money, however, this also needed the approval of the Imperial Council; the mint tax and tariff collected by the central government needed to pay for administrative expenses, military expenses, royal annuities and so on, and the shortfall was to be shared by the governments of the states.

Of course, the diplomatic power is in the hands of the central government, and the management of colonies is also in the hands of the central government, but these can not be achieved without the cooperation of the states.

Especially when it comes to the internal affairs of the state governments, all policies are based on the cooperation of the state governments.

For example, the government’s plan to give tax rebates to textile factories requires the cooperation of the state governments.

If a state government is against it, then they can still do their own thing and continue to levy taxes according to their own laws without paying any attention to the decisions of the central government.

This was only in theory, but in reality the economy of the New Holy Roman Empire was now integrated. Many economic problems needed to be coordinated and solved by the central government, and there was no reason for people to refuse terms that were favorable to them.

This was also Franz’s position of the central government, an organizing coordinator, linking all the states together.

It was somewhat similar to the historical German Second Empire, except that he, the emperor, had much more power. Just because the central government did not have the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the states did not mean that the Emperor did not have the right to do so as well.

It’s one thing to have the right, it’s another to not bother.

Unless the government of a certain state has caused so much anger and resentment that the people have risen up, and the emperor must intervene, Franz will intervene.

From the establishment of the New Holy Roman Empire until now, this had never happened, so Franz had always been paid to do nothing.

He wasn’t a power-mad man, so why bother with this kind of out-of-the-blue thing? As the Emperor of the New Holy Roman Empire, just be a good referee.

What’s more, Franz is also the Emperor of Austria and King of Bavaria, even if he has a power craving, it’s not like he has no place to vent it.

Even if he had a lust for power, he did not have no place to vent it. If he could not do it, he could still toss the colonies, and anyway, things would never be finished. If you are not afraid of sudden death, you can work twenty-four hours a day.

Part-time work is not without its benefits, in Europe, a society with a clear division of property, Franz was able to get more salary naturally.

The annuity of the new Holy Roman Emperor, the annuity of the Emperor of Austria, the annuity of the King of Bavaria, and if the process of colonial integration is completed in the future, he will most likely have to add a few more titles, which will be another large amount of income.

As for integrating the colonies into Austria? That was completely out of the question.

Opening up overseas colonies was expensive, and Austria alone obviously couldn’t afford it; in the end, it was the New Holy Roman Empire treasury that paid for it.

In other words, it was all the states together that paid for the establishment of the current colonial empire.

If all of it was given to Austria, the gold masters who had paid for it would not have agreed to it. It would have been even more impossible for each of them to take a piece of it, as the colonies were destined to be decentralized because they were far away from the sea.

It was enough for the states to get the economic benefits, and even if they got the nominal management right, they had no way to manage it.

Franz was encouraging everyone to open up overseas colonies, and the colonies that the state governments wanted to open up were perfectly capable of doing it on their own.

After considering the horrible capital investment and risk, everyone decided unanimously to let the central government go ahead! If we want to make a profit, we’ll all make a profit together, and if we want to lose a profit, we’ll all lose a profit together.

The most crucial thing is that there is no way to go it alone without the central government, without the protection of the Imperial Navy, how can the security of the colonies be solved?

Have you not seen the colonial strongholds established by Prussian and German capitalists overseas before, all of which have taken the initiative to join?

Even now, when Prussia and the German Confederation joined the colonization movement, they could not do so without the support of the New Shinra Empire.

It wasn’t something that could be solved by hugging the thigh, and overseas colonies were another world. Each country has a large number of civilian colonization teams overseas, and these groups are not entirely under the control of their governments.

If there was a conflict, the governments would side with their own people.

At the end of the day, it was all about fists, and if you were strong in a certain region overseas, then you could dominate that region, rather than simply looking at the strength of the country.

This is also the reason why Holland and Portugal were able to keep a large part of their colonies, even though their countries were not strong, they were strong enough in certain regions.

Since the colonial empire was established by everyone contributing money and effort together, the ownership of the colonies naturally belonged to the empire. In what way it was incorporated into the empire was also a question that needed to be studied.

Autonomous Province, Autonomous City, Autonomous Territory, Crown Province, State, Noble Fiefdom ……

These are all alternatives, and the different designations represent different systems.

Autonomous cities would mean fragmentation of the colony, autonomous territories would mean a larger territory retained by the colony, directly governed provinces would mean direct control by the central government, and states would be the same as the states are now ……

From the point of view of interests, Franz of course preferred the colonies to be incorporated into the empire as states, which helped to consolidate imperial power.

To put it bluntly, whether the states are duchies, or kingdoms, Franz can be directly concurrently the king, the bond of the empire is first of all the emperor, followed by economic integration.

The more part-time jobs you have the more secure the throne becomes, unless all the states come together against the emperor, it’s safe.

Under normal circumstances, no one would dare to risk the division of the country by screwing over the emperor. Besides, there had to be a civil war before the emperor could be abolished.

The opposing states had to be overpowered by force, or else the Imperial Council couldn’t pass it. Without being able to amend the constitution, the new regime won’t gain legitimacy.

In the European political system, regime legitimacy is very important, and usually the lower the legitimacy, the shorter the life of the regime.

A regime without legitimacy is ready to suppress rebellions every day! No, when a regime has no legitimacy, it can’t be considered as a rebellion, people are justified in rebelling.

When it comes to revolution, Franz is very relieved. As long as it’s not an army rebellion, it can be easily handled.

Just take a look at Vienna, it doesn’t have the basis for a revolution. Even if the whole of Europe was in revolution, there would be no uproar here.

From the time Franz succeeded to the throne until now, Vienna has never had a general strike, even if there is a strike that is limited to the size of a hundred or eighty people, which is already enough to explain a lot of problems.

This is not without reason. Since more than ten years ago, the Vienna government has prohibited the opening of any factories in Vienna, and the factories that have already been established have been relocated one after another.

A city with no industry, naturally, large-scale strikes do not exist.

Nowadays, Vienna’s economy is mainly based on service industry, scientific research and finance. The economic structure determines the superstructure, and the income of the employees of these industries is relatively good.

Without industrial pollution, Vienna has become the most beautiful city in Europe and the first big city in Europe without slums.

Smaller cities cannot be counted; a small city in this era is a large slum in itself, and there is no need to differentiate.

As a price, it was Vienna’s slow population growth, and the city’s development lagged far behind that of London and Paris.

Even within the Empire of the New Holy Roman Empire, there are now a number of cities that surpass Vienna in terms of population, for example: Milan and Munich.

Of course, population is not the same as economy. Vienna’s total population is now only 680,000, with only 310,000 people living in the city, but the economy is only as large as that of London and Paris.

With a small population and a well-developed economy, the standard of living of the people is among the highest in Europe, and there are naturally fewer social conflicts. With fewer social conflicts, the people’s desire for revolution was also reduced.

As the basic disk of the Habsburg family, Franz attached great importance to it. As the capital of two empires, Vienna has the unique advantage of not needing to develop any industry at all.

Greater London and Paris certainly seem to have a face, but in reality there is suffering. London became the city of fog, and Paris became the capital of revolution.

Moreover, the big cities themselves are not suitable for the development of industry, the price of land, the cost of living far beyond the small and medium-sized cities, from the very beginning to raise the cost of industrial production.

Taking Vienna as an example, if one invests in building a factory here, the land price will be three times higher than that of a small or medium-sized city, and the labor cost will increase by at least one-third.

This does not even take into account the transportation of raw materials, if you combine a number of factors, usually the production costs of these factories have to increase by 10% to 30%.

Franz can only sigh that the competition in this era is not fierce enough, the capitalists do not know how to optimize the allocation of industry, not to mention that they have not done their best to save costs.

You know, in later times, capitalists will move their factories to wherever production costs are lowest. Whoever insisted on staying in the big city was either swept away or closed down.

Of course, Franz knew very well that people were eager to crowd into the capital, mainly because it was close to the center of power and could gain politically.

However, Franz, who didn’t like capital interfering in politics, flipped the table from the start and didn’t offer them that opportunity.

Vienna had enough resources and did not need these industries, but many small and medium-sized cities did. Under this policy, seven or eight more industrial cities were added to Austria.

In this way, perhaps the total amount of industry in Austria has not increased much, but the competitiveness of industry has increased, which is very favorable to long-term development.

In this era, big cities were prone to strikes, and very often it was the capitalists who passed these increased costs on to the workers to secure their own interests.

The worse the economic situation is, the more strikes there are and the more intense the social conflicts.

From the ruler’s point of view, as long as Vienna was not chaotic Franz’s rule was stable, and any problems that arose in other regions could be suppressed by mobilizing troops.

This is the lesson of history, the vast majority of successful revolutions in Europe were realized in the capital. Exceptions may have existed, but not in Franz’s memory.

In short, Franz de-industrialized Vienna, whether for reasons of industrial development or the need to maintain his rule.

It was also saving for a rainy day, and with a stable capital city and a well-developed set of institutions, it could be said that Franz took safety first to the extreme. As long as it is not to die, then it really will not die.

(End of chapter)