Chapter 473: Adapting to the Local Conditions
Chapter 462: Adapting to local conditions
Looking at the gray-haired old prime minister, Franz’s heart was a little hesitant, asking himself, “Is it really good to do this?”
Soon this thought was dispelled by him, there is no room for indecision in politics. Besides, Prime Minister Felix seemed to be in good spirits and was handling the political affairs with ease.
Nostalgic Franz does not like to change people often, cabinet members except for health reasons left early, the rest of them have been in the job for more than twenty years.
Stability at the top, maximizing the continuity of policy. These years Austria can maintain high speed development, they are all the credit.
As for the problem of high merit and worrying about the cabinet getting bigger, that is something that only mediocre kings need to consider, Franz is not worried at all.
As long as the operation is done properly, it is possible to turn “the high and mighty” into a good story of “the saint and the wise”, and most of the time, the famous ministers are the backdrop for the famous king.
Slightly guide the public opinion, the ministers are the emperor’s credit is to know people good use, completely do not need and under the people to grab the credit. Unless the emperor was not in the right position, he needed to worry about it every day.
In this regard, Western emperors were much happier, and did not have to worry every day that their men would rebel when they became big. The sense of jurisprudence has been deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and it is now popular to look at the bloodline, not a world where kings and queens would rather have seeds.
Of course, the revolutionaries were an exception, they were professional rebels, and cannot be generalized.
The information has been passed to the cabinet people to come, over the years Franz has long since developed a tacit understanding with them, the emperor wants to do things are the cabinet to charge.
There are doubts everyone is first in the palace in secret discussions, deliberated the results before the government. In addition to the problem cabinet take responsibility, Franz is responsible for the aftermath.
After reading the information, Prime Minister Felix objected, “Your Majesty, there is no problem with encouraging childbirth, but we have to consider the actual situation.
Judging from the current average income of the people in the country, theoretically it is not a big problem for a couple to raise five or six children. But in practice, it is still very stressful for some people.
For the working class in particular, once they have children, it will be difficult for both spouses to work together, thus reducing their income by one and increasing the pressure on the family.
At present, the areas in China where births are declining are all cities with rapid industrial development. Due to the pressure of life, many working families are afraid to raise children.
To increase the birth rate, we must first solve this problem. Otherwise, as times go on and the number of workers grows, the harder it will be to deal with.”
The poorest people in Austria now are the working class; perhaps their income is comparable to that of the farmers, but their standard of living is far from comparable.
After all, housing expenses and daily living expenses consume a large part of their wealth.
On the contrary, the peasants were more comfortable. With the opening up of the colonies, the land conflicts in the country were completely solved, and the land area per capita increased greatly.
Most of the families had repaid the land redemption money in advance, and now it was the richest stage for the peasants. But Franz was clear that these good times would not last long.
With the development of productivity, the scissors difference between industry and agriculture would become bigger and bigger, and these advantages would soon be canceled out.
Right now there were just few industrial products and everyone’s needs were small. The income from the land was enough for daily expenses, but as people’s needs increased, the money would not be enough.
It’s too hard to increase the return on land, and in fact the return on land, relatively speaking, is in a constant state of decline.
Just look at the Tsarist government that sells the land, in a few years the Russians will be back in the grain market again, and then there will be a huge amount of grain from Russia hitting the market.
Changes in supply and demand will have a direct impact on the price of food on the international market, which in turn will affect the earnings of Austrian farmers.
Saving for a rainy day is something Franz has always done. Increasing internal consumption is the most effective way, and encouraging fertility policy is the most favorable measure. When the population increased, food consumption naturally increased.
Franz directly asked, “What is the Prime Minister’s plan?”
With his understanding of Prime Minister Felix, since he had raised the problem, he was ready with a solution.
Prime Minister Felix replied, “Your Majesty, it’s actually not difficult to solve this problem, it’s just that the financial pressure will be a bit high.
Before this, we have already introduced relevant laws, for example: the legal situation mandates paid maternity leave and prohibits dismissal, but this is all a drop in the bucket.
When a child is born, it still needs to be taken care of, and during this period women workers are unable to go to work normally, and usually after exceeding the paid leave, they are suspended from their jobs by the enterprises.
Those who have parents to help with the child are fine, but these are a minority, and most couples bring up their children on their own.
In that case, why don’t we just let the wives go home to bring up the children. Have the government subsidize a portion of it to ease their lives.”
This is very Germanic, in later times Germany also encourages wives to bring up their children at home, I didn’t realize that this concept was even present in this era.
This concept is not so much ahead of its time as it is a practical necessity; babies can’t be taken care of without a human being, or else the little one will starve to death when you come back from an extra shift. For birth activists, it is practically considered unemployment.
Franz has no problem with subsidies, the wool comes off the sheep’s back. Since companies have already taken on paid maternity leave, it can also appear in the form of taxes instead.
It is entirely possible to abolish paid maternity leave and directly subsidize childbirth by the government. Any shortfall in tax revenue would again be borne by the government.
As for the reduction in the labor force, Franz is not worried at all. The impact of this is really not big, this era is still dominated by male workers, the number of female workers in Austria does not exceed two million.
You can’t have so many people having children at the same time, can you? If so, Franz didn’t mind. It’s not like this subsidy is long-term, it’s limited to a period of time.
After thinking about it Franz said, “There is no problem with granting the subsidy, this subsidy standard, and the time, the cabinet will determine it as soon as possible.”
Originally Franz was prepared to issue flour, economic and affordable. Every month subsidy 20㎏, has been issued for 5 years, words to the mouth and put back.
In terms of cost, direct distribution of flour is the cheapest. As a major grain producing country, the price of food in Austria was not high.
If the government supplies flour uniformly, each person is subsidized 20㎏ per month, the cost can be controlled within 25 shillings, and the annual subsidy per person is not more than 3 guilders.
The purchasing power of Shendun is so strong, 1 Shendun is about 3.66 grams of gold, if the purchasing power is not strong, there will be a problem. This is because fertilizer was not born, otherwise the price of food would not be so high.
Based on this figure, the five-year childcare subsidy is only 15 divine guilders. Using 15 divine guilders to increase the population by one is very cost-effective any way you look at it.
Things weren’t that simple, and doing so would cause a series of repercussions. For example: the price of flour on the market would take a hit.
20 kilograms of flour with ingredients to make bread would be enough to feed a couple for a month, it’s not like everyone was just eating bread.
Since there is enough to eat, naturally there is no need to buy more. The business of selling flour decreases, and the business of selling bread shrinks.
Don’t look at this seemingly insignificant, but the market economy affects the whole body, these changes will also involve other industries, and Franz is not sure what the final consequences will be triggered.
Risking to break the economic cycle system, for a country, absolutely more harm than good. Originally to save money, the result is that the financial expenditure is saved, and the financial revenue is also reduced.
This account must be carefully calculated, Franz naturally will not take the decision for granted. If the resulting reduction in tax revenues exceeded the savings in expenses, wouldn’t it be a big loss?
The Minister of Finance, Karl, suggested: “Your Majesty, it is better to leave it to the local authorities to formulate specific policies, we only have to guide them.
The situation in each region is different, and it is not possible to standardize the criteria. For example: in Vienna we can’t reward housing, or the city’s population will explode in a few years.”
Franz soon realized that it was indeed not possible to apply a one-size-fits-all approach. These measures could only be used as a reference, the colonies were able to offer conditions that many places on the mainland could not.
Take Vienna as an example, if it followed New Brook’s example, the biggest problem would not be the explosion of the city’s population, but the government’s financial bankruptcy.
Unless Franz, the big landowner, releases an unlimited amount of land to keep the prices down. Otherwise, according to the current price, each square meter is over 20 Shenduan, 40 square meters is 800 Shenduan, Vienna government want not to bankrupt are difficult.
Suppressing house prices is unrealistic, Vienna is a special case. The name of the city that never sleeps brings the brand effect. Unlimited land supply is even more bullshit, infrastructure can not keep up that is a disaster.
Another example: urban-rural differences, geographical differences, income differences, all these issues need to be considered. In case you mess up, it’s not going to end well.
It is much better to let local governments formulate policies according to the actual situation. Different incentives for different regions are the most realistic.
Anyway, when it comes to political performance, there is no fear that the bureaucrats will not work hard. If they can’t do a good job, replace them with people who can do a good job, and there is no shortage of officials in Austria now.
In this way, the cabinet from the implementer into a supervisor, even the responsibility is no longer. Even if the people are dissatisfied, but only caught the local government scolded.
After all, the standard is different everywhere, enough to prove that the central government’s intention is good, the problem is that the local government implementation of the error.
It can be imagined that in the future, it will definitely be a high standard of subsidy for places with money and a low standard of subsidy for places without money.
And the birth rate, and just happened to fall out of position, economically developed areas with low birth rates, the poorer the place the higher the birth rate.
……
While Franz labored over population growth, meetings on redrawing Europe’s regions were unfolding in the Vienna International Hotel.
Surprisingly for this low-profile international conference, the British and French foreign ministers were present. As the host, Austrian Foreign Minister Weissenberg also had to personally preside over the meeting.
Three major foreign ministers gathered together, the meeting of the grade immediately up, so that came to play soy sauce representatives of various countries are very embarrassed.
Diplomacy is also pay attention to the principle of reciprocity, identity is too low to speak have no bottom. In addition to the small countries in international diplomacy was not bottom, the right to speak was compressed even more.
Well, just the division of the European region, in the final analysis is also a name problem, the big deal is to change a geographical term.
Everyone first made sure that the geographical term did not represent jurisprudence and signed an international convention. The meeting went very pleasantly without affecting everyone’s practical interests.
The moderator, Weissenberg, was very satisfied, and just as he was about to declare the meeting a success, a staff member came hurrying in and muttered in his ear.
The originally smiling Weisenberg’s face instantly clouded over. The smasher had come, and if he hadn’t taken into account the fact that there were too many delegates present, he would have exploded on the spot.
It had just been determined by the international conference that the Lombardy and Venetia regions belonged to the German region, and now the Italians were protesting outside.
The news leaked out so quickly that it was obvious that it had been prepared. Especially with this happening under Austria’s nose, it put the Vienna government directly into a passive position.
……
(End of chapter)