Chapter 500: The Fundamentals of the Industrial Revolution – Costs

  Chapter 489 – The Fundamentals of the Industrial Revolution – Costs

After Christmas, Britain and Austria successively recognized the Great French Empire, sort of acquiescing to France’s annexation of the Italian regions.

Affected by this, European countries also in 1871 have recognized the legitimacy of Great France, re- and France to restore diplomatic relations, Napoleon III finally got rid of the diplomatic dilemma.

The international tension surrounding the annexation of Italy by France came to an end. However, the impact was far-reaching.

Undercurrents began to surge, ambitious people became active, expansion became the theme of the times, and many small European countries lost their sense of security.

The age of imperialism was in full swing, and what the French did this time once again refreshed the bottom line of the Great Powers. From now on the powerful could annex a sovereign state without any pretext.

The cloth of shame was no longer needed. The law of the jungle had never been so pronounced, and the rules of the game became even more unfavorable to the weaker countries.

I don’t know who released the news of the alliance between Britain, France and Austria, making the international situation, which had just eased, tense once again. At this moment, the remaining European countries can not sit still, Britain, France and Austria foreign ministries are bustling.

Even Alexander II, who was busy with internal reforms, personally sent a telegram to inquire. Secrecy is impossible, Britain and France have openly admitted that they are negotiating an alliance.

Originally is ready to use this alliance to increase Austria’s influence in the world, Franz naturally will not add to the denial.

As for what Alexander II would think, now it is no longer important. Not to mention the half-dead Russian Empire, even the peak of the Russian Empire in the face of the Triple Alliance will have to retreat.

The formal treaty of alliance between the three countries had not yet been signed, and discussions had already begun on the question of constructing a new international situation.

In front of the interests of everyone can not resist the temptation to develop a game rules in their favor, it happens to be the greatest interests.

Even Franz, who had little interest in the Triple Alliance, was very interested in the establishment of a new international order.

Austria had experience in this area, having dominated the Vienna system twice. A set of rules of the game in its own favor brought no less benefit than that brought by any of the colonies.

Now everyone needed a stable Europe, the British needed a continental balance, the French wanted to digest the results of the war, and Austria needed time to continue to develop.

Other countries were no exception, the Kingdom of Prussia needed to digest the results of the war, the Russians were busy with reforms, not to mention the smaller countries, everyone wanted a stable Europe.

With everyone’s common will, a new international order was about to come out. This time it was more brutal than before. It was enough for countries to abide by the rules set by the three major powers.

The next most powerful countries, Prussia, Russia and the Nordic Confederation, still had some say, and more small countries were completely reduced to echoing.

As one of the vested interests, Franz had no intention of complaining on their behalf.

Now he was busy with economic reforms, the second industrial revolution compared with the first industrial revolution, or changes, the past certain economic policies, now become anachronistic.

The famous “Austrian School of Economics” has also begun to emerge, but it is still in its infancy. Perhaps because of the butterfly effect, influenced by the environment, or changes.

What happened, Franz can not say. He was not an economist and did not know much about these issues.

In the era of the prevalence of free market economy, Austria’s economic policy has been considered positive, of course this positive is also very limited.

The market was still mainly free to develop, and the government only provided a sound infrastructure and formulated some incentive policies when necessary.

As long as you have the money, you can enter any industry field, can survive, that is their own problem.

As a pragmatist, Franz has always practiced “the most suitable is the best”. Under the general framework, the economic measures in each part of Austria were not exactly the same.

Different regions have different development directions and need different policies. If the central government were to take care of them all, it would be too busy to do anything about it.

In the Vienna Palace, the conference on the economic report that will determine Austria’s next ten years is being held, and this time the economic reforms are only fine-tuned.

Generally speaking, the previous economic policy is still followed, and only individual industries need to be changed, which does not involve a large area.

Economy Minister Andrew analyzed: “In the last two years, the domestic economic development is still in a good state in general, and the economic growth rate has been maintained at 7.8%.

Notable among them is the new energy industry, mainly the electric power industry, which has grown at a particularly outstanding rate, rapidly climbing from an industry size of less than 10 million Shendian in 1868 to 200 million Shendian now.

The industry chain involves a wide range of fields, driving upstream industries including copper smelting, rubber, and power generation equipment manufacturing, as well as downstream industries such as hardware accessories, power machinery and equipment, and transportation.

It has created 638,000 new jobs, making a significant contribution to getting out of the economic crisis. The most typical example is the copper smelting industry in Saxony and the Balkans, which has made a significant breakthrough in production capacity.

The Ministry of Economy believes that in the future electrical energy will become the biggest economic growth point.

At present, only Vienna has fully universalized electric lighting, while Frankfurt, Munich, Venice, Milan and other cities have embarked on projects that will take some time to complete.

In Africa we have found several copper mines, all rich, high quality ore, reserves exceeding the sum of the copper mines being mined on the European continent.

We have consulted the shipyards in China, and there is no technical problem to build large ore carriers of 20,000 to 30,000 tons. Transportation costs will soon come down, and the lack of copper production capacity, which restricts the spread of electricity, will be solved immediately.

With a cheap supply of copper ore, the price of copper in the market will soon come down, and the cost of popularizing electric lighting will be drastically reduced.

In addition electric machinery and equipment also has a great potential to be tapped, and may even be able to replace the current steam engine in the future. At present, in some fields, electric mechanical equipment is already being used.

In addition, another economic growth point is the record number of newborn babies, the sales of baby products continue to grow.

There are so many products involved in this area that it’s too much of a hassle to count, so we can only make a preliminary estimate. There is now an annual market of about 35 million SHD, but it is growing rapidly and is expected to be able to grow by 12% this year.

In contrast, the traditional economic sector of the market has shown decadence. The last economic crisis has proved that many areas in the country are saturated.

Currently, the fastest growing sectors in the traditional economy are steel, mining, shipping and construction, with 13.2%, 9.6%, 10.1% and 8.9% respectively, while the textile industry, which used to grow rapidly, grew by only 3.1% last year.

The food processing industry, in which we have the greatest advantage, has also encountered a bottleneck, and although it still maintains a growth rate of 5.8%, the downward trend is very obvious.

Judging from these figures, the development of new industries has become a pillar of future economic development. The Ministry of Economy plans to fully promote electric lighting in the country and encourage electric technology innovation.”

This is very much in line with the habits of the Vienna government, electricity wants to popularize can not be separated from the government’s policy, if there is no government to promote, it is estimated that no power company will selflessly dedicate a set of power supply network.

In contrast, baby products are different, there is no need for the government to intervene, the capitalists will do a good job, the government needs to do is only to regulate and standardize the market.

The veteran Prime Minister Felix took over the topic: “There is no problem in promoting electric power technology, the benefits of this technology have been personally felt by all, the electric light above our heads is one of them.

However, when promoting it, there is still the issue of upfront costs to consider. The cost required to build a set of urban power supply networks is not a small figure.

Not every city can afford it, and the government does not recommend its promotion to cities with lower financial incomes. If someone takes this policy that benefits the people and ends up turning it into a policy that harms the people, we’ll have to pursue the responsibility.”

The answer to the question of whether electricity technology is good is: very good. Unfortunately it’s too early in the process for the costs to come down.

Big cities with high local incomes follow Vienna’s lead in popularizing electric lighting, and that’s no problem, affordable enough to engage in.

For some poorer cities, that is a heavy burden. In Vienna, for example, the city government has to spend 1.2 million guilders a year on electricity and lighting system maintenance costs.

For the prosperous Vienna, that money could be spread directly to the downtown merchants, who were the biggest beneficiaries of the city that never sleeps, with the night market generating enough revenue to make up for that overhead.

If it were some small city with not much commerce and an annual revenue of only a hundred thousand or so God’s Guilders, it would be difficult to even keep the government running.

If they ran to follow the trend, the expenses would end up falling on the heads of the general public. For the local people who already had a low income, it would be a disaster.

The lower the population density of the city, the higher the per capita cost of electricity supply, this account of the Vienna government has long been calculated.

In order to avoid the worst case scenario, Prime Minister Felix came forward in advance to pour cold water. Lest some bureaucrats, in order to brush the political performance blindly follow the trend.

Hearing Felix’s warning, many local officials attending the meeting, all for their own previous ideas pinched a sweat.

It is true that cheap political performance is not good to pick up, if you do not have the conditions, run to blindly follow the trend, it is estimated that the report hit up, their career will be over.

In addition to the autonomy of a few states to be a little larger, the rest of the city to embark on such a large project, or need to be reviewed by the government of Vienna.

So far, can get approval only economically developed big cities, or itself in the coal-producing areas, power generation cost is low beyond imagination.

For the vast majority of cities, it’s best to wait for technological innovations to further reduce the cost of power supply before considering this issue.

The most important reason why the power revolution in Europe started in Germany was that Germany was the largest producer of copper in Europe and the largest producer of coal in Europe, so the cost of promoting power technology was lower than that of Britain and France.

The United States has nothing to say, that is nothing short of. Whether it is copper production, or coal production, that is how much to have how much.

Therefore, from the second industrial revolution, behind the new technology innovation, the Americans gradually came to the front of Europe.

It is not that European countries do not have the technology, the problem is that European countries lack of raw materials, transportation from overseas increased costs, do not have the ability to promote. Not waiting for industrial technology to mature, Britain and France can not afford the high cost.

Now Franz fanfare electric power technology revolution, not the slightest hint of secrecy, the main reason is that Austria’s raw material costs lower than Britain and France.

In addition to the Russian Empire, Austria’s copper reserves over the European countries combined, production, not to mention, directly accounted for half of the world’s share.

In rubber production, Austria also has a very important share. The colonies in the South Seas were not occupied for nothing, and almost every island could be planted with rubber. Together with the rubber plantations opened up in Africa, Austria was now the largest supplier of rubber products in the world.

Britain and France wanted to promote electricity technology, first they had to import copper, and second they had to import rubber. France was even worse, they also had to import coal.

The cost has been decided, in this industrial revolution, Britain and France fell into a disadvantage.

Everyone is very strong, a lot of votes, sea moon here to thank la, a moment there is a more.

(End of chapter)