Fox of France

"These guys in the Textile Manufacturers' Guild are mud that can't be lifted up!" Bill Langley, Britain's largest steel manufacturer, couldn't help being furious when he learned of the concessions made by the Textile Manufacturers' Guild to the French. Said to his friend, MP, Tory Henry Bolton, "Look, it's these bastards who make the most money in trade with Europe! And the trade that's happening between us and France today The tension is almost entirely caused by their greed, and then, when we are all fighting the French to protect our English interests, they take the lead in surrendering to the French for their own immediate interests ...This is really...I have never seen such a brazen person!"

But for Langley's statement, his friends seem to disagree.

"Bill, although you can say this, especially when it is publicized, you can publicize it like this. But to be honest..." Henry Bolton gently turned the silver spoon in the Far East white porcelain cup containing black tea. Say, "To tell you the truth, if it were me, I would have surrendered quickly. I think my friend, even you, if you were a textile owner instead of a mine and iron factory owner, I think you probably I will also make the same choice as them. After all, making money is not shabby. Well, my friend, I heard that you have also reached some new contracts with the French recently."

"Hehe..." Langley sneered, "Henry, you guys always like to tell the truth. Damn the French, they make so much money, but they make us unable to make a lot of money. It's really...now, Because my steel products cannot be sold, they are almost crushed by them, and my iron ore mining capacity is far beyond the iron I can sell now, so I can only export iron to the French. Mine... This is really... Henry, you have to understand, this is a manifestation of the collapse of the entire British steel industry. Henry, the French have been suppressing us, and they almost don't allow us to have any high-end industries now— — it's almost colonizing us. So Henry, we in England have to do something — it can't go on like this.”

"I know what you want to say, you want to raise tariffs on French steel products and protect our own steel companies, but you know." Henry Bolton replied, "Our steel companies simply cannot use such cheap price, we provide enough and easy-to-use steel. Taking railways as an example, if we use domestically produced wrought iron rails, the speed and carrying capacity of the locomotives we use will be greatly reduced. One of our railways The transportation capacity will drop to a quarter of that of the French railway, or even lower. And the cost is not even much different. In addition, many things are almost impossible to realize without steel.”

"What you said makes sense, but even so, this kind of railway is not unusable. Moreover, our scientists are not free, after all, we have also produced Sir Newton in the UK. In recent years, the Iron and Steel Industry Association, for Steelmaking technology has invested a lot of money and used various methods. Today, our steelmaking technology has also made great progress, and soon, we will be able to produce qualified steel at a relatively low cost."

"Soon? You said the same thing last year."

"This time it's true. The experimental steelmaking furnace has completed the first test, and the results are satisfactory. However, you also know that our technology is still immature, and there are many cases where refining is scrapped, and , the cost is still much more expensive than imported French steel. But if it is not protected, our industry will never develop, and I believe you understand the significance of our industry."

"What about the finished product of your steelmaking technology? Can it really enter commercial operation?" Henry Bolton asked, "Well, how much production can you guarantee in the first year? What is the price? If there is really such a large Breakthrough, I can invite some important people with status to take a look.”

"The output can reach about 3,000 tons a year-if everything is normal. In addition, we can produce some special steel products that the French are not willing to export to us..." Langley said.

"Wait, the special steel you're talking about is..."

"Cannon steel. We can produce cannon steel in a non-crucible way."

"How much cheaper can the price be than crucible steel?"

"If we want to make enough profits to continue to develop, it can't be too cheap, but the price is still much lower than that of crucible steel. In the short term, it will probably drop to two-thirds of crucible steel. In the long run, it should be more Low."

The price is still much higher than the price in France. It is said that when the French sold gun steel to the Bonaparte military industry, the price was only slightly less than twice that of ordinary rail steel, and this price was placed in the UK, even compared with the price of wrought iron produced by British steel companies. Not too much.

"What about the price of ordinary steel? How much can it be reduced to the price of French goods?"

"That depends on the price they sell to." Langley said, "the price of general structural steel and track steel they sell in the UK is much higher than in continental Europe. But even so, we can currently The price will not be cheaper than theirs, and compared with local prices in Europe or even France, our cost price may be higher than their selling price."

"Are we so different technically from them today?" asked Henry Bolton.

"It's not just technology. It also includes many aspects. For example, the mines of Lorraine Iron and Steel have the most advanced mining methods, so in terms of mining costs, they are already lower than us; they use railways for transportation, and as a result their The transportation cost is lower than ours; then their blast furnace is much larger than ours - the larger the scale of this thing, the lower the unit cost, so their ironmaking cost is lower than ours; then their steelmaking technology is also They are better than us, and their steelmaking needs are large enough, so the scale is much larger. Only this scale can bring the cost down again. So... You see, the gap between us and the French in terms of metallurgy is completely In terms of direction, without the protection of the country's barriers, in the face of the French's first-mover advantage, we are actually powerless to fight back." Langley explained.

"so……"

"Therefore, the navigation regulations must be upheld and even strengthened. The UK cannot depend on French steel, and the UK market must be reserved for British steel companies. Otherwise, the UK will have no future."

Half a month later, at the meeting of the House of Commons, the Whigs again proposed to amend the navigation regulations in exchange for more open markets in Europe to the United Kingdom.

The Tories, on the other hand, raised the need to further strengthen the regulations of navigation and to further increase tariffs on European goods, especially products such as steel. On the current basis, the tariff on European steel will be increased by 300% in response to the sanctions imposed by European countries on British exports.

Then naturally there is the traditional performance of the Whigs and Tories fighting each other. At this time, the most important thing is which side the new Tories will stand at this time.

Like the New Tories and the Whigs, many of them have invested a lot in the textile industry, and the textile business has also been the most outstanding highlight in Britain's foreign trade in recent years. From this point of view, they Should be on the side of the Whigs. But they also have a lot of investment in mining, metallurgy, and military industry.

So the attitude of the new Tories is the most tangled. On the one hand, they wanted to keep the European textile market, so they tried their best to explain to the Tories that without the wealth brought by the textile industry, there would be various serious financial problems in Britain immediately. Other markets will also shrink accordingly, so directly raising tariffs by 300% is a suicide act and is not advisable.

On the other hand, they had to convince the Whigs not to dance entirely to the French. You must know that Britain now exports a shipment of cotton cloth or woolen cloth to France in exchange for a carriage of mechanical products. More importantly, the French now clearly want to suppress the industrial upgrading of the UK. They only allow the British to engage in the lowest level of business. Once they try to develop upwards in the industrial chain, they will immediately be hit by the French economically.

And because the British failed to control a higher position in the industrial chain, his substitutability is very strong, so when facing economic sanctions from the French, he will be very vulnerable. Therefore, in order to make money in the long run, and to make more money, you must protect the UK's own high-tech industry, and to protect the UK's high-tech industry, you must have sufficient protection barriers, and you cannot completely follow the French "free trade principle" "Dance, otherwise, Britain will really become a vassal of France.

Then Tories and Whigs asked together: "What do you think we should do then?"

Then the New Tory Party came up with its own reconciliation plan: the textile industry should take into account the long-term needs, and suffer a little loss for the time being; but the metallurgical and military industries should not be impatient, and should restrain themselves. In short, everyone should give in , to be considerate of each other...

But anything, once it is entangled with interests, it will be particularly difficult to deal with. Neither the Whig Party nor the Tory Party could accept the conciliatory tone of the New Tory Party, so the three parties fought in the House of Commons, and the newspapers controlled by the three parties also quarreled.

During the debate, some news was also disclosed in the newspapers. For example, the news that Britain may have broken through the steelmaking technology was exposed intentionally or unintentionally.

Of course, the news was sent back to France by telegram at the first time. After Napoleon got the news, he immediately called Joseph and Lucien to discuss countermeasures.