Chapter 459 Working Meeting
Starting in 1876, the railway bridge over the Zambezi River of the East African Central Railway was completed. Trains could go directly to Zimbabwe via the railway bridge. In order to develop inland areas, East Africa began to continue to build the East African version of agricultural cooperatives along the Central Railway as the main artery.
"This year we plan to build more than 1,500 new agricultural cooperatives along the railway line in Zimbabwe to promote the development of inland areas," said the Minister of Agriculture at a government work conference.
Agricultural cooperatives are not an industrial model unique to the East. In France and Germany, where small farms and family farms are more developed, such organizations exist. They are essentially trade union-type organizations formed spontaneously by farmers.
In the past, French law stipulated: "Agricultural cooperatives and their cooperative alliances are a special type of enterprise different from civil enterprises and trading enterprises. They have independent legal personality rights and full civil rights." Agricultural cooperatives are variable capital enterprises.
The agricultural cooperatives in East Africa are different from those in France in the past because they are dominated by the East African government and are semi-political economic organizations. The land has not yet been privatized and is allocated for use by the kingdom.
The main functions of East African agricultural cooperatives are to provide scientific guidance on planting, provide high-quality seeds, purchase and store grain, manage and distribute livestock and slaves, maintain and manage agricultural tools, and organize agricultural engineering construction.
The East African Agricultural Cooperatives are affiliated to the grassroots governments of East Africa, but the specific guidance is provided by the East African Agricultural Corporation, which is the upstream of the East African agricultural industry chain.
The East African Agricultural Corporation only exists in East Africa, but it is connected to the Hessian consortium industrial clusters in Germany and Austria, providing raw materials and basic agricultural products to these Hessian consortium companies. It also maintains contact with many business groups and leads the East African grain export work.
The main business is still procurement and sales, so the East African Agricultural Corporation is a super agricultural monopoly organization similar to a syndicate. The difference from a syndicate enterprise is that it is too large and aims to enhance the competitiveness of East African agricultural products in the global market. This kind of competition is not a competition among enterprises, but a simple competition among countries. It is a favorable weapon for East Africa's competition with the United States and Russia. The strength of those American food producers is indeed strong, but they also appear like scattered soldiers in front of the East African Agricultural Corporation.
Of course, although the East African Agricultural Corporation is huge, its external exports still rely on the Hexingen Group's food companies, supermarket channels, and large and small distributors in Europe, so the name of the East African Agricultural Corporation is basically not heard outside of East Africa.
In this way, the East African Agricultural Corporation will have certain conflicts with the powers of the Ministry of Agriculture. However, for the current situation in East Africa, it is still more suitable for the national conditions of East Africa.
The staff of the Agricultural Corporation is composed of more professional personnel, and the Ministry of Agriculture, due to its low education level, is not as effective in promoting agricultural development in East Africa as the Agricultural Corporation.
"Regarding the construction of new villages, our suggestion is to open up some more tobacco fields. Just a while ago, the German government announced a tobacco monopoly, which is not good for tobacco profits. More taxes have to be paid, so in order to better monopolize the German market, we must lower the cost of East African tobacco products and maintain our advantage in the German region."
Bismarck pushed for a new bill to increase revenue and reduce expenditure for the German government, but this was a blow to the Hechingen Consortium. Tobacco taxes were already relatively high, and now with the German tobacco monopoly, they had to pay more money to purchase sales licenses.
However, no matter how dissatisfied they were, they had to hold it in. The market was controlled by the German government, and the German government had different power than the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Hechingen Consortium could use public opinion to force the Austro-Hungarian central government to compromise. Obviously, in the more centralized Germany, the Hechingen Consortium could not do this.
However, this is acceptable to East Africa, mainly because East African tobacco can be sold to Germany. The local tobacco market in East Africa has considerable consumption capacity, but it is obviously not as attractive as the German market. The more important role of local tobacco consumption is to recover currency.
"In recent years, all countries have raised tariffs, especially on steel and agricultural imports. We are a steel importer and are not worried. However, the sharp increase in agricultural tariffs by various countries has dealt the biggest blow to us."
Ernst said: "Food consumption still depends on the local area. Now the development of inland areas requires a large amount of food. While increasing the inland population, we must increase the recruitment of inland slaves this year to build roads, water conservancy and other projects in the newly added areas. At the same time, I plan to develop a number of mines along the Zimbabwe Railway, which can also consume a lot of food."
Overproduction of grain is not a big deal. If there is a surplus, we can start construction projects. These things can never be completed. There are still large areas of undeveloped land in inland areas. These all require manpower, and development requires food, so the extra grain can be consumed.
As for using the surplus food to improve the living standards of East Africans, haha, you are overthinking it! To put it bluntly, this is indeed not conducive to the struggle of East Africans. Although East Africa is competitive, it is not as competitive as other countries. If you give the people some benefits, they will really be flat.
The most typical example is Argentina in the past. The people only wanted to receive welfare with a clear conscience, and politicians used this as a campaign tactic. As a result, no one concentrated on work or construction. However, Argentina was not developed to begin with, so the welfare policy could only be maintained by borrowing. Without industrial support, the debt eventually exploded and the country became lifeless.
Of course, this is just an exaggeration and one-sided statement. Argentina has too many national problems. In short, the Argentine government has created a social atmosphere that is not conducive to struggle. Politicians and the people are playing an extremely abstract game to keep the broken ship of Argentina sailing.
However, Argentina does have the conditions to give up. Its agricultural conditions are superior to those of the United States, and its population is not large. If it really cannot maintain the basic living costs of its people, the worst that can happen is that a military government comes to power and the game can continue, and it will be in a cycle forever. This style of play is actually the routine of all backward countries, especially in South America and Africa.
As a new country, East Africa is actually developing quite well. There is no need for the Hechingen royal family to go along with those incompetent "insects". Taking advantage of the current chaos in the international system, they have every opportunity to become a player on the international chessboard.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that there are so many great powers in this era. It is precisely because there are so many great powers and the distribution of profits is uneven that other countries have greater opportunities. A country like Japan can seize the opportunity to become one of them. Isn’t this a kind of multipolarization?
The conditions in East Africa may not be top-notch, but they are much better than those in Italy and Japan, and their potential is much stronger than that of other countries except the United States and Russia.
"We must make full use of the inland iron ore and coal resources to continue to increase East Africa's steel production capacity to at least one million tons by 1880."
(End of this chapter)
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