Chapter 1498 Immigration
Bulawayo can enjoy this treatment mainly due to its unique geographical location. Bulawayo is located in the hinterland of central and southern East Africa, close to the Kalahari Basin, and has a strong sense of confidentiality. In addition, Bulawayo also has a strong industry, comfortable climate, open terrain, etc.
Therefore, many defense projects, scientific research projects, military facilities, various experimental sites, and even the military in East Africa like to be located here.
For example, the nuclear project in East Africa, although the location of the East African nuclear test site is not in Bulawayo, but in the Kalahari Desert in the west of Lorraine Province,
However, as the capital of Lorraine Province, Bulawayo can serve as a logistics support base. At the same time, Bulawayo itself has strong industrial capabilities, so it is easier to layout some related industries here, such as nuclear material refining, uranium enrichment, high-energy explosives, heat-resistant materials, precision machining, etc.
Many of these supporting industries can be independently completed in Bulawayo, which greatly reduces the cost of scientific research and development, reduces the risk of leaks, and facilitates the supply of various supporting facilities and spare parts.
In the western part of Lorraine, there are almost no people and the basin terrain is relatively closed. Even if a nuclear accident occurs, the risk of nuclear radiation spread can be reduced. It is also conducive to the development of scientific research projects with confidentiality requirements, such as aerospace engineering.
In short, the defense industry of Lorraine Province plays an important role in East Africa. Just like this time, the flight test field where the FT01 test aircraft is located is one of the supporting facilities of these important defense industries. Bulawayo gathers various elements needed for the development of the aviation industry.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Bulawayo was one step ahead of other cities in developing jet aircraft.
Hai Nuoan said to the military personnel: "Now that we have jet aircraft, we can use the FT01 test aircraft as a blueprint to further develop various high-performance military aircraft to maintain the Empire's advantage in the sky."
"Next, our institute will also design and develop new types of aircraft based on your needs, thereby expanding the application of jet aircraft."
The military representatives this time include not only the Air Force, but also the Army and Navy, especially the Naval Aviation Force. They also have a great demand for military aircraft. For example, the East African Navy now uses aircraft carriers as its combat core, which requires a large number of advanced carrier-based aircraft, as well as overseas naval military bases in East Africa.
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Although the whole world was in the midst of an economic crisis in 1930, countries around the world did not stop in the field of science and technology, even the United States and Germany, which were hit hardest by the crisis. However, due to the economic crisis, they needed to spend more frugally than usual, and some projects had to be cut.
In contrast, East Africa's investment in science and technology has not only not decreased, but has continued to increase steadily. Various scientific research institutions and the development of cutting-edge projects have not been affected by the economic crisis at all.
The only world power that significantly increased its investment in scientific research during the economic crisis was the Soviet Union. After all, the Soviet Union had to establish an independent national defense industry, and this part of the expenditure was inevitable. Of course, the Soviet Union had a weak foundation, and even if the scientific research funding increased significantly, it would be difficult to compare with the wealthy East Africa.
Rhine City.
Crown Prince Friedrich was reporting the relevant situation to Ernst.
"Now, except for us and the Soviet Union, most countries' investment in scientific research has been hit by the economic crisis, and government financial allocations and private funding have been greatly reduced."
"For example, in Europe and the United States, many high-end talents have become unemployed due to funding issues, and some have even immigrated to the Soviet Union. Therefore, I think East Africa should also take the initiative to further absorb technical talents from all over the world and further promote the development of the empire in the field of scientific research."
"In 1930, the Soviet Union's scientific research funding more than doubled compared to previous years, exceeding 300 million rubles, while in 1928, the Soviet Union's publicly disclosed budget was only more than 130 million rubles."
"The Soviet government invested these funds mainly in the heavy industry and defense industry, established hundreds of research institutes of various types, and created a large number of high-end talent jobs."
"To this end, the Soviet government actively recruited talents from Europe and the United States in the international community. In the past few months alone, there may be more than a thousand elites from various fields who came to work in the Soviet Union or even immigrated directly."
During the First Five-Year Plan, the Soviet Union had an extremely strong demand for talent. Although Soviet higher education has made great progress in recent years, there is still a big gap with the international community, and therefore it cannot fully meet the needs of its own industrial and technological development.
Therefore, in order to attract immigrants, the Soviet government adopted a high-salary plus stable job model to encourage talents from European and American countries to work in the Soviet Union. A special Foreign Experts Bureau was even established in the Soviet Union to connect these jobs. For foreign talents, the Soviet Union offered them salaries three or even ten times higher than that of domestic talents, and provided free housing and medical services.
Under normal circumstances, top talents from Europe and the United States would naturally disdain to go to the Soviet Union. But now, due to the economic crisis, there is an oversupply of high-end talents in the market, and along with the employment crisis, the Soviet Union has become a good choice.
In addition to the economic crisis, many high-end talents were attracted by the Soviet political system and joined this "utopian" country to serve the so-called "development of human cause."
Of course, most high-end scientific researchers do not have this awareness, especially in countries where academic monopoly is more serious, such as the United Kingdom and the United States. If not all of their talents, at least most of them are born into rich or noble families.
In countries like Germany and Austria-Hungary, which popularized compulsory education earlier, the situation may be slightly better, but it is also very limited.
In this era, the only two countries that truly achieve relative fairness, do not pay attention to background and economic situation, and screen and train talents are East Africa and the Soviet Union.
Education in East Africa can at least guarantee that the lower classes enjoy the right to education, and this continues until the secondary school stage. In the university field, the East African government also allows many children of ordinary people to enter university through examinations.
The situation in the Soviet Union is even more special than that in East Africa. Because of the different political environment, the Soviet education system provides more opportunities for the common people. Not to mention the education system, even within the government, it is much easier for the lower-class people in the Soviet Union to enter the government than in any other country in the world.
On the contrary, the original upper-class elites of Tsarist Russia either went into exile abroad, were liquidated, or were suppressed by the political environment, making it difficult for them to come to the fore.
This is also the biggest difference between East Africa and the Soviet Union. Education in East Africa is only relatively fair, but it is obvious that the upper class and elites enjoy more educational resources, so they can also have an advantage in the competition for education.
For example, hiring famous teachers as tutors, paying more attention to family education, having the financial resources to buy more teaching materials, or studying abroad, etc. Of course, at least the upward channel for the lower-class people in East Africa still exists.
Ernst said to Friedrich, "At this stage, as the economic crisis develops in Europe and the United States, it has indeed reached a very dangerous point. The unemployment rate in the United States is approaching 10%, which is about 4 to 5 million. All walks of life are laying off employees, and some are even going bankrupt."
"This will inevitably lead to the loss of talent in some areas. Recently, our immigration department has received a lot of immigration applications from European and American countries."
"Some people, as you said, even went directly to the Soviet Union to live. This also illustrates the problem of excess talent in the international community today."
"I think this is indeed an excellent opportunity for East Africa. Not only high-end talents, but also ordinary people can be selected and allowed to join the imperial system."
"Especially for our many overseas colonies, this economic crisis is also an important opportunity for us to solve the demographic structure of our overseas colonies."
The population imbalance problem in East African overseas colonies has always existed, because in the decades after the economic crisis of 1873, East Africa has not had the opportunity to recruit large-scale white immigrants from Europe and the United States.
During World War I, although East Africa tried to attract immigrants from Europe to the colonies, the room for maneuver was limited. After all, during wartime, population was also a valuable resource for European governments, or to put it bluntly, "consumables."
Therefore, during the First World War, East Africa’s attempts to recruit immigrants from Europe did not achieve significant results, and only a certain number of immigrants were admitted to a few small countries, such as the war refugees from Belgium.
However, the population of these small countries is not large, and their choice is not limited to East Africa, not to mention that the destination is the colonies of East Africa, just like East Africa in Belgium. Some of the Belgian war refugees recruited by East Africa returned to Europe after the war.
But it is obviously different now. Due to the economic crisis in 1929, the number of unemployed people in the United States alone is as high as four to five million. This number is not the limit for the United States. According to the development of this round of economic crisis in the United States in the previous life, in a few years, it is possible that the number of unemployed people in the United States will exceed 15 million.
Even if the East African colonies could attract 10% of them, that would still be 150 people. The most populous colony in East Africa, East Kalimantan, has a total population of only over 3 million, and the total population of all colonies is close to 7 million.
Of course, East Africa is not very interested in American immigration. The focus is still on Europe, especially the German region. During this economic crisis, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the two most important European German distribution areas, are what East Africa attaches the most importance to.
Ernst said: "The current unemployment rate in Germany should be similar to that in the United States, at least around two million, which means that four to five million Germans may lose their main source of income."
The unemployed population obviously cannot be counted as the entire population, such as children, the elderly, and some housewives. Therefore, the current number of unemployed people in Germany is over two million, which involves at least more than two million families.
Similarly, although the number of unemployed people in the United States is now four to five million, the number of people involved should be around ten million, or even more.
Therefore, Germany alone should be able to greatly alleviate the East African colonies' demand for white immigrants, and East Africa does not need to focus its energy on the American people.
The social culture of the United States is different from that of East Africa. Therefore, unless it is absolutely necessary, East Africa will not recruit ordinary immigrants from the United States.
Friedrich also agreed with Ernst's judgment: "Next, I will instruct the immigration staff to strengthen their work in Europe. Germany and Austria-Hungary will be our key areas for recruiting immigrants."
Ernst said: "Not only that, but we should also remind the Kingdom of Southern Germany that they also have a great need for immigrants. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ask Sigmaringen if they need our help."
The Kingdom of South Germany naturally had a great demand for German immigrants. However, they were not as lucky as East Africa and missed the population outflow from Germany in the last century. Therefore, the population of the Kingdom of South Germany has not increased and has not exceeded 10 million to date. In 1929, the population of the Kingdom of South Germany was less than 5 million.
The land area of the South German Kingdom is as high as two million square kilometers, which is a vast land with a sparse population. Although deserts and semi-arid areas account for a large proportion of it, there are also many habitable areas. Areas such as the area around Lake Chad, the Chari River Basin, and the land in the southwest near the Atlantic Ocean are all very suitable for human survival.
For the Kingdom of South Germany, feeding 20 to 30 million people is not a problem at all. After all, Chad in the previous life could feed nearly 20 million people. The conditions of the Kingdom of South Germany are much better than Chad, as it owns part of the territories of Cameroon and Nigeria in the previous life.
Friedrich said, "Father, the South German Kingdom government has already communicated with us about this. They hope to use the power of the empire to attract immigrants from Europe. They can even lower their conditions and accept immigrants from regions like Italy."
Although Italy's economy was not greatly impacted by Benito's administration, it was still not doing well. After all, Italy was a country with very poor infrastructure. It had a land area of only over 200,000 square kilometers but a population of 40 million. In addition, there were only a few plains in the country that were suitable for farming. It could be said that the country was overcrowded.
This has also led to Italy being the region with the most serious population outflow in Europe in recent years, so it is not surprising that the Kingdom of South Germany has set its sights on Italy.
The reason why the Kingdom of South Germany turned to East Africa for help was due to its own lack of capabilities. Apart from other things, although the Kingdom of South Germany has become a coastal country, they only have a coastline of more than 100 kilometers and a small port with slightly poor conditions.
This also made it difficult for the Kingdom of South Germany to develop maritime transportation. Apart from maritime transportation, if the Kingdom of South Germany wanted to obtain immigrants, it could only do so through East Africa. At the same time, the immigration agency of the Kingdom of South Germany was not as strong as the East African Immigration Agency.
The East African Immigration Agency has been developing for several decades and has a large number of overseas channels and rich immigration experience. The history of the Kingdom of South Germany is shorter than that of East Africa, and in its early development, it did not have the resource advantages of East Africa, especially coal and iron ore, the two most basic industrial resources. The only thing that the Kingdom of South Germany did not lack was iron ore.
Of course, coal is relatively scarce throughout West Africa, and only the British colony of Nigeria has relatively considerable coal resources to supply early industrial development. This also makes the industrialization process of the South German Kingdom far less dazzling than that of East Africa in the last century.
(End of this chapter)
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