Chapter 353 Industrial Base and Railway Construction
Before the expeditionary force set off, Arthur gave an encouraging speech to the Fourth Division and said that he would personally award honors and medals to them after the Fourth Division returned successfully.
This speech aroused the enthusiasm of the Fourth Division. The soldiers were still very enthusiastic about the war. After all, there were not many wars in Australasia. Every time they returned from the war, they returned with great victory. They just waited to get the credit. .
Arthur has great trust in the combat capabilities of the Fourth Division, and also has great trust in the command ability and emergency response ability of the commander of the Fourth Division, Scott Malone.
Scott Malone is a talent cultivated by Australasia itself and is a native Australasian.
Commander Scott successively served in the Australasian colonial garrison, the 1st Australasian Division, and the 1st Guards Division. He also studied at the Royal Military College in Sydney, and was subsequently sent to the 2nd Guards Division as deputy division commander.
When the Fourth Division was formed, Scott successfully became one of the candidates and eventually won the position of commander of the Fourth Division.
The current Commander Scott is less than 40 years old, and there is still a lot of room for improvement waiting to be explored.
After notifying Division Commander Scott that he would kill as much of Argentina's effective forces as possible while reducing casualties and win the war, Arthur watched the expeditionary force leave with great relief.
Arthur's consistent purpose is to try not to blindly interfere in the troops' wars. In addition to its own Guards Division, the operations of conventional divisions are basically conducted under the command of the Ministry of National Defense.
Of course, the results and progress of the war also need to be reported to Arthur. After all, how can a monarch who does not understand the current military situation be in charge of the country.
It will take some time for the expeditionary force to reach the border between Chile and Argentina, and at this time, Arthur also has a more important job.
More than half a year has passed since the second phase of the Leonora Industrial Base was fully completed.
In the past half year or so, the investment promotion of Leonora Industrial Base has been very smooth, and most of the industrial zones have been put into production.
Of course, the relocation and establishment of the factory is not that fast. According to conservative estimates from the industrial sector, it will be from the end of this year to the beginning of next year that the second phase of the construction of the Leonora Industrial Base will be able to enter full-scale production, which will greatly enhance the industrial strength of Australasia and at the same time promote Australasia. economic development.
It is no exaggeration to say that the current Leonora Industrial Base is the industrial core of Australasia and the brightest industrial pearl in Oceania.
The current Leonora Industrial Base has nearly 200 factories and 170,000 workers and technicians, covering all aspects of Australasia.
The successful completion of the construction of the first and second phases of the industrial base also gave Arthur and the Ministry of Industry full confidence to advance the construction of the third and expected final phase of the industrial base.
Time waits for no one, because it has already entered August, and Arthur does not want to wait for the second phase of the industrial base to be fully put into production before starting the third phase of the industrial base.
Fortunately, the second phase industrial base is relatively far away from the third phase construction plan, so there will be no interference between the two parties.
On August 9, 1913, after a cabinet meeting as usual, the Australasian government officially announced that it would start the construction of the third phase of the Leonora Industrial Base.
The construction plan of the third phase of the Leonora Industrial Base is the largest and most expensive among the three phases of industrial base construction.
According to the planning information provided by the Ministry of Industry, the total construction area of the third phase of the industrial base is nearly 6,000 acres.
Among them, the construction area is 4,800 acres, and greening, environment, drainage, environmental protection and road construction consume a total of 1,200 acres of land.
If the total area of the first, second and third phase industrial bases is included, the entire Leonora Industrial Base will be a super large base covering an area of more than 10,000 acres.
According to the standards of the second phase industrial base, the third phase industrial base will have at least 400 standardized factory workshops and 50 large storage areas, which can accommodate at least 200 very large factories and hundreds of small factories.
This also means that the third phase of the industrial base alone can accommodate nearly 350,000 employees and create 350,000 jobs.
The entire Leonora Industrial Base combined will create more than 550,000 jobs in Australasia, and the industrial and economic growth it will bring to Australasia is immeasurable.
Perhaps because the Ministry of Industry has gained experience from the construction of the first two phases of the industrial base, the design and planning of the third phase of the industrial base went very smoothly.
On August 15, after mobilizing a large number of construction teams from Sydney, Victoria and New South Wales, the third phase of construction of the Leonora Industrial Base officially began.
As usual, Arthur attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the industrial base and expressed satisfaction with the construction and production of the first two phases of the industrial base.
Today's Leonora Industrial Base is well-known in Australasia and even abroad. The start of the third phase of construction has also attracted many Australasian media.
"The construction of the third phase of the Leonora Industrial Base has officially started. What exaggerated potential does the Ruhr area in Australasia have?" "With 500
standardized workshops and 100 large storage areas, the Ruhr area in Australasia What exaggerated scale has the district reached now?"
With the official start of the Leonora Industrial Base, major newspapers and media outlets also published their own news, and they all chose eye-catching titles in a tacit understanding.
For the European people, Europe's prosperity and development are already a matter of course. In their spare time, people are also happy to talk about things outside Europe.
As one of the currently recognized great powers, Australasia is already well-known in Europe.
Even with the help of Australasia, Oceania has become the first choice for European immigrants after the Americas.
Various news and reports about Australasia often attract many Europeans to watch and be curious.
They are always curious about new things. It is not surprising that Europeans want to know about Australasia, a country thousands of miles away from each other.
In fact, if we look at large cities alone, the development of Australasia is not inferior to that of European countries.
The traffic lights, street lights, various cars and modern facilities that can be seen everywhere in Europe can also be seen in Australasia.
Buses and tramways from this era can also be seen in major cities in Australasia.
Even if Arthur looks at Sydney today with the eyes of later generations, sometimes he can't help but have the illusion that Sydney is a modern city.
It is no exaggeration to say that the current development of Sydney is more developed and prosperous than the development of some cities in later generations.
Because of Tesla's participation, electricity development in Australasia has now spread to almost all cities, and is spreading to villages and towns further away.
Electricity is no stranger to Australasians. It has become one of the daily lighting methods that can be seen everywhere on the streets of Australasia.
It is worth mentioning that during the previous massive construction of Australasia, Southeast Asian indigenous people could be seen almost everywhere, and they were a common free labor force in Australasia.
But so far, various large-scale construction projects in Australasia have tried to replace those indigenous people with their own people.
Except for some more dangerous jobs, which are still held by Aboriginal people, other relatively normal jobs are all held by Australasians.
This situation is inevitable. As time progresses, sooner or later all the indigenous people in Australasia will be consumed or repatriated to Southeast Asia.
These people staying in Australasia are also a scourge, and if they are not dealt with early, it will be even more troublesome in the future.
With the development of science and technology, some machines have been able to gradually replace labor, or significantly save labor requirements. In addition, the population of Australasia has been rising steadily, and it is already approaching 13 million this year. The demand for labor is no longer so tight.
Therefore, most of the indigenous people in Australasia have now been sent to the colonies and crown territories in the north.
The development of colonies and royal territories still requires these indigenous people. Anyway, the distance is relatively long and the population is small, so no one cares about exploiting the indigenous people.
It has to be admitted that Aboriginal people have made considerable contributions to the development of Australasia.
Australasia was able to develop so rapidly in the early stage without oppressing the civilians of Australasia at all, all thanks to these indigenous people.
According to incomplete statistics, from the establishment of the Principality of Australia to August 1913, more than 2 million indigenous people have come to Australasia, making sufficient contributions to the development of the country.
At present, the only remaining indigenous people in Australasia number no more than 300,000 at best.
Even if the more than 1 million indigenous people transported to the northern colonies and royal territories are included, the number of indigenous people who came to Australasia is less than 1.4 million at most.
This also means that, all calculated, nearly 800,000 indigenous people were buried in Australasia in more than ten years, which resulted in the prosperity and development of Australasia.
In order to give back to these natives, Arthur deliberately ate meat that they had not seen for a long time before transporting these natives to the colony. The meat was parts that Australasians did not eat very much and could not be sold. .
Only a few thousand indigenous people were used in the construction of the Leonora Industrial Base this time, and they were all in high-risk positions.
In addition, all workers and technical personnel of the engineering team, including experts in planning the construction of industrial zones, are all Australasians.
In addition to the Leonora industrial site, the government also discussed plans for another large-scale construction at the cabinet meeting.
If you want to get rich, build roads first. This saying is universal in every era. Road construction in Australasia is going relatively smoothly. At present, all states have connected all cities and large towns and villages, and some small villages are also connected by roads.
In terms of railways, following the Industrial Railway and Northern Railway, the transportation department applied to start the next railway construction plan.
The first is Australasia itself, the region of Australia.
The Northern Railway and Industrial Railway have connected the Australian region around the island, and the next step is the railway connecting major cities to the central part of Australia.
According to the plan of the transportation department, the next railway construction plan is overall named the Central Railway.
The Central Railway is divided into three parts. The first part is located throughout Western Australia, starting from Esperance in Western Australia, connecting to the industrial railway in the north, and then connecting to the Leonora Industrial Base in the north, followed by Mika Sara, Newman, Port Hedland.
The railway construction mileage of this part is not long, and the railways near the industrial base are already ready. Therefore, the construction period is expected to only take one and a half years.
The second part of the Central Railway, located in the true middle of regional Australia, connects Darwin, Bodham, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs and Takura from north to south, and ultimately still connects to the Industrial Railway .
The third part of the Central Railway is actually about the rail connections in the four regions of Victoria, New South Wales, and the Capital Territory of Queensland.
These four regions are all located in the east of Australia and are the most populous regions in Australia.
The railway planning in this part is relatively complex. Not only are the railways between the four regions interconnected, but within each administrative region, the railways must also form a loop to facilitate population movement and economic exchanges.
This part of the railway can be divided into the Queensland, Townsville, Huonden, Dajarra, Jericho, Rockhampton, Brisbane and Charleville railway loops.
New South Wales, Newcastle, Orange, Walgett, Bourke, Delambande Railway Loop.
Melbourne Geelong Oberst Railway Loop, Victoria.
and the Sydney Rail Link in the ACT.
Each of the four major railway rings forms a system and is connected to each other, which can promote economic exchanges and population mobility in this area on a large scale.
If the three major parts of the Central Railway can be fully completed, more than half of the railway construction in Australia will be completed, basically meeting the transportation needs brought by the current population.
Of course, the three major parts of the central railway combined are a more difficult construction plan than the northern railway and industrial railway.
Because the estimated total mileage has exceeded 10,000 kilometers, the estimated construction period is about ten years.
If the construction of the Central Railway is started, the transportation department will be quite busy in the next ten years.
Moreover, due to the large-scale construction of railways, the government's financial burden will also increase, and the increase in government fiscal expenditures is inevitable.
But there is nothing that can be done about it. If you want to get rich, build roads first. This saying is applicable at all times and is also the truth for national development.
Any construction and economic circulation require developed transportation methods. The construction of the Central Railway in Australasia is inevitable and necessary.
Fortunately, the government's financial situation is still very good, so after consideration, Arthur agreed to the transportation department's railway construction plan.
Of course, as the saying goes, you can’t eat a fat person in one bite. Although the Central Railway construction plan has been agreed, this does not mean that the three parts of the Central Railway construction plan will be carried out simultaneously.
In order to build the Leonora Industrial Base, and also because the Leonora Industrial Base has an existing railway, the construction is relatively smooth. Under Arthur's order, the transportation department will first build the first part of the central railway. , that is, the railway that runs through the Leonora industrial base.
After the completion of this railway, the transportation in Western Australia will become very developed, and it will also facilitate the Leonora Industrial Base to quickly transport materials from the Northern Railway and Industrial Railway.
According to the principle of order of importance, after the construction of the first part is completed, the third part, which is the most difficult and longest, will be constructed.
The third part is located in the central part of Australia. It is the most populous and economically developed region in Australia and even the entire Australasia, and it is also the core region.
This part of the railway is far more important than the railway that runs through South Australia, and it is also an important goal of the government's railway construction.
Only after the construction of these two parts of the railway is completed can the Transport Department consider the construction of the railway in South Australia and then complete the entire central railway.
According to estimates from the transportation department, the construction of the entire central railway will take about ten years, and the capital required will start at least 50 million Australian dollars.
But the good news is that this fund is not a one-time expenditure. It will be slowly consumed during the construction period of more than ten years along with the construction of the railway.
This also means that the average annual government expenditure on railway construction is only about AU$5 million, which is well within the government's affordability.
You know, just the increase in jobs brought about by railway construction will allow Australasia's economy to continue to grow.
At the national level, infrastructure construction is not a loss at all, and the funds spent will promote the country's economic growth in another way.
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(End of chapter)