Chapter 172 Expansion and Immigration Issues
At present, East Africa is developing very rapidly. Although it is an era of industrialization, East Africa has almost no development in industrialization.
However, the conditions in East Africa itself are not very good, especially before the development of the East African colonies, most of the locals were still in primitive hunting civilization.
The huge land has not been developed and utilized. The only Sultanate of Zanzibar that can be regarded as a modern country also relies mainly on the slave trade in the mainland part.
The East African colonies brought the locals into an agricultural society, which was already a remarkable achievement.
Agriculture is the foundation of East Africa. Even in its previous life, East Africa was one of the few agricultural areas in Africa that could basically reach a level of self-sufficiency. Tanzania and countries near the Great Lakes region are important agricultural countries in Africa.
Of course, the countries in East Africa are definitely more willing to be resource countries than to be agricultural countries. However, judging from the development of East Africa in the past, East Africa is a relatively economically backward region in the entire Africa.
Because the resource endowment of East Africa itself is not outstanding in the whole of Africa, of course, this has some advantages. Compared with other regions in Africa, East Africa had fewer conflicts and wars in its previous life, and the overall society was relatively stable.
Of course, lack of prominence does not mean lack of resources, but that East Africa lacks the main mineral resources in industrialization, such as coal, iron, oil, etc. These mineral resources, which are in great demand and widely used, are industrialized. foundation.
For example, in the previous life, Africa was the most famous diamond resource in the world and had the highest output. This kind of hyped luxury goods basically did not help Africa's industrialization, and its profits were stolen by European and American capital.
As for coal and iron resources, as far as the continent as a whole is concerned, Africa as a whole has relatively small reserves compared to other continents. Oil resources are quite good, but they are mainly distributed along the coasts of North Africa and West Africa.
The fundamental reason why the African continent is rich in resources in the eyes of the world is Africa's low level of development and low resource utilization. The mining industry is a pillar industry in many countries.
And with the development of science and technology, especially after the 21st century, non-ferrous metals, including heavy metals (such as copper, lead, zinc), light metals (such as aluminum, magnesium), precious metals (such as gold, silver, platinum) There is a growing demand for rare metals (such as tungsten, molybdenum, germanium, lithium, lanthanum, uranium), especially the research and development of rare metals, and these resources are relatively abundant in Africa.
But in terms of importance, the status of petroleum, coal, iron, copper, aluminum and gold cannot be shaken.
Especially energy, so many wars are energy wars, and many countries have fought bloody battles for energy.
Don't even think about oil resources in East Africa. Looking around, South Sudan has considerable reserves. But now Ernst does not intend to conflict with Egypt. Any country with some strength deserves to be respected.
We can work hard on coal. East Africa has few coal reserves, but southern Africa has a lot of coal resources, especially in Zambia and Zimbabwe. These two places happen to be "ownerless" places now.
And Ernst has long been interested in Zambia, and has always been obsessed with the Katanga Plateau Copper Belt (Central African Copper and Cobalt Mine Belt).
This is the most accessible world-class important metal mineral belt in East Africa, which can directly affect the pricing power of copper mines in the world.
With the northwest of the Great Lakes and northern Kenya secure, the main expansion direction of the East African colonies in 1869 must have been the Katanga Plateau.
This time, East Africa as a whole maintained its previous expansion strategy, trying to avoid conflicts of interest with regional powers and other colonists, and bypassing its core interest areas, that is, Egypt, Britain, Portugal and other forces. Currently, there is a broad buffer zone between East Africa and the above countries or their colonies to avoid direct contact between the forces of both sides.
To the south is the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, and to the north are Egypt and the British colony of Somaliland. East Africa is separated from these forces by terrain or indigenous peoples.
This also determines that the next expansion of East Africa can only be to the west, and the direct west is the Congo. Ernst has little interest in the tropical rainforest, and there is nothing in the northwest that attracts East Africa's expansion.
So only the southwest region is left. The first is to capture the Katanga Plateau, and the second is to prepare for future expansion of energy reserves (coal).
The above is the current resource situation of the East African colonies, the surrounding situation faced and the expansion plan in 1869.
In 1869, the East African immigration goal was to have a population of over two million. Yes, Ernst’s requirements are so low now. The current population of East Africa has reached more than 1.75 million. It can be said that it is easy to exceed two million. , maybe it can be done just by relying on the new population.
Two million is a threshold. After crossing this threshold, Ernst no longer has to worry about the security issues in East Africa as before.
The immigration work in East Africa can continue as usual, and there may not be much ups and downs in the future. In the future, the new ships and shipping capacity of the Hechingen Consortium will not be invested in immigration, but will Apply it to industrial transfer and commodity transportation.
This change also means that the screening standards for immigrants in East Africa have increased instead of lowering. In the past, there was an urgent need for immigrants, so it was inevitable to lower the standards at work. Now, the requirements for immigrants will increase.
Of course, the growth rate of immigrants from East Africa should not change much. Since the second half of 1868, East Africa has entered a stage of slow immigration.
The political stability in the Far East and Germany is peaceful, and the willingness of civilians to go to sea has dropped significantly. In addition, East Africa has used too much force before, and the immigration potential of the two regions has been drained, and it will take time to recover.
Therefore, the current immigration capacity in East Africa is somewhat surplus. Fortunately, the newly introduced Slavs have filled some of it, but the overall immigration speed has entered a slowdown stage.
Of course, East Africa still welcomes immigrants from the German region, but there is really not a drop of it. With the reduction of German immigrants, Ernst deliberately suppressed other immigrants from entering East Africa.
German immigrants need to account for at least 30%, other European immigrants should be at 20%, and the Far East should be about 30%, and other regions (such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Americas) ) accounts for 20%.
In this way, although there are many Chinese immigrants, there are more European and other immigrants, and the Europeans are mainly Germans. Coupled with the intermarriage among immigrants from various regions in the East African colonies, this population structure has been relatively stable. Next, as long as we continue to promote German culture That’s it.
This is also an important factor why Ernst no longer pursues the number of immigrants. Each batch of immigrants must be neutralized by a certain number of German immigrants. Now that German immigrants are decreasing, then reduce the number of other immigrants, or Introduce new sources of immigrants to prevent any one region's immigrant family from becoming dominant, except for German immigrants.
As a German in his lifetime, Ernst must ensure the dominance of German culture and thought in East Africa, especially in the early colonial period.
And Ernst now needs to prepare for the Franco-Prussian War. The Franco-Prussian War is an important opportunity. Ernst must seize the opportunity to bring the Hechingen Consortium to a higher level. At the same time, the opening of the Suez Canal will also This year will also have a profound impact on East Africa. Ernst will definitely make some adjustments to the East African colonies. This year, the immigration issue will no longer be so important.
(End of this chapter)