Chapter 662: Start of Work and Accidents

In order to prove that the infrastructure plan was not just talk, the government, under Arthur's urging, started construction of several major infrastructure projects, including subway construction projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Fort St. Arthur.

Subways are very important for large cities. They can not only speed up the flow of people within the city, but also facilitate the connection between large-scale cities.

Take Sydney as an example. If there is no subway, it will take more than two hours to travel from the southernmost to the northernmost end of Sydney even by car.

If there is a traffic jam or a large flow of people in the middle, the time will be longer, which greatly reduces the convenience of communication within the city.

The subway does not have the trouble of traffic jams. It can shuttle freely underground in the city. Each subway can transport hundreds or even thousands of passengers, speeding up the flow of people within the city.

However, it is still difficult to start railway construction underground. In addition to the need to build subway stations underground, it is also necessary to ensure that the underground railway tunnels built are very stable and will not collapse due to various problems.

After all, this is a large-scale construction that the government has been advocating. If there is a problem with the quality, it will be a big blow to the government's reputation.

The construction of the subways in the three cities will certainly not be fully launched. The Sydney subway will serve as a pilot for the construction of the Australasia subway.

After all, the subway technology is relatively unfamiliar to Australasia, and it is necessary to gather railway experts from all over the country to ensure the safety and stability of the subway.

The underground environment is not better than the ground. If an accident occurs underground, it is not only difficult to rescue, but the mortality rate is also very high.

After a period of preparation, the Sydney subway construction project was officially launched on September 15, 1926.

As a railway expert who once built subways in New York, Wadrick naturally became a member of the Sydney subway construction and even entered the railway design department.

In addition to the very eye-catching Sydney subway, in September, Australasia also launched the construction of the Anst Reservoir Hydropower Station in the Capital District, the Capital District Railway Ring, the New Sydney Bridge, etc., making the news of Australasia resound in countries around the world.

The construction of various railways, water conservancy projects, bridges and infrastructure also makes Australasia like a large construction site. Construction sites can be seen everywhere, and the number of workers of various types has also ushered in a surge.

This does not include the roads built by municipal governments and village governments. Some roads connecting to smaller facilities and villages are basically not announced to the public, after all, the scale is too small.

But the addition of these roads across Australasia is also a considerable construction, which invisibly makes the impact of Australasia's infrastructure more severe, and also makes the country's development and economic growth advance at an incredible speed.

Unlike Arthur, who is obviously relaxed, Prime Minister Roger still has to deal with a lot of government affairs every day.

The Australasia government has always adhered to the strategy of the government making its own decisions on small matters and holding cabinet meetings to wait for Arthur's decisions on major matters, which also makes the government and the prime minister busy.

Arthur is also happy to be idle. After all, it is good to delegate power appropriately. You can't really let the government be an obedient puppet who only knows how to simply execute your orders.

Looking at the pile of documents on his desk, even Prime Minister Roger, who loves the position of Prime Minister, had to sweat.

"Cary, why are all the reports from the Transportation Department handed over to me?" Looking at the first report from the Transportation Department in front of him, Prime Minister Roger was a little surprised and looked at his secretary with questioning eyes.

"According to the report from the Transportation Department, it seems that an accident occurred in the construction of a railway, resulting in more than ten casualties, so I had to report it to you." Secretary Cary obviously knew what the Prime Minister was concerned about and answered quickly.

"Damn it." Prime Minister Roger cursed secretly and quickly looked at the documents on the table.

After reading it carefully, Prime Minister Roger was relieved.

Although there were indeed more than ten casualties, this accident was an accident caused by an accidental landslide in the mountain that buried more than a dozen workers.

Although the construction team responded quickly and rescued them, more than a dozen casualties still occurred.

This situation often occurred in previous railway construction, but the casualties were all natives before, so it was naturally impossible to report it.

But now, the railway workers are all Australasians themselves, and the casualties of more than ten people must be reported to the government.

In fact, this is also because of the economic crisis. The infrastructure of Australasia has been watched by countries around the world.

Otherwise, the transportation department can handle the casualties of more than ten people, and there is no need to report to Prime Minister Roger.

"Let Minister Martin handle it himself." Prime Minister Roger ordered: "This is an accident after all, and no one is responsible. In addition, let Minister Martin report to His Majesty himself, this is his own responsibility."

"Also, tell Minister Martin to distribute the pensions of the injured and dead workers as soon as possible, and to appease the emotions of the families of the injured and dead workers as soon as possible. These people have contributed to the country, and the country cannot forget their contributions." Prime Minister Roger continued to order.

Although no one is responsible for the accident, it does not mean that the government can relax and be careless in handling this accident.

After all, it involves the casualties of more than ten people, which is also an incident for Arthur, who has always loved the people like his own children.

If Arthur finds out about the handling of the situation, he will be held accountable at best, or lose his chance of reelection at worst.

After handling the transportation department, Prime Minister Roger turned his attention to the busy government affairs and started to get busy again.

In fact, Arthur is not completely free now. At least now, Arthur is receiving a guest, a guest from Germany.

Germany is still a monarchy, and the ruler is William II, who had a good relationship with Arthur before.

For the envoy sent by William II, who is also an envoy of German nobles, Arthur naturally cannot refuse to meet.

In fact, Arthur is very clear about the purpose of the German envoy. If we talk about the countries most affected by the economic crisis, then the United States and Germany must be on the list, and they are a big step ahead of the third place.

Although Germany's economy and industry have improved before the economic crisis, this is because Britain, France and some European countries transferred heavily polluting industries to Germany and imported a large number of cheap industrial products from Germany.

This also means that Germany's industry is very dependent on European countries and financial support from the United States.

But after the outbreak of the economic crisis, all countries only cared about their own interests, and naturally could not import a large number of German industrial products.

This also made Germany's industry instantly enter a state of overcapacity and was very short of funds.

A large number of European countries, including Britain and France, are also transferring the harm of the economic crisis to Germany. Although Germany also responded by stopping compensation, it still cannot eliminate the impact of the economic crisis.

What impact does the economic crisis have on Germany?

The data can actually show it very well. In the original history, in the four years of the economic crisis, Germany's coal production fell by 7%, pig iron production fell by 3%, steel production fell by 9%, machinery manufacturing industry fell by 62%, total power generation fell by 23%, industrial output fell by nearly 40%, consumer goods production fell by more than 30%, total exports fell by nearly 70%, total imports fell by more than 70%, and national gold reserves fell by more than 80%.

The reduction in total imports and exports and gold reserves alone can actually show the impact of the economic crisis on Germany.

But in this world, the impact of the economic crisis on Germany is undoubtedly more serious, much more serious than in history.

Because Germany is now more chaotic than in history, the monarch, the states and the army cannot determine a force that truly controls the country's discourse power.

In addition, the United States, which originally lent a lot of money to Germany in history, has not lent a lot of money in this world. Germany's current situation is much worse than in history, and it is also more seriously affected by the economic crisis.

First of all, the unemployed population. At present, the number of unemployed people in Germany has skyrocketed, and various industries are constantly going bankrupt and laying off employees.

The industry that could provide a large number of jobs before, because European countries are constantly reducing the import volume of German industrial products, has caused Germany's industry to collapse in a short period of time, because the products produced cannot be sold at all.

At present, the number of unemployed people in Germany has exceeded 5 million, and is moving towards the threshold of 6 million.

And how many unemployed people can the German government help? According to the data released by the German government, about 4 million unemployed people have received relief, based on 2% of the total number of unemployed people.

This may seem a lot, but each unemployed person can only receive about 9 marks of unemployment assistance per week, and small cities even less than 20 marks.

What can these funds do?

If it was before World War I, 20 marks was equivalent to 1 pound, and there would be no big problem in spending this money for a week, and it was enough to eat enough.

But now that the mark has depreciated greatly, even 9 marks of funds are not enough to support a person to eat enough for a week.

Even in some cities with relatively high prices, 20 marks can only be exchanged for a few pieces of bread, which means that most of the unemployed people are hungry and are not far from large-scale starvation.

It is worth mentioning that compared with some cities controlled by the German government, cities controlled by the states are more stable.

A relatively powerful state like Bavaria is already using its own currency instead of the extremely depreciated mark.

Although the currency of Bavaria is not too valuable, it can at least be regarded as a normal currency compared to the mark.

According to the news revealed by the Bavarian state government, the number of unemployed people in Bavaria is about 400,000, and the average unemployment benefits received by each person per week are worth about 40 marks after conversion.

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