Chapter 664 End of the Year

In the end, the shipbuilding plan including two battleships and nine aircraft carriers was approved.

After all, 50 million Australian dollars is not a big expense for the current government, and it has to be paid in 2 to 3 years, which is even less of a big expense.

If it can make the country's naval strength further, this deal is definitely worthwhile, and the cabinet ministers will not be unreasonable.

Minister Mellen was worried about the cuts in the funding of his own security department, but when Arthur said that the funds for shipbuilding would be directly transferred from the treasury instead of diverting the financial budget of other departments, Minister Mellen no longer objected.

With the addition of these two battleships and nine aircraft carriers, the naval strength of Australasia can take another step forward and reach the third naval power after Britain and the United States.

Of course, compared with other naval powers, the naval organization of Australasia is more extreme. Aircraft carriers are the real main battleships, and the status and number of battleships have dropped to the next level.

Although this seems a bit strange, after all, the naval construction of other countries is still mainly based on battleships, and aircraft carriers, which are modified from battleships and destroyers, are only used as auxiliary.

But if you see the advanced aircraft design of Australasia, you will actually understand the intention of using aircraft carriers as the main battleships.

The aircraft carrier technology that Australasia has mastered now, if combined with radar, can actually crush battleships.

The attack range of a battleship is the range of its main gun, while the attack range of an aircraft carrier is the flight distance of the aircraft it carries.

Radar can also ensure that an aircraft carrier can detect a battleship before entering the attack range of a battleship. Such a technological gap has proved that the actual combat effectiveness of an aircraft carrier exceeds that of a battleship.

Although it will take some time for aircraft carriers to surpass battleships in history, in Australasia today, the development of jet aircraft has brought this time forward a lot.

In addition to Australasia's special emphasis on the development of aircraft carriers, other countries, even Britain, which first developed aircraft carriers, do not attach such strong importance to aircraft carriers.

Although the current aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom have made progress compared to more than ten years ago, due to the limitations of aircraft technology, the British feel that the combat effectiveness of aircraft carriers will not exceed that of battleships, and battleships are still the most powerful warships in the world.

Although they also understand the design of the giant aircraft carriers before Australasia, the lack of Australasia's aircraft technology makes them mistakenly believe that the aircraft carriers designed by Australasia are also inferior to the most powerful battleships.

This is also the biggest misunderstanding of the British, because of the misunderstanding of the development of warships caused by aircraft technology.

However, there is no way, after all, it is the ability of the aircraft that determines the real combat effectiveness of the aircraft carrier.

Even if the most advanced aircraft carrier is designed, the aircraft it carries are products from decades ago, which are still not as good as the most advanced aircraft carried by aircraft carriers from decades ago.

Of course, the premise of doing this is that the aircraft carrier can withstand the takeoff and landing of more advanced aircraft. After all, if the aircraft cannot even take off and land, then it can only be pretending.

Including this naval shipbuilding plan, various non-stop construction and engineering in the last few months of 1926 have always been a microcosm of Australasia.

This also made Australasia the most envied country by people all over the world in the second half of 1926, and attracted a large number of immigrants.

Through the registered immigrants and births and deaths in 1926, the Australasia government also successfully estimated the total population of Australasia as of the beginning of 1927.

This has to mention the current population registration system. Although various technologies are already advanced, Australasia still cannot accurately calculate population statistics to the single digit.

In fact, all countries cannot do it at present, because there is no real-time system for counting population data, and the units of population data reported by various countries are often 10,000, with a maximum of two decimal places.

However, this does not prevent the outstanding population data of Australasia. At the beginning of 1926, the total population of Australasia was only 29.76 million.

And just one year later, at the beginning of 1927, the total population of Australasia had risen to 32.47 million, with a net population increase of more than 2.71 million.

Such population growth data is already very exaggerated, and it is definitely among the best in the world.

It is precisely because of this scale of population growth that the total population of Australasia has jumped to about 32.5 million, and it is no longer the small country with a population of several million.

The death toll in Australasia is about 251,000, which also means that the total population growth figure is close to 3 million.

Of the total population growth of 2.961 million, the local newborn population contributed less than one-sixth, about 432,000.

The remaining nearly 2.53 million are all immigrants from Europe and America, which also shows the impact of the economic crisis on these countries.

The 2.53 million immigrants are further classified, and the number of British immigrants is as high as 1.47 million, of which 37% are from the United States, 55% are from the United Kingdom, and the remaining less than 8% are from other regions.

After that, the number of Russian immigrants reached 432,000, and more than 90% of Russian immigrants came from Tsarist Russia.

Nearly 10% of the remaining immigrants, or 247,000 people, are American immigrants. This does not mean that fewer people from the United States come to Australasia.

In fact, these people can be regarded as native Americans. Although their ancestors were also immigrants from Britain or other countries, after decades or hundreds of years of development, they can all be collectively called Americans.

The addition of a large number of British immigrants not only caused the population of Australasia to surge, but also kept the proportion of British immigrants above 59%, which is a relatively good level.

I just don’t know what Prime Minister Baldwin would think. Australasia did sell a large amount of grain and meat at cost price to Britain, but Britain also lost more than 800,000 people. In comparison, Australasia still made money.

This is only because the immigration action lasted only four months. The next year will be even more difficult for the British government, because they can’t stop unemployed British people from coming to Australasia, and they can’t stop capitalists from dumping a lot of food and milk into rivers or lakes because they can’t make money.

This also created a spectacle. A small lake outside London was originally a scenic spot, but after the capitalists dumped a large amount of milk, the lake water already had the smell of milk.

Walking beside the lake, in addition to being able to clearly smell the fragrance of milk, you can also smell the stench of moldy and rotten food in the lake.

Of course, if you have better eyesight, you can actually see several corpses floating in the lake.

These people smelled the milk fragrance in the lake and saw the food in the lake. They thought they would not starve to death, and rushed to the center of the lake like they didn't want to die.

But the capitalists would not let them succeed. There was only one ending for these refugees, and they were forced to drown in this milky white lake.

The biggest good news brought by the population boom is that all infrastructure construction in Australasia is no longer short of manpower.

The 2.53 million immigrants created nearly one million workers, who immediately entered the infrastructure industry in Australasia, and kept the number of unemployed people at a low level.

Because of the continuous influx of these laborers, the construction of railways, roads and other infrastructure has become much faster, and the country's development is also booming, and it has not been affected by the economic crisis at all.

Because of this, while the economies of countries around the world have generally fallen sharply due to this economic crisis, the economy of Australasia has maintained its original scale, neither falling nor growing.

In fact, this is normal. Although imports and exports have experienced a reduction due to the economic crisis, the large-scale infrastructure construction has brought economic growth.

With one increase and one decrease, the economy has maintained a balance. However, this is also quite difficult in the economic crisis. After all, the economic decline of various countries is very large, and being able to maintain balance is unique.

But the changes in fiscal revenue and expenditure are still relatively large. Because of the large reduction in the scale of exports, the total fiscal revenue of Australasia in 1926 also ushered in a decrease.

The previous major taxpayer, Benz Automobile Factory, paid less than 2 million Australian dollars in taxes last year, a decrease of more than 70% compared with the data of the previous year.

This also caused Australasia's total fiscal revenue to fall back below 200 million Australian dollars, even to only 180.1 million Australian dollars.

However, total fiscal expenditure has increased significantly. Whether it is various infrastructure projects or naval expansion plans, each one is a gold-eating monster, and the fiscal budget paid is also very high.

In 1926, Australasia's total fiscal expenditure reached 293.9 million Australian dollars, and the annual fiscal loss reached 113.8 million Australian dollars.

Although the fiscal loss is relatively large, it is these infrastructure projects that ensure that Australasia's economy is stable at the current level.

At the same time, these infrastructure projects also allow new immigrants to obtain sufficient income, which is also the key to Australasia's attraction of foreign immigrants.

According to the funds currently available to the government, the annual loss of more than 100 million Australian dollars can support the current government for about three years.

If there is more, it will rely on other means, such as issuing government bonds, or printing more currency, etc.

Although doing so will cause the currency to depreciate, it is much better than the country not being able to come up with money for infrastructure construction.

That is to say, Australasia has made considerable economic progress in the past 20 years of development. Otherwise, the fiscal loss of more than 100 million Australian dollars each year is not something that many countries can bear.

Fortunately, Arthur's royal consortium can also serve as a bottom line, and can lend to the government when necessary to tide over the difficulties.

This is also the benefit of Arthur's high income. The act of the royal family lending to the government can also improve the public's favorability. After all, it is rare for a monarch to be willing to take out his own money for the government.

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