Chapter 638 Exchange of Interests

Franz's mouth twitched after hearing this and he said, "What a hassle!"

Britain has always been a troublemaker, and most European countries, especially the Austro-Hungarian Empire which was "taken care of" by Britain, knew it very well.

"Now the Boers should be considered as their own people, and they still have checks and balances, but this is also in line with the British's usual practice."

Franz had no feelings towards Britain, but there was one thing he did admire, and that was that Britain's methods were indeed superb. Apart from other things, the British mainland is composed of three parts, and with Ireland it makes a total of four parts, but England's ability to easily control the other three parts is worthy of Franz's admiration.

After all, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria couldn't control Hungary because there were a bunch of states and regions behind it that wanted to do the same as Hungary.

If Austria had the ability of England, it would at least make Hungary taste the power of the Irish famine. However, Britain is an island country after all and is not easily affected by foreign interference, so there are still big differences between the two countries.

"If you can't deal with the UK, we can also provide some support. Although we can't come forward directly, we can still help you solve some problems." Franz said.

East Africa’s status is different now, so it is worth being wooed. If it were still the East African colony huddled in “Tanganyika”, I’m afraid it would only lead to the situation of “Who is East Africa? I don’t know.”

"Haha, that's not necessary. The most important thing for East Africa now is to develop its economy, so it would be great if the Austro-Hungarian Empire could give us more leeway in the fields of education, technology, culture, etc." Ernst said.

It is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. The Austro-Hungarian Empire would definitely not do something like the Soviet Union, which provided hand-on teaching. However, there was no problem for East Africans to pay for their own tuition and come to study.

"That's no problem, but can you help share more of our industrial products?"

"I can't make the decision blindly. Although East Africa is a large country, it is really poor! However, we can help digest many of the goods that we cannot produce in East Africa."

Commodities and industrial products are different. Agricultural products can also be used as commodities. The Austro-Hungarian Empire itself was an agricultural powerhouse and was located in a temperate zone with many crops that were not available in East Africa, so this aspect could be considered.

As for industrial products, East Africa needs to be cautious. Ernst thought for a moment and then said, "Austria-Hungary's main source of economy is still agriculture. Its industry is not as strong as Germany, Britain and France. However, we in East Africa are now busy with infrastructure construction. Uncle, you also know that the land in Africa has never been developed before. We in East Africa have to build everything ourselves. This year, we plan to build a railway with Romania that will go directly to Chad in the heart of Africa. This railway has many technical difficulties. If Austria-Hungary participates, we can give up more benefits."

The difficulty of the central and western sections of the Northern Railway is in no way inferior to that of the Trans-Siberian Railway. If East Africa relies on itself to build it, it can indeed be done with great effort, but it is not cost-effective.

In this regard, allowing the Austro-Hungarian Empire to participate might have unexpected results. After all, the terrain within the Austro-Hungarian Empire is quite complex, and it has the most experience in Europe in building mountain railways.

Although the main force in building the railway was black, black lives matter too! Therefore, the participation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would reduce the loss of life, which would not be bad for East Africa, and it would also speed up the progress of the project. The earlier the northern railway was opened to traffic, the earlier the population isolation zone in the north of East Africa could be built.

"The Austro-Hungarian Empire also ranks first in Europe in terms of oil production. We in East Africa can import more of this," said Ernst.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire still has part of the territory of former Romania, so its oil resources are relatively abundant, and its production ranks first in Europe.

If East Africa wants to promote the development of the internal combustion engine industry and the automobile industry, oil resources are indispensable, so it can only rely on imports.

As for the oil in East Africa, although Ernst knew the approximate location, the current technology and theory might not be able to support inland oil exploration, and resource exploration was also a very laborious task.

Geologists often have to sleep in the open air, explore caves in the mountains, and stay outside for ten days or half a month, so it is very time-consuming and labor-intensive. In addition, the understanding of elements and minerals in this era was very rudimentary and the technology was backward, so prospecting for minerals was a very difficult technical job.

The advantage of mineral exploration in East Africa is that black people have hardly developed this land, and many minerals may be on the ground. If this were in Eurasia, they would have been exhausted by our ancestors long ago.

The development of transportation in East Africa in recent years has further promoted the development and progress of the mining industry. Geological surveyors can not only go deeper into more areas, but mechanical equipment can also be developed with the help of railways and highways, and finally transported out by rail, and then used or exported by East Africa itself, which fully verifies the truth that if you want to get rich, you must first build roads.

Railway investment is the trend of this era, just like new energy and artificial intelligence in the 21st century. Railway is a new thing in this era. Although European railways have been widely popularized, that is only for the five major European countries, namely Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Russia. The other countries are far behind.

By bringing Austro-Hungary into East Africa, it could further absorb the domestic steel production capacity of Austro-Hungary and drive the development of related industries. This was already a great sincerity. After all, the central and western sections of the Northern Railway would be a national project in Austro-Hungary, because the area of ​​Austro-Hungary was not as large as that of East Africa.

And Ernst added the issue of oil imports, which made Franz even more satisfied. Although oil production was limited in that era, it also indirectly showed that the price of oil was high. After all, things are valuable because they are scarce. In addition to being used as fuel, oil has a wide range of uses. Otherwise, Rockefeller would not have made his fortune from oil.

East Africa imported oil from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was not a small income for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although Ernst did not say the specific amount, it was definitely not small.

Ernst didn't care, because a large part of the oil industry in Austria-Hungary and Romania was invested by the Hexingen Consortium. So importing oil from their own companies was nothing more than paying more taxes to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Paying taxes was unavoidable when doing business on someone else's territory.

Franz, who received a satisfactory answer, also asked, "Before, you mentioned something about education, so I didn't ask too much, but this depends on the needs of various schools in the empire. After all, they also have to recruit students according to their own abilities. Moreover, there are already many East African students studying in the Austro-Hungarian Empire every year. We can discuss technology and culture."

East Africans were the largest group of international students in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Basically every university had East African students, so there was nothing wrong with what Franz said. However, East Africans were also considered half Germans, so studying abroad in Germany was not out of place. The level and quality of universities in this era were also high, so there would not be any problems such as discrimination.

There are countless countries to study in Europe, and many shrewd speculators will host some fake schools to defraud tuition fees. In this era, the cost of studying abroad is high. Studying abroad in East Africa, which directly cooperates with governments, avoids many problems, so East Africa does have a lot of advantages.

(End of this chapter)