Chapter 489 Splitting the Royal Consortium
Arthur did not consider the construction of underground air-raid shelters, or underground security bases, during the construction of the new palace, but it seems that there is no need for it at present.
First of all, the island chain outside Australasia has determined that it is basically impossible for foreign aircraft to enter the mainland of Australasia.
If the mainland of Australasia is really threatened, then Australasia will definitely face a great war, or even a full-scale nuclear war.
Let alone how far away that time is from now, even if an underground air-raid base that is considered safe is built now, it may not be able to stop the attack of weapons at that time.
Especially for air-raid shelters specially used to prevent nuclear weapons, with the development of science and technology, various radiation-proof materials will be slowly invented.
It is better to wait until the radiation-proof materials are mature in the future before building a complete underground base, rather than adding some unnecessary pressure to the construction of the palace now.
After a few days of inspection at Fort Saint-Arthur, Arthur finally put his mind at ease and decided to go home.
There are still a few more important things to deal with, which also makes Arthur not have much free time, and he doesn't even have the mood to travel.
It was already the end of March when Arthur successfully returned to Sydney. As soon as he arrived at the palace, Butler Kent asked for an audience.
"Butler Kent, what happened?" Arthur asked with a little curiosity.
As the chief butler of the entire palace and the real controller of the royal consortium, Butler Kent had no less to do than Arthur.
And the hard work and dedication of Butler Kent was absolutely indispensable for the development of the royal consortium into a huge enterprise that is rich enough to rival a country.
"Your Majesty, the royal consortium has developed to its current state. I think it's time to split it up." Butler Kent said formally and slightly seriously.
"Split up? Why so suddenly?" Arthur was suddenly stunned and asked curiously.
"Your Majesty, the royal consortium has thousands of factories and enterprises under its umbrella, and the number of employees has exceeded one million. It is not easy to have such a scale, but the royal consortium should not have such a large scale. As your public industry, the scale of the royal consortium must be reduced to at least one-third of the current size to be more acceptable to people." Butler Kent explained.
The development of the Royal Consortium covers Australasia's minerals, steel industry, oil, automobile industry, aviation industry, military industry, shipbuilding industry, agriculture, animal husbandry, light industry and food industry. It can be said that it is closely related to the lives of Australasia people.
Although this looks very powerful, the implication behind it is also terrible.
The Royal Consortium controls almost all aspects of the country. Maybe there will be no problems during Arthur's reign, but there will definitely be problems in the future.
After all, people's words are not a joke. Not every monarch has such a high reputation as Arthur, and not every prime minister is as loyal as Prime Minister Kent.
"Do you have any plans, Butler Kent?" Arthur nodded and approved Butler Kent's plan to split the Royal Consortium.
"Your Majesty, from the overall perspective, we must at least split the Royal Consortium into 3 to 4 large consortiums. The Royal Consortium will only retain military industry, shipbuilding and banking, and all other businesses will be divided into new consortiums, and they will appear to have nothing to do with the royal family." Butler Kent hesitated and put forward his plan.
Military industry, shipbuilding and banking are definitely one of the most important industries of the Royal Consortium. Needless to say, several military factories and shipyards have the most advanced military technology in Australasia, which the Royal Consortium cannot give up.
In addition, the Royal Bank is currently the largest bank in Australasia, with users far exceeding several idle banks in the private sector and the national bank established by the government not long ago.
The Royal Consortium, which owns the military industry, shipbuilding industry and Royal Bank, can already be regarded as one of the giants in Australasia, and the assets of the Royal Consortium on the surface are also sufficient.
As for the remaining factories and enterprises in various messy industries, they can be split into three or four consortiums of different sizes. Arthur only needs to control them secretly and introduce an open controller to completely separate them from the royal consortium.
But this still belongs to Arthur's industry, but it seems that the royal family's property is not so exaggerated and is not easy to be envied.
There is another important reason for splitting the royal consortium, that is, the current royal consortium is too large and it is not easy to manage.
As the actual manager of the royal consortium, Kent Butler has a deep understanding of this. Dealing with the affairs of the palace and the consortium at the same time makes Kent Butler exhausted.
This time, taking the opportunity of requesting the split of the royal consortium, Kent Butler also wants to resign from the position of head of the royal consortium, and serve Arthur's family well as the palace's butler in the remaining few days.
Arthur pondered for a while and finally agreed to Kent Butler's proposal.
On April 1, 1919, the split of the royal consortium officially began.
All enterprises except military industry, shipbuilding and banking changed their names and abolished the word "Royal".
This also means that these enterprises have no connection with the royal consortium on the surface. They will have their own apparent leaders or merge into other consortiums.
Within a few days, several large consortiums in Australasia were established one after another.
The steel industry established a separate heavy industry group, the agriculture and animal husbandry established a joint group, and all oil companies were merged into the Royal Petroleum Company and renamed the Australasian National Petroleum Company.
As for the various enterprises and factories invested or established by the Royal Consortium, all of them have changed their names and cancelled the royal or royal titles.
The unified explanation given by the Royal Consortium is that some properties were divided due to financial problems.
Coupled with the comprehensive control of the news by the propaganda department, no bad news has leaked out.
Even the people are still spreading the story that the Royal Consortium spent too much money to help the poor class every year, causing some enterprises to fall into losses and debts, so they had to cut off, which made Arthur earn a lot of reputation invisibly.
The original behemoth Royal Consortium has also become an unrelated Royal Consortium, Heavy Industry Group, United Group and major enterprises.
Like the more famous Benz Automobile Factory and Diesel Engine Research Laboratory, they still retain their original names.
After all, Benz and Diesel are not small in Australasia. Most people think that the bosses of these two companies are Benz and Diesel.
The people saw in the news that the royal consortium only had military industry and banking business, and even requested to reduce the welfare benefits of citizens to give the royal consortium a break.
Arthur naturally refused this outright. After all, the truly smart people naturally knew what was going on. Using such an excuse to reduce welfare benefits would eventually lead to a fire.
What's more, Australasia's current welfare benefits are an important guarantee for attracting immigrants. Although at least 2 million immigrants can be obtained from Russia every year, if it only relies on Russian immigrants, the country's ethnic composition is unhealthy.
As an immigrant country, Australasia welcomes immigrants from Europe and all over the world, but it must also have a clear understanding of its own ethnic composition.
The British as the main ethnic group in Australasia is an unchangeable foundation and a guarantee for maintaining the stability of Australasia.
At present, among the more than 20 million people in Australasia, the British population accounts for just over 10 million, barely breaking through the proportion of 50%.
After catching up in the past few years, the proportion of the Russian population has also approached 40%, which is about 8 million people.
This also means that if there are no restrictions on immigration, the proportion of Russians will soon exceed that of British people, which may not be a good thing for the stability of Australasia.
Only by introducing a large number of British immigrants can the ethnic proportion and national balance of Australasia be maintained.
Not long after the split of the Royal Consortium, Arthur dressed up again to attend the opening ceremony of the Noble United Consortium Bank, which is the Noble United Bank.
The new nobles are definitely a rising star in the political arena of Australasia, and have attracted the attention of everyone in Australasia.
The Noble United Bank has a total investment of 3 million Australian dollars, which is the largest investment of the Noble United Consortium and the third largest bank in Australasia.
However, with the suppression of the Royal Consortium, the opening of the Noble United Bank did not make much of a splash.
After all, the Royal Bank alone has more than 8 million users. Except for the national bank established by the government, other banks have no hope of catching up.
The national bank is the bank for the national finance, the salary of all officials and some workers, and the total number of users is as high as more than 5 million.
In addition to these two super-large banks, before the establishment of the Noble Union Bank, the largest bank was established by European capitalists, but it had less than 1 million users.
More than 100 new nobles from Australasia were also present at the establishment ceremony of the Union Bank.
All of them were smiling. After all, the profit and loss of the Union Bank also affected the amount of their dividends. The larger the scale of the Union Bank, the greater the benefits they would have.
Currently, the Union Bank has only established its head office and branches in Sydney and Melbourne. After all, it is not so easy to expand the bank.
After all, the Union Bank is not an official force like the royal family or the government. If it wants to have more users, it will inevitably compete with other small and medium-sized banks.
As the two largest cities in Australasia, the opportunities for development in Sydney and Melbourne are undoubtedly the greatest.
If the Union Bank can gain a foothold in Sydney and Melbourne, it will have the capital to expand from Sydney and Melbourne and open branches in the capitals of each state.
Before that, it is better to lay a solid foundation, operate honestly for a few years, and slowly have a group of old customers.
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