Chapter 824: It’s hard to tell friend from foe.

  Chapter 807: It’s hard to tell friend from foe

Even though the British government didn’t follow up directly, they went into parliamentary bickering mode, which still scared a lot of people.

Anyone with a little bit of political savvy knew who this was aimed at.

Once the two food consuming markets of Britain and France were lost, Austria’s total exports would plummet by one-sixth.

Agricultural-oriented Russians are even worse, can keep half of the trade exports, are considered God’s blessing.

In the fierce market competition, productivity backward Russian agriculture, because of the relationship between the cost of production, will directly lose market competitiveness.

In favor of the tsarist government did not dare to promote new agricultural technology, because capacity is not equal to income, food can not be sold, and then the high yield is all for naught.

Even industrial upgrading, the tsarist government did not dare to engage in, which is similar to the last agricultural crisis in Austria.

Restricted by the level of domestic economic development, Franz development of animal husbandry have to take it easy, for fear of another livestock overcapacity.

Austria’s big development of animal husbandry, or the last two or three years before the rise. The main reason is still because of the economic development, the people’s purchasing power has increased.

First there is market demand, and then there is commodity production. This order can not be reversed, or there will be a big mess.

The Tsarist government was in a hurry, and so was the Vienna government. Only the Russians are really anxious, the Vienna government is just for show.

Diplomatic slogans shouted alarmingly, the government a burst of operation fierce as a tiger, the actual effect is 0.5, it looks like caught in the hands and feet.

For example: after the French announced the big farm program, the Vienna government announced: suspend the qualification approval of agricultural processing enterprises.

When it was learned that the British Parliament began to discuss whether to follow suit, the Vienna government once again issued a notice of agricultural transformation, advising the public to cut back on the area under food cultivation in order to cope with the agricultural crisis.

The direct aftermath is that the stock prices of domestic agricultural companies have plummeted, and even some food production companies with little impact have followed suit.

Of course, the economic crisis has just passed not long ago, and now the stock prices were not high, so the fall could not fall anywhere.

To put it bluntly, the French also just announced a plan, the specific how to implement, the Paris government themselves have not yet figured out.

Capitalists refused to invest, the government must be personally on the money-losing business, not so simple to say.

How to operate, no one has experience. The government directly sent officials to manage, will substantially increase administrative costs, corruption is also a big problem.

It would be a big problem if it ended up with sky-high food prices, making it unaffordable for the people to eat.

Contracting out to capitalists may seem simple, but the problem is that the capitalists’ integrity is really hard to reassure.

Take a shell project, cheat the government subsidies, and finally imported cheap food from abroad back to fill the pit, the Paris government has become the wrongdoer.

Supervision is easy to say, but the problem is that the farm is built in the colony, although the French government jurisdiction, but the emperor is far away from the place, it is destined to the central government control is not enough.

In addition to the management problems, the natives in the colonies were also a headache. French Africa was not Austrian Africa, and most of the land was owned.

There was no way to avoid it, you couldn’t just put all your farms in the desert in the middle of nowhere, could you?

Desert agriculture is still in the research stage in the 21st century, and the French can’t get it going these days.

The French can’t even expel them, and if they don’t, the colonies will go up in smoke again. After the Egyptian rebellion, the French government had to be careful.

After all, the indigenous rebels are easy to deal with, but the indigenous rebels with external support is not the same. If there are a few more Egyptian rebellions, the French government will not have the money to engage in a large farm program.

So many problems to consider, a bad operation, the French large farm program will be reduced to a laughing stock.

The British, not to mention, a little understanding of the British Parliament people know that a year and a half to be able to unify the views, that are superb.

With this kind of grand strategy, it is possible to argue for three or five years. In particular, the major food-producing countries have mobilized their own forces to lobby the British Parliament.

Many people are still looking forward to the turnaround, and some people even think that Britain and France are just waiting for the price to sell, using the “food self-sufficiency program” to force Russia and Austria to make concessions in international politics.

There are a lot of people who support this idea, including many people in the British and French countries.

Vienna Palace, with the British and French “food self-sufficiency program” rumors, Franz also felt the pressure.

From the civil society to the government, there is a call to negotiate with Britain and France to solve the dispute.

After all, this is a secret program, except for a few high-ranking, other people know nothing, this kind of thing is almost inevitable.

As a result of this, on August 16, 1885, the government in Vienna also took note of the British and French ministers in Austria for an in-depth communication.

After the Vienna government deliberately revealed a hint of compromise and concession, Britain and France, who thought they had found Austria’s soft underbelly, naturally asked for a lion’s share of the money.

Then there is no then, talk about it or not. The Foreign Ministry in Vienna is in the anxiety and paddling, the appearance of work done a lot, the substance of the negotiations in the still tough.

Franz said incredulously, “The Russians are withdrawing from the free trade system, is the news certain?”

The French have withdrawn from the free trade system, the United States has withdrawn from the free trade system, and if the Russians withdraw from the free trade system, it’s probably going to be the end of the line.

Foreign Minister Weissenberg nodded, “To be exact, the Russians are only showing signs of withdrawing, or it could be a front put up by the Tsarist government.

Yesterday afternoon, Alexander III summoned the British Minister to Russia to confer on Britain’s plan for food self-sufficiency, which ended in a disagreement.

This very morning the Russian Foreign Office sent a note to Britain warning the London government not to play with fire, accusing the British of seriously undermining the free trade system with their grain self-sufficiency program.

If the British do not abandon the grain self-sufficiency program, then the Russian Empire will impose trade sanctions on Britain.”

Undermining the free trade system, probably might have, anyway, depending on who one is standing up to.

Theoretically, as long as the British didn’t raise tariffs and suppress their competitors by practicing politics, but instead took a fair approach to the grain self-sufficiency program, that would be attached to the spirit of free trade.

Of course, it is also reasonable to criticize the British government for interfering with the normal development of the market by funding agriculture, which is against the principle of “freedom”.

After all, Britain is labeled as “absolute freedom” and should be held responsible for its own words.

Only on this issue, only the Russians can say, Austria has no say.

From beginning to end, Franz did not speak out on this issue. It’s not that he didn’t see it. The problem is that Austria went even further.

It’s not just state farms, is that something Austria has less of? Really think that the last agricultural crisis, Austria’s food production capacity rapidly reduced, is the people took the initiative to cut back on food acreage?

Too naive!

Tens of millions of farmers, at most one-tenth of the government’s call, cut part of the production capacity, and the rest is still how it should be done, continue how it is done.

It’s not a question of listening or not listening, the point is that if they don’t grow food, what will they be allowed to grow?

Cash crops are easy to say, but that also requires skill. It is not the case that if you sow seeds, you will definitely reap a harvest.

The price of food will fall at most, and if you can’t sell it, you can still keep it for yourself or feed it to your animals.

Cash crops, once the error of judgment can not be sold, then only rot in the ground.

The government’s encouragement, promotion, but also in the city around the region to promote the vegetable planting, remote mountainous areas simply do not care.

It is not a question of wanting to, the key Austria is a market economy, not a planned economy, the government does not know the market demand for each type of cash crops.

Instead of handing over the decision to the bureaucrats and making the people angry, Franz would rather let the people continue to grow food.

The big deal was to leave the regulation of capacity to the state farms. If you really don’t know what to grow, the big deal is to let the land lie fallow for a few more years.

After pondering for a while, Franz asked, “What are the chances of the British compromising?”

It was hard to lull the British to the edge of the cliff, just short of kicking them down, Franz did not want the British to be pulled back again.

Other than that, as long as the British start the food self-sufficiency program, it is going to start a pattern of years and years of losses, more than even the French losses.

Restricted by the free trade system, the import of food from all countries, Britain must be treated equally, and also to continue the current low tariffs close to zero.

This means that Britain, it is impossible to support a little brother as a granary, the Austrian agricultural products out of the market.

Opening up farms in the colonies, which may seem like a no-brainer for the British, was actually no less costly.

First of all, there was the population; areas such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada were typically sparsely populated.

Even if it was mechanical agriculture, it would still require a large amount of labor. At least until the construction of water conservancy projects and the improvement of road transportation, the demand for labor could not be low.

Recruitment of laborers from the country is enough to make the British government feel bad about the cost of labor alone, and when amortized to the cost of food production, the price is absolutely sky-high.

Without barriers, the more you grow, the more you lose. It is estimated that after a few years of losing money, the British people will realize that there is no “money” in growing food.

When the opposition party comes to power, it will cut off this money-losing strategy and leave a bunch of bad projects to prove the incompetence of the previous government.

Of course, India has a large population and fertile land, which is ideal for agriculture; the problem is that there are too many Indians, and it is a problem to develop agriculture here and feed the locals.

It is estimated that the food produced will be eaten up without waiting to support the country. Priority to meet the domestic is not impossible, the key is hungry, people are also to rebel.

In front of the planting of cotton, have triggered a major uprising, and now there are also two more Russian and Austrian newly moved neighbors, this time the British government absolutely do not dare to toss.

After a few moments of contemplation, Weissenberg slowly replied: “Half to half!

Although the Russian market seems to be large, the actual purchasing power is very limited. This limited market, we also occupied nearly 70%, the British share is only some scraps.

Even if the loss of the Russian market, the British total foreign export trade, at most, will only fall by one or two percent, this little fluctuation of the British can still withstand.

But the British government is not keen on the grain self-sufficiency program, and the fact that Gladstone has left the choice to Parliament and the Cabinet has not even taken a position on it is enough to show that.”

This answer amounts to nothing, half to half, which is more of a gamble than an analytical judgment.

It must be admitted that the Russian tactics, though a little rough, were very effective.

The Czarist government gave the British a 50-50 chance of giving up. Under normal circumstances, Austria would have put in a little more effort, and in the end the British Parliament would have vetoed, or shelved the motion indefinitely, and the matter would have passed.

A series of proposals came to Franz’s mind and were rejected by him.

“At this point, it is no longer appropriate for us to do anything more.

Next, it’s up to the French, and I’m sure Napoleon IV won’t pass up the opportunity.”

Just after saying that, Franz felt that something was wrong. I don’t know when it started, but Austria had actually spent more time cooperating with its enemies than with its allies.

Whether this was a moral decline or a distortion of human nature was a question worth pondering.

What was certain, however, was that this opened up the wrong way to operate, and if it continued like this, Franz was going to wonder if he could still tell friend from foe.

“There are only eternal interests between nations, no eternal enemies.” What Franz is doing now fully illustrates this sentence.

(End of chapter)