Chapter 586: Deceiving the Joint Venture
“Uncle Carl, if you are interested in supporting the future construction of the Northern Railway, I have a best-of-both-worlds solution, which can not delay other projects in East Africa, but can also extend the Northern Railway Start work in advance to open up the connection between East Africa and the Chad colony as soon as possible, and contribute to the colonial cause of the Sigmaring root system," Ernst said.
Prince Carl was really interested, and he asked: "I don't know what to do?"
Ernst was not embarrassed, and said openly: "Uncle Carl, you We also know that railway construction is actually not that difficult, it is just a matter of money. Just like in the United States and Germany before, capitalists were crazy about building railways, and a lot of hot money poured in. Therefore, the railways in these two countries grew blindly and rapidly every year, eventually causing the 1873 ”
“Of course I know this, but the economic crisis has now passed and the railway market has returned to normal. Germany’s development is now relatively gradual. Before I arrived in East Africa, the crisis had been greatly eased. Social development is very rapid. ”
In fact, the world economy is still in depression and is far worse than before the crisis. However, society is constantly developing and it is impossible to really stagnate. Although Germany's development speed has slowed down a bit, compared with other countries of the same era, it is very optimistic. .
And the older generation like Prince Carl are well-informed. Although the economy was developing rapidly before the economic crisis, they knew that this was not the norm.
Ernst continued: "So if East Africa wants to build railways ahead of schedule, it only needs to solve the funding problem. However, the East African government has spent a lot of money in recent years, so there is no extra money to support it at the same time. The development of two railways. "
Ernst is not wrong. The East African government has never had sufficient finances, but there has never been a government in the world with sufficient finances.
For example, the fiscal revenue of the East African government in recent years has been much higher than that of most countries in the world. After all, it is the wealth created by 50 million people. The East African government can earn a considerable amount of money from taxation alone. income, and there are also a number of state-owned enterprises in East Africa, which also have rich profits.
Therefore, if East Africa wants to build two railways at the same time, there may be financial pressure, but it does not mean that it cannot afford to build it, but it wants to spend the money in practical ways. For East Africa, the Azande Plateau in the extension of the Northern Railway is currently The value is not high, so it is not cost-effective to build. If we have this time, it is better to build more branch railways in Matabele Province to make full use of the mineral resources in Matabele Province and develop inland industry.
People like Ernst have an obsession, that is, they hope that inland and coastal areas can develop in a balanced way. The Far East could not do this in the previous life, but after all, East Africa and the Far East have different national conditions.
One is that the climate in the interior of East Africa is better than that on the coast. In tropical countries like East Africa, the cooler the climate, the more popular it is. However, temperate countries like to go to warmer zones. This is also the reason why China, the United States and Russia in later generations An important reason for the population of the three countries to migrate southward.
For example, in the Far Eastern Empire, the population of the Northeast region moves to the south, and the population of the Northeast region of the United States migrates to the "sunbelt" of the south, not to mention Russia.
So the climate advantage of the interior of East Africa is relatively conducive to the balanced development of various parts of East Africa. Most of the country in East Africa has a tropical grassland climate, which is conducive to the balanced distribution of the population.
The second is that the resources in the inland areas of East Africa are far better than those along the coast, and the inland resources are rich in categories, especially in Matabele and Hechingen provinces. The resources in these two provinces can almost meet most industrial needs. The only thing they lack is It's oil.
But currently the two most important oil resource provinces in East Africa are also inland, namely the Nile Province and the North Great Lakes Province (Uganda).
The resource conditions of inland East Africa make the lower limit of future inland development very high and can form favorable competition with coastal areas.
The only advantage of the coast over the inland is shipping, but this advantage is enough. The comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the two sides is evenly matched.
However, Prince Karl didn’t know much about these. After all, he only looked at the appearance of East Africa. Only Ernst and a few East African senior officials knew about the actual development of East Africa. Prince Karl asked: "Then you mean that as long as the funding problem is solved, the Northern Railway can start construction ahead of schedule?"
Ernst nodded, his meaning was very obvious, he said: "If Sigmaringen can invest part of it, then we in East Africa are gritting our teeth and tightening our belts to realize the northern railway extension ahead of schedule. ”
This puts Prince Karl in a very difficult position. If the northern railway extension is to be realized, it will be at least more than a thousand kilometers. This is not a difficult task for a large country like East Africa, but for Sigmaringen That would be even more difficult.
Now just investing in the Chad colony has cost a lot of money, but acquiring nearly two million square kilometers of land is indeed a good deal, and it can be considered as money back, but investing in the railway is out of the question.
So Prince Carl said with some embarrassment: "Ernst, you also know that we in Sigmaringen are just like you guys in Hechingen before. Although we are big nobles, we actually don't have much money."< br>
This is true. Great aristocrats like Hechingen and Sigmaringen are not bad in Europe, but they are not uncommon. Before Sigmaringen and Hechingen, they were traditional military aristocrats who developed in the army. Nobles are more about personal connections, force and power, and social status. As for financial resources, they are really not as good as capitalists.
"Uncle Carl, Sigmaringen naturally cannot afford so much money, but Sigmaringen also has Romania. Romania is a country the same size, and its energy is no worse than that of many countries."
Well. It was Carol I's idea that Sturt took action. In fact, today's Romania is a purely small and weak country. In its previous life, Romania was quite strong, and it developed after swallowing up the territory of Hungary.
But having said that, Romania is much stronger than the principality of Sigmaringen, which is only the size of a town, and there are many rich people. As the monarch of Romania, Carol I led Romania to become independent from the Ottoman Empire. If you come out, your reputation will still be good.
“Although the ruler of Romania is your cousin, it is impossible for our family to control the wealth of Romania.” Prince Carl said.
Ernst: "What I mean is to issue bonds. In the name of the Romanian royal family, if Sigmaringen wants to develop Chad, it cannot rely solely on its own strength. It must have the support of Romania."
This is true. Sturt understands deeply that just like if East Africa had looked at the original Hechingen royal family's wealth, it would have been lost long ago. The greatest contribution to the colonization of East Africa was the financial resources of the Hechingen consortium.
Prince Carl: "The question is how do we repay the debt?"
"This is easy to handle, Uncle Carl, you can't look at the problem with the previous thinking now, you now have nearly Two million square kilometers of land. There must be a lot of mineral resources in these two million square kilometers of land. Just use the mineral resources to pay off the debt. And this is why I asked you to invest in the Northern Railway. You want to sell these minerals. , you must rely on the railway. The sooner the northern railway extension is completed, the sooner you can get rich from mineral resources. Correspondingly, with mineral resources, you can attract investment and further strengthen colonial construction. "
Prince Carl listened carefully to Ernst's words and thought it was very reasonable. Thinking that the Northern Railway was indeed very important to Sigmaringen, it seemed to be a good deal to invest in this railway.
(End of this chapter)