Chapter 1056 The Ashes of Era
Great Britain is a land of outstanding people, otherwise why would French filmmakers and German entrepreneurs come here? As a diplomat, Alan Wilson was not too much to receive.
Time makes people grow older, and some distinguished guests may not be as gorgeous as they were when they were at their peak. But this is not a reason to dislike each other. After we have been together for a long time, some feelings will always exist. It is okay to talk about parenting without talking about romance.
After receiving a group of foreign friends, Alan Wilson dragged his tired figure to find Makins. He always leaves some time for himself. Seeing his old friend looking tired, Makins couldn't help but grinned and said, "I sometimes They all wonder, is your salary higher than others?"
"How can you see it?" Alan Wilson asked after opening the thermos cup and taking a sip of wolfberry, licking his lips.
"Otherwise you have no reason to work so hard." Makins looked puzzled. "You spend half of the year abroad, right? You seem to be busy at all times. This can no longer be explained by hard work."
"People always have to pay the price for their choices." Alan Wilson said in a confused manner, and Markins nodded. He thought that Alan Wilson was talking about diplomatic work.
In fact, it's not the case at all. What Alan Wilson said was that when he was young and strong, he overestimated his abilities and wanted to test drive a luxury car when he saw it.
To this day, I can’t say I regret it. My body is a little tired, but fortunately, the mental pleasure can dilute the physical fatigue. After all, this is a classic car, so he deserves it.
Alan Wilson could blame his fatigue on the fact that he was not acclimated to the climate in Africa, so he got past the topic and asked what was interesting about Markins' current job.
The Ministry of the Interior is also one of the three traditionally powerful ministries. Compared with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior handles a variety of matters.
"The domestic shipbuilding industry seems to have encountered some bottlenecks." Makins thought for a moment and shrugged. "The shipbuilding industry is not as good as before. Now there are not as many orders as in previous years, and profits are incomparable."
"Is that so?" Alan Wilson nodded with his face crossed. Unexpectedly, the world's largest shipbuilding power would be in trouble so quickly? Yes, if civilian shipbuilding is included, the British shipbuilding industry is stronger than the United States.
In half of the years since the war, Britain's total shipbuilding tonnage has surpassed that of the United States, and in the other half of the years, Britain has trailed the United States.
Britain's unique geographical location and water conservancy conditions made ships play an important role in people's production and life, which in turn led to the rise of the shipbuilding industry. The rise of the British shipbuilding industry is related to the British political environment. On the one hand, it is reflected in the government's strong support for warship construction, which has driven the development of shipbuilding industry technology and scale.
The British free trade policy has stimulated the prominent role of ships as carriers in international competition, thus promoting the development of the shipbuilding industry.
In addition, the development of the British shipbuilding industry has its own industrial advantages. It is in a leading position in terms of ship size, ship power, construction specialization, organizational form and customer relations.
During the two world wars, Britain's dominant position was challenged by other countries. Although it was surpassed by other countries in some aspects, it was generally able to maintain its position as the world's largest shipbuilding country.
In fact, the first thing Britain recovered after the war was its shipbuilding industry. It trampled the American Liberty Ship under its feet and surpassed the United States in launching tonnage all year round. According to history, it was the Suez Canal War that caused the first difficulty in the British shipbuilding industry.
But the fundamental reason is that Britain no longer invests in the Royal Navy, resulting in the shipbuilding industry no longer having military orders to maintain. On the contrary, although the United States has also begun to experience a decline in civilian shipbuilding, it has been using military orders to keep the U.S. shipbuilding industry alive.
The U.S. approach is not without its sequelae, that is, the unit price of U.S. warships in later generations is already astronomical.
Alan Wilson originally thought that the normal upgrading of the British Royal Navy would be a boon to the shipbuilding industry, but now it seems that even after maintaining prosperity for a few more years, the British shipbuilding industry has still hit a ceiling.
"You're not thinking about industrial transfer, are you?" Maxins saw his old friend's pensive look and said directly, "I'll take you to a place."
"No, where?" Alan Wilson was interrupted from his train of thought and said something inconsistent.
"You'll know when we get there." Makins smiled and dragged Alan Wilson directly into the car. Their destination was the last textile factory in the UK, and it was also a dye factory. The latter was more important, otherwise it was simply The textile factory is probably closed now.
The journey is not far or near, but it is already outside the confines of London. Before entering, you can hear the almost groaning dehydration sound of the centrifuge filling the entire hall. It is like a needle pricking in to monitor the work progress and concentrate all the attention. The muscles and bones of the workers on the machine violently collided with the colorful fabrics fluttering like flags on the proximity device.
The two appeared in a factory building. Here are some little machines for printing and dyeing black cloth for men's clothing.
The light of day shines in through thousands of windows, coating the black vapor in the factory and the workers with a layer of light green.
The workers held their hands and stood like stone pillars, motionless, staring at the machine. When thousands of meters of fabric pass through here, they can be evenly dyed with the foamy black pigment sprayed from the machine.
The walls were shaking and the factory was working with all its energy. A lift mounted against the wall provides direct communication between the lobby and the four floors above it.
The low rumble of the machine echoed in the hall. The elevator is either transporting a batch of cars, goods and people to another floor, or unloading another batch of people and goods in the hall.
"Do you feel anything?" Maxkins asked Alan Wilson in a low voice, asking him to evaluate the scene in front of him.
"I don't have any feelings. Backward industries should have been eliminated."
Alan Wilson spoke calmly, but because of the special environment here, if he didn't want to be beaten, he had to control his voice, "It is naturally unnecessary to maintain strongholds on unprofitable industries, or we should innovate to improve production efficiency. But the textile industry is a very old industry, and if there were ways to innovate, it wouldn’t be where it is today.”
In order to prevent accidents, it is necessary to preserve what steelmaking and machinery manufacturing, this textile industry? What to do with it, 800 million shirts for a Boeing?
The UK has the Comet airliner, so there is absolutely no need to do this. As long as no outrageous mistakes are made, even if Boeing can gain the upper hand in the future, it won't be overthinking for a few decades.
"The government attaches great importance to the unemployment rate. It is not impossible for the textile industry to do this, but if the shipbuilding industry does this, you have to know what the status of the shipbuilding industry is in the UK." Makins smiled bitterly and said, "I have nothing else. I just want to show you the textile industry that is about to disappear from the UK."
"Now that you're here, why not take a look at the ashes of the times." Alan Wilson glanced sideways at his old friend and said calmly, "Nothing in the world is eternal, and you can't buck the trend of everything. "
"Aren't you most willing to be in adversity?" Makins laughed and commented, "With a permanent undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs like you, I don't think the foreign minister has much work."
"Without me, ministers have no job. The prime minister likes to direct diplomatic work." Alan Wilson was not targeting Macmillan. This was just an obvious fact. The only difference between Eden and Nehru was that they did not personally take up the post of Foreign Secretary, completely sidelining Macmillan.
Otherwise, why would Alan Wilson propose the merger of the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office, and why would Macmillan be so interested in it?
There is really no room for him to perform in diplomacy, so he wants to start over in a different direction. The Prime Minister likes to display his talents on the diplomatic stage. As the Foreign Secretary, he can always contact the Commonwealth countries if he has nothing to do, right?
Two senior Whitehall officials were in the fuel workshop and experienced the treatment of a leader inspecting work. Of course, this company is mainly to give Makins face, and he, the permanent undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, does not have such a big face.
The turbid sunlight shines in through the very dirty windowpanes that are covered with a layer of steam, illuminating the machines and people's faces more clearly. In the hall, under the light of the pale green daylight, you can see long strips of red steam floating back and forth, as if they have sprinkled a layer of dust on the halo of the gas lamps.
Both man and machine seemed to be in a state of unconsciousness, like phantoms controlled by the terrible force generated by movement, like bundles of rags and piles of dust mixed together and thrown into the In a whirlpool that is constantly churning and roaring.
Alan Wilson held his nose. He felt that working long hours in this environment would definitely affect people's health. The consequences would be much more serious than if he took people on a rocket ride when he had nothing to do. There was no need to keep this factory and it should be moved out.
At No. 10 Downing Street, after listening to Macmillan's words, Prime Minister Eden fell into deep thinking. As prime minister, had he interfered too much in foreign affairs? Was Macmillan dissatisfied with this before he proposed the proposal to merge departments?
However, since Duncan's death, the Conservative Party has indeed lacked the leader of a major force. Will directly agreeing to Macmillan destroy the balance within the party?
Tell the truth! At this moment, Eden is considering whether Macmillan is reliable. Do you have any ideas for peeking at the artifact?
In the UK, elections are based on parties, and the leader of the party automatically becomes prime minister. It is not unimaginable that the sitting prime minister will be removed from office due to internal divisions. This is different from the United States.
"Harold, Duncan has just left. If we merge the Commonwealth Affairs Department now, there may be some problems." Aiden did not agree directly. "How about we wait until the six-party talks have a result and we will consider this matter. ? You always have to worry about what Churchill thinks, don’t you?”