Chapter 248 Inspection of Western Australia Industrial Base

After entering 1908, Australasia gradually returned to peace and entered its usual development.

After more than two months of reorganization and training, the expanded new army was officially formed. After being awarded military ranks and numbers, the regular 4th Division, the 1st Colonial Division and the 2nd Colonial Division went to their respective new garrisons and started the process of garrisoning and training.

Among them, the 1st Colonial Division went to the New Guinea Colony, and the 2nd Colonial Division went to Australian Timor for garrison.

After all, the colonial division is only in its infancy at present, and the real soldiers can only be recruited after going to the colony.

But in any case, after the two colonial divisions have undergone preliminary training, the New Guinea Colony and Australian Timor have a stronger defense force.

After exchanging defenses with the colonial divisions, the garrisons of Australian Timor and New Guinea Colony also officially returned to Australasia.

Therefore, the current defense deployment of Australasia is clear. Australia has one to four regular divisions stationed, and New Zealand has a New Zealand garrison regiment of 6,000 people, including the previous New Zealand garrison and the garrison transferred from New Guinea.

Arthur's Guard Division is not included in it. The Guard Division is directly under Arthur's command, and his duty is only to guard the palace and protect Arthur.

In addition to these defense forces, Arthur also has thousands of royal guards and guards, who are generally stationed in the palace as the defense force of the palace.

And Arthur's defense force for general travel and overseas visits is basically the royal guards. After all, the guards are thousands of people, transportation is a problem, and it is too ostentatious.

Arthur's guards' weapons are not the common Lee Enfield rifles in the army, but the Kassadin submachine guns 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, they are stored in the arsenal of the royal palace, but the guards generally do not use them.

After all, the biggest responsibility of the royal guards is to protect Arthur, not to go to war with heavy weapons.

At present, the army of Australasia is not too strong, but it is barely enough.

As an island country composed of large and small islands, if the navy of Australasia can guard the territorial waters, it is actually not a big problem for the army to maintain its current size.

This is also why Australasia's defense funds have gradually shifted to the navy.

In fact, there are certain similarities between the strategic environment of Australasia and the United States.

The United States is surrounded by the sea on the east and west sides, and the strength of its northern and southern neighbors is relatively weak. This also leads to the United States having an excellent geographical location, which can develop safely away from the disputes in Europe.

Looking closely at the geographical environment of Australasia, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean are to the east and west, the uninhabited Antarctica to the south, and the weak Dutch East Indies to the north.

Although there are colonies of powerful countries in the surrounding areas, most of them are small islands in the Pacific Ocean, which are not so important to the powers.

The really important colonies are in the Strait of Malacca and India, but because there is a Dutch East Indies between Australasia and them, and they are all British colonies, there is no conflict of interest with Australasia.

This also leads to the current excellent development environment of Australasia, which can not only stay away from conflicts in Europe, but also become a troublemaker after silent development and affect the surrounding situation.

After the various departments reported their own situations, Arthur nodded with satisfaction.

Overall, although the cabinet government has undergone considerable changes in mid-1907, the country's development speed has not stopped, and Australasia is still developing at a high speed.

Even the growth rate in 1907 was higher than that in previous years. Whether in terms of population or economy, Australasia already looked like a little bit of a powerful country.

The next task of the Ministry of Civil Affairs is still to attract a large number of immigrants from Europe and other places to fill the population of Australasia.

Under the premise of Australasia's various medical and educational policies, immigration policies and welfare policies for workers, Australasia's immigration attraction has increased significantly, and it has now become an immigrant choice second only to the United States.

Attracting a large number of immigrants, guaranteeing the welfare policies of the current population, and paying attention to and solving people's livelihood issues are the most important tasks of the Australasia Ministry of Civil Affairs at present.

Minister of Civil Affairs Henry took the task very seriously and promised to make the immigrant population in 1908 reach a new high.

The task of the Ministry of Transportation 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.

But the affairs of the colonies 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. Currently, more than 60,000 indigenous people have been involved, and this number is still increasing.

If the progress of the project is smooth, it is expected that the Northern Railway will be completed and opened to traffic in 1914. However, if the progress of the project 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 arable land, they also need to pay attention to food prices across the country and around the world, and be prepared to store or dump food at any time.

The current tasks of the education department are relatively heavy. In addition to expanding the scale of existing universities, the number of universities and technical schools should be increased to train more college students and technical workers for Australasia.

Even the current construction progress of universities can be temporarily stopped, which can make way for technical schools to a certain extent.

After all, whether it is the development of 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 for too much expansion before there are sufficient medical talents. Therefore, the task of the medical department is only to attract more medical talents and prepare talents 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.

However, these talents can only serve as assistants to doctors. Without a few years of experience, it would harm patients to let them become real attending doctors.

The work of the public security department is relatively easy. The booming development of Australasia has also reduced domestic crime incidents.

Even now, most of the criminal cases are caused by immigrants, and the order in Australasia has actually tended to be stable.

In order to deal with the high crime rate of immigrants, the public security department, after consulting Arthur, also introduced corresponding solutions.

The first is to improve the treatment of immigrants, find jobs and places to live for immigrants as soon as possible, and send them certain compensation.

Those who choose land will receive at least ten acres of land. Those who do not want land will receive at least one hundred Australian dollars in compensation and will be introduced to major factories or other jobs.

Of course, there are rewards and punishments. For those immigrants who still commit crimes, the public security department's punishment is also very severe.

If it is a minor crime, the immigrant 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 the real nationality of Australasia, you cannot enjoy the welfare policies issued by various departments of Australasia.

If it is a serious crime, the punishment of the public security department will range from the lowest ten years of forced labor to the highest death penalty at its discretion. In addition, it may also implicate its family and friends.

But there is also a rule that if you find that your friends or family are planning or have committed a crime, if you can report it, it will not affect your immigration progress.

If it is just an ordinary friend, perhaps friendship will really be tested. After all, there are many welfare policies brought by the nationality of Australasia. The reason why these immigrants come to Australasia is that they must be prepared to live in Australasia permanently.

In fact, the most relaxed department at present is actually the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Because Australasia’s current main policy is still to develop in a low-key manner, except for a few countries with close relations, Australasia has not appeared many times in the international arena.

Australasia’s current influence is only limited to Southeast Asia, but it has already gained considerable popularity in Europe.

Although Australasia’s hand has not yet reached Europe, it is far from affecting European countries.

But Australasia is already 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 thanks to the previous actions of the Portuguese government and Carlos I.

If it weren't for their repeated insistence, Australasia would not have a very good reputation in that war.

At present, the only countries that have good relations with Australasia are Germany and Russia, and they also maintain superficial good relations with Britain.

In addition, although diplomatic relations have been established with most of the great powers and many European countries, in fact, the ties between them are not close.

At present, the only "allies" that Australasia really has a good relationship with and can rely on are Germany and Russia.

The most arduous industry is still the industrial sector that is currently more important to the country.

At present, the industrial scale of Australasia is actually at the first-class level under the great powers, but the industrial base and industrial heritage are actually still just a country that has just started.

With the support of Britain and Germany, Arthur will naturally not miss such a good opportunity. Therefore, the next step for Australasia is to use the small amount of support from Britain and the strong support from Germany to completely upgrade Australasia's basic industries and other industries to the same level as the steel industry, so that Australia can become an absolute industrial power in all aspects.

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 of the proximity 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 discussed with the Ministry of Transport that 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 in the north and south, and the transportation problem will be solved instantly.

At present, the main industrial bases in 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, and they are also the most populous and economically developed places.

For Australasia, it is not so difficult to develop industry. More restrictions are often the problems of insufficient population and insufficient labor.

This also leads to the fact that most of the industrial areas in Australasia 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 for restricting the diversified development of Australasia's industry.

The new industrial base is located at the junction of Western Australia and South Australia to solve the previous limitation of insufficient types of mineral resources.

Although the population of Western Australia and South Australia is not so sufficient, the Ministry of Industry is also determined to make changes this time.

To this end, the Australasia government will mobilize at least 200,000 indigenous people. Since there is a shortage of labor, 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 areas before. After all, this is the current key project of Australasian and the next important task of the Ministry of Industry.

In order to show the importance of this industrial base, and 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 has been completed.

Because of the industrial railway, it only takes two days to reach the border between Western Australia and South Australia, and then take a car to the new industrial base.

Arthur will inspect the industrial base for one day. If the progress is smooth, he should be able to return to Sydney before the National Day, and then he can participate in this year's National Day activities.

As Australasian develops better and better every year, the National Day activities in Australasian are also more and more valued 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 flag of Australasia will be all over the villages and cities across the country, which is also a good reflection of people's love for the country.

Today I am outside, only 4,000 words, sorry brothers. I plan to go back on the 2nd, and try to write 10,000 words a day from the 3rd! Please support, please vote for the monthly ticket!