Chapter 1049 Agricultural Crisis
Germany is one of the major importers of East African minerals and primary agricultural products, among which East African cotton occupies an important position in the German textile industry.
At present, almost all the raw materials of the German cotton textile industry come from imports, and the German cotton textile industry ranks first in Europe and fourth in the world. In the past, Germany imported cotton mainly from the United Kingdom and the United States, and cotton in East Africa After the growth of the planting industry, East Africa has become Germany's largest source of cotton imports.
Germany’s annual cotton imports were approximately one billion pounds, and were still growing until 1907. East Africa’s current total cotton production is approximately 2.3 billion pounds, of which nearly 400 million pounds are exported each year. When it comes to Germany, plus Austria-Hungary, which is close to 700 million pounds, and major cotton importing countries such as Tsarist Russia, East Africa's annual cotton export output is more than one billion pounds, almost four to five million tons, of which Central and Eastern European countries are the main exporters in East Africa. market.
So the European economic crisis will have a great impact on the export of primary agricultural products in East Africa. Of course, cotton cultivation in East Africa has obviously had a huge impact on the world's cotton industry, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, which have been most affected. Among them, the United Kingdom in India China and Egypt both have relatively large-scale cotton planting industries, and they compete with East Africa.
Fortunately, the South African War broke out between East Africa and the United Kingdom early. Just to suppress the cotton planting and textile industries in East Africa was enough for the United Kingdom to find an excuse for the war. After the South African War, East Africa did give traditional agricultural exporting countries very much in the agricultural field. Huge pressure.
Especially the United Kingdom, the United States, or other tropical countries, East Africa has caught up with the latter by virtue of its land area and population advantages. In the field of cash crop cultivation, it has had a serious impact on the original international cash crop market, especially the tropical and subtropical cash crop market. impact.
This is true for crops such as cotton, rubber, tea, coffee and some spices. During the First Five-Year Plan period, East African agricultural technology, mechanization and pesticide and fertilizer production increased, which further reduced the cost of agricultural production in East Africa, which is beneficial to Agricultural countries with low agricultural development, such as Brazil and India, will be hardest hit.
At that time, Brazil was far from being able to compete with East Africa in terms of land area and population. Moreover, the two countries’ agriculture was highly homogeneous. East Africa was closer to the Eurasian market than Brazil, so Brazil could be said to be the leader in East African agriculture. The first victim of the rise.
India is relatively better. Although the land area is smaller, India has a large proportion of arable land and a population of 300 million. The labor cost is even lower than that of the slave country in East Africa. Moreover, India has the support of the United Kingdom. Agricultural advantages are still relatively large, but the high development of agriculture in East Africa also means that Britain's exploitation of India has further intensified.
Except for these two countries, although other countries have certain competition with East African agriculture, they are relatively less affected due to different latitudes and climates.
Ernst told the Ministry of Agriculture: "my country's agriculture has faced a relatively large impact from the world economic crisis. International agricultural product prices have remained low for a long time, and now it is facing the impact of the downturn in the international market, which has not affected the development of my country's agriculture. "Not good news."
An official from the Ministry of Agriculture said: "Your Highness, we can't have a good solution to this. The only thing we can do is to absorb excess agricultural production capacity through domestic industrial production. There is also the need to further distribute agricultural products and optimize the quality of life of the country’s people to offset overproduction in the agricultural sector.”
In fact, the world’s demand for agricultural products is very strong. After all, the per capita consumption of agricultural products in various countries around the world was at the beginning of the 20th century. It is far from being compared with later generations, and at the beginning of the 20th century, people in many areas lived very difficult lives.
For example, the Far Eastern Empire has been affected by various natural disasters all year round. In addition, the current internal situation in the Far Eastern Empire is turbulent, so famine is very widespread. Especially in 1906, when the Second Five-Year Plan for East Africa was launched with great vigor, the Far Eastern Empire A severe drought broke out in the north, and the most severely affected area was the Huaihai Economic Zone.
In other parts of the world, except for industrial countries or some colonies, basically everyone lives below the poverty line, and this kind of poverty may not allow them to eat at any time. Tsarist Russia is a typical example. After the Russo-Japanese War, Tsarist Russia resumed naval construction in order to pay off its debts, etc., and naturally harvested wealth again. Russia is only an agricultural country, not even a semi-industrial country, so one more tax increase If it further aggravates the suffering of the people at the bottom, it is no wonder that it will become the weakest link of imperialism.
Of course East Africa is not much better, but East Africa only needs to ensure that the quality of life of its people is higher than the world average, and as a slave country, East Africa does not need to There is too much pressure from the public.
Ernst said: "The difficulties faced by the agricultural sector are relatively large, but the duration of this crisis should not be too long. The government must withstand the pressure and maintain current agricultural production. As industrialization advances, in the future Agricultural development will also make great strides towards mechanization, and the proportion of the agricultural population will also drop significantly. When our country When industrialization reaches a certain level, the impact on agriculture will become smaller and smaller.”
East Africa’s industrialization is still very different from that of the Soviet Union, mainly in that it is more stable, which makes the exploitation of agriculture in East Africa far less intense. To the extent of the Soviet Union, of course, there are still obvious differences between the agricultural population and the industrial population.
Without artificially creating this difference, the industrialization of East Africa would not have been able to proceed so smoothly. After all, the agricultural population will not actively move to industry unless their survival is threatened.
The second main reason is that the funds for industrialization in East Africa do not need to be entirely borne by agriculture. This is the benefit of colonial countries. A large part of the source of wealth in East African countries comes from the plunder of black people. The wealth has been firmly established since the early days of the founding of the country. It is in the hands of the state.
The situation in the Soviet Union was completely different from that in East Africa. In order to raise funds for initial development, the Soviet Union had to sell even its antiques. After all, the coup caused a large number of the former Russian upper class who had wealth to flee overseas, and the early Soviet regime did not control the country. This was doomed. The upper class of society, which controlled most of Russia's wealth, had ample time to escape. At the same time, the former social ruling class, in the war confrontation with the Soviet regime, wreaked havoc on factories and other infrastructure, further destroying Russia's original industry.
It is equivalent to the original Russian social wealth being directly looted. As for the Soviet Union, only a small part was able to intercept it. Therefore, the Soviet Union's industrialization and even the Far Eastern Empire's initial industrialization faced serious financial difficulties. The Far East The empire was even worse than the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's industrialization stage coincided with the opportunity of a major crisis in the capitalist world, while the Far Eastern Empire not only had no such opportunity but also faced a more severe blockade.
In comparison, East Africa is undoubtedly much luckier. At least the international environment is much better. Moreover, as a slave country, East Africa can avoid many problems by exploiting the indigenous people. As for the experience of black people, it is not the responsibility of the East African government. It's under consideration.
"Ensuring the export of agricultural products will be an important task in the next period. At the same time, my country's industry's digestion of agriculture is also greatly improved. After all, the scope of this agricultural crisis cannot be compared with the agricultural crisis of 1873, so we do not need to worry too much. ." Ernst said.
During the agricultural crisis in 1873, East Africa’s domestic agriculture was still dominated by food crops. In 1907, East African agricultural planting had shifted to mainly cash crops. At the same time, through the suppression of agriculture in other tropical countries in the 1990s, The ability of East African agriculture to withstand stress is still very strong, and the economic crisis in 1907 was far less serious than the economic crisis in 1873. Ernst had never heard of this economic crisis in his previous life, so the market should recover faster.
(End of this chapter)