Chapter 248 Inspection of the Western Australian Industrial Base
After the time entered 1908, Australasia gradually returned to calm and entered its usual development.
After more than two months of reorganization and training, the expanded new army was officially organized. After being awarded military ranks and numbers, the Regular Fourth Division, the First Colonial Division and the Second Colonial Division went to their new stations. Start the process of training while stationing.
Among them, the First Colonial Division went to the colony of New Guinea, and the Second Colonial Division went to garrison in Australian Timor.
After all, the colonial division is still in its infancy, and real soldiers cannot be recruited until they go to the colonies.
But in any case, after the two colonial divisions have undergone preliminary training, the New Guinea colony and Australian Timor can be considered to have stronger defense forces.
After the exchange of defenses with the colonial division, the garrisons of the Australian Timor and New Guinea colonies also officially returned to the Australasian mainland.
Therefore, the current defense deployment of Australasia is clear. The Australian region has regular one to four divisions garrisoned, and the New Zealand region has a New Zealand garrison of 6,000 people from the previous New Zealand garrison and the garrison transferred from New Guinea.
Arthur's Guards Division was not included. The Guards Division took orders directly from Arthur, and his duty was only to guard the palace and protect Arthur.
In addition to these defensive forces, Arthur also has thousands of royal guards and guards, who are generally stationed in the palace as a defense force for the palace.
When Arthur travels and visits abroad, his defense force is basically the Royal Guards. After all, the Guards often number in the tens of thousands, so transportation is a problem and they are too ostentatious.
The weapon of Arthur's bodyguard is not the Lee-Enfield rifle common in the army, but the Kassadin submachine gun independently developed by the military factory.
As for why it is called this name, we have to mention the inventor of the Kassadin submachine gun, Kassadin James Kenway.
In addition to the Kassadin submachine gun, the royal guards are generally equipped with the self-developed As-1898 semi-automatic pistol.
As for heavy firepower weapons such as machine guns and artillery, there are reserves in the palace's weapons depot, but the guards generally will not use them.
After all, the biggest responsibility of the royal guards is to protect Arthur, not to fight with heavy weapons.
At present, Australasia's army strength is not too strong, but it is barely enough.
As an island country composed of large and small islands, if Australasia's navy can guard its territorial waters, there is actually no big problem for the army to maintain its current size.
This is why Australasia's defense funding has gradually shifted towards the navy.
In fact, speaking of it, there are certain similarities between the strategic environments of Australasia and the United States.
The United States is bordered by the sea to the east and west, and its neighbors to the north and south are relatively weak. This also leads to the United States having an excellent geographical location and being able to develop peacefully and contentedly away from European disputes.
Looking carefully at the geographical environment of Australasia, we see the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the east and west, the desolate Antarctica to the south, and the weak Dutch East Indies to the north.
Although there are colonies of great powers in the surrounding areas, most of them are small islands in the Pacific and are not that important to the great powers.
The really important colonies are in the Straits of Malacca and India, but because they are separated from Australasia by the Dutch East Indies, and they are all British colonies, there is no conflict of interest with Australasia.
This also leads to Australasia currently having an excellent development environment. It can not only stay away from conflicts in Europe, but also become a disruptor and influence the surrounding situation after developing silently.
After each department reported their situation, Arthur nodded with satisfaction.
Generally speaking, although the cabinet government experienced considerable changes in mid-1907, the country's development speed did not stop, and Australasia was still developing at a high speed.
Even the growth rate in 1907 was higher than in previous years. Whether in terms of population or economy, Australasia already looked a little like a powerful country.
The next task of the Ministry of People's Livelihood is still to attract a large number of immigrants from Europe and other places to suffice the population of Australasia.
Under the premise of Australasia's various medical and education policies, immigration policies and welfare policies for workers, Australasia's immigration attractiveness has greatly increased, and it has now become an immigration choice second only to the United States. .
Attracting a large number of immigrants, ensuring welfare policies for the current population, and paying attention to and solving people's livelihood issues are currently the most important tasks of the Australasian Ministry of People's Livelihood.
Minister of People's Livelihood Henris took over the task solemnly and promised to make the immigrant population in 1908 reach a new high.
The mission of the Ministry of Transport is very simple. At present, except for the northern railway, the construction of other roads and railways in the country has basically been completed.
If we have to talk about railway construction, perhaps it is the railways related to the two colonies.
However, the affairs of the colony are generally the responsibility of the governor, and even the ministers of various departments are not easy to participate.
The construction of the Northern Railway has entered a stable stage, with more than 60,000 indigenous people currently employed, and this number is still increasing.
If the project progresses smoothly, it is expected that the northern railway will be completed and opened to traffic in 1914. But if the project progress is not smooth, this time may be delayed to 1916.
The tasks of the agricultural department are relatively simple. In addition to organizing the indigenous people to continue to cultivate cultivated land, they also need to pay attention to food prices across the country and around the world, and be prepared to stockpile or dump food at any time.
The current tasks of the education sector are relatively arduous. In addition to expanding the scale of existing universities, it is necessary to increase the number of universities and technical schools to cultivate more college students and technical workers for Australasia.
Even the current progress of university construction can be temporarily halted to make way for technical schools to a certain extent.
After all, whether it is developing industry or other industries, relevant technical talents are crucial.
The development of the medical department is relatively step-by-step. The number of hospitals is not suitable to expand too much before there are sufficient medical talents. Therefore, the mission of the medical department is only to attract more medical talents and prepare talent reserves for major hospitals.
In order to solve the problem of insufficient medical talents in Australasia, three universities have successively opened medical majors and can train nearly 600 medical talents every year.
But these talents can only serve as assistants to doctors. Without several years of experience, allowing them to become real attending doctors will harm the patients.
The job of the Sheriff's Department is also relatively easy. Australasia's booming development has also reduced domestic crime incidents. Even now, most of the criminal cases occur from immigrants, and the domestic order in Australasia has actually become stable.
In order to deal with the problem of high crime rates among immigrants, the security department also introduced corresponding solutions after consulting Arthur.
The first is to improve the treatment of immigrants, find jobs and places to live for them as soon as possible, and provide them with certain compensation.
Those who choose land will receive at least ten acres of land. Those who do not want land will receive at least 100 Australian dollars in compensation and will be introduced to major factories or other jobs.
Of course there are rewards and there are penalties. For those immigrants who still commit crimes, the security department also imposes very severe penalties.
For minor crimes, immigrants may face at least one month of forced labor and a small fine.
If this crime is recorded, it may also affect the review and issuance of nationality. If you cannot have real Australasian nationality, you will not be able to enjoy the welfare policies promulgated by various Australasian departments.
If it is a serious crime, the punishment of the security department will range from a minimum of ten years of forced labor to a maximum of death penalty. In addition, family members and friends may also be implicated.
But there is also a rule that if you find that your friends or family are planning or have committed crimes, if you can report them, it will not affect your immigration progress.
If they are just ordinary friends, maybe the friendship will really withstand a certain test. After all, Australasian citizenship brings a lot of various welfare policies. The reason why these immigrants come to Australasia must be ready to live in Australasia permanently.
In fact, among the departments that have the easiest time, it is actually the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Because Australasia's current main policy is still focused on development, except for a few countries with relatively close relations, Australasia does not appear much in the world.
Australasia's current influence is only limited to Southeast Asia, but it already has considerable popularity in Europe.
Although Australasia's hand has not yet reached Europe, it is far from being able to influence European countries.
However, Australasia is now well-known in Europe, and many immigrants often consider Australasia when choosing a destination.
This is not only thanks to Arthur's good reputation and support in the UK, but also to the actions of the previous Portuguese government and Carlos I.
If not for their persistence, Australasia's reputation in that war would not have been very good.
At present, the only countries with relatively good relations with Australasia are Germany and Russia, and they also maintain seemingly good relations with the United Kingdom.
In addition, although it has established diplomatic relations with most major powers and many European countries, in fact the connections with each other are not close.
The only "allies" Australasia currently has good relations with and can rely on are Germany and Russia.
Relatively speaking, industry is the most arduous, and it is still the industrial sector that is currently relatively important to the country.
At present, the industrial scale of Australasia is actually at the first-class level among the great powers, but the industrial foundation and industrial heritage are actually still just a country in its infancy.
With the support of Britain and Germany, Arthur will naturally not miss such a good opportunity. Therefore, Australasia's next plan is to use a small amount of support from the United Kingdom and strong support from Germany to completely upgrade Australasia's basic industries and other industries to the same level as the steel industry, allowing Australia to excel in any aspect. have become an out-and-out industrial power.
To this end, the Ministry of Industry has specially planned a new industrial zone, or industrial base.
The new industrial base is located at the junction of Western Australia and South Australia. Because it is close to the mineral resources in the west, it has very convenient conditions for the development of industry.
The only problem is transportation, but the Ministry of Industry has already negotiated with the Ministry of Transport. The railway here will directly lead to the industrial railway in the south and the northern railway in the north. There will be railways intersecting the north and south, and the traffic problem will be solved instantly.
At present, the main industrial bases of Australasia are located in the southeast of Australia and the north of New Zealand. This is because these two regions are the essence of Australia and New Zealand respectively, and are also the places with the largest population and the most developed economy.
For Australasia, developing industry is not that difficult, more constraints are often problems of insufficient population and insufficient labor force.
This has also led to the fact that most of Australasia's industrial areas are currently located in the southeastern essence of Australia and the North Island of New Zealand.
However, the types of mineral resources in these two regions are limited, which is also an important reason that limits the diversified development of Australasia's industry.
The new industrial base is located at the border of Western Australia and South Australia to solve the previous constraints of insufficient mineral resource types.
Although the populations of Western Australia and South Australia are not that adequate, the Department of Industry is determined to make changes this time.
To this end, the Australasian government will mobilize at least 200,000 Aboriginal people. Since the labor force is insufficient, these indigenous people will be used to make up for it.
Coupled with tens of thousands of Australasian workers, I believe that the newly-selected industrial base will soon catch up with the scale of the old industrial zones. After all, this is the current key project in Australasia and the Ministry of Industry. the next important task.
In order to show the importance to this industrial base, plus there is really nothing to do in recent days.
On January 2, 1908, Arthur embarked on the road to Western Australia to personally inspect the new industrial base that had been selected.
Because of the industrial railway, it only takes two days to reach the border of Western Australia and South Australia, and then take a car to the new industrial base.
Arthur will spend a day inspecting the industrial base. If the progress goes smoothly, he should be able to return to Sydney before the National Day and participate in this year's National Day activities.
As Australasia develops better and better year by year, Australasia's National Day activities also receive more attention year by year.
Often on National Day, various stores and workshops will offer discounts to celebrate the great festival of the birth of the country.
Especially on this day, the bright Australasian flag will be spread across all villages and cities across the country, which is also a good manifestation of people's love for the country.
I’m out today, just 4,000 words, I’m sorry, brothers. I plan to go back on the 2nd and start trying every day on the 3rd! Please support, please vote!
(End of chapter)