The Rise of Australia

Chapter 503: Overtaking France in four years and catching up with England in eight years (please vote for me!)

The construction of medical care is similar to education. The government is vigorously building large and medium-sized formal hospitals to ensure that every large city has one or more hospitals to meet the medical needs of Australasians, especially the medical needs of more serious illnesses.

At the same time, a large number of private citizens are also encouraged to open various small clinics, which are similar to technical schools in education, and can also alleviate part of the medical pressure.

After all, there is no need to go to the hospital for mild symptoms. Some small and medium-sized clinics can completely solve these problems.

At the same time, the medical environment of small and medium-sized clinics must also be controlled to ensure that these small and medium-sized clinics indeed have the ability and equipment to treat patients.

Although Australasia encourages private individuals to set up more small clinics, this does not mean that individuals can open clinics.

Anyone who needs to open a clinic must pass some medical qualification examinations officially organized by Australasia. Only those who obtain the medical qualification certificate can open a clinic.

Although a small medical qualification certificate may force some non-Western medicine practitioners to lose their qualifications to become doctors, or make it more difficult for them to open a clinic.

But for the country as a whole, more stringent medical qualification examinations can ensure that those who open clinics have sufficient experience and qualifications. After all, medical care is no small matter and must be fundamentally responsible for the health of the Australasian people.

There are currently about 27 large hospitals established by the Australasian government, with an average of about two large hospitals per state.

More populous states like New South Wales and Victoria even have more than three large hospitals.

To say that the city in Australasia has the most hospitals, it should be Sydney, the current capital.

Sydney has two large public hospitals and a royal private hospital, and is expected to build a joint hospital. This is a construction investment plan of a joint consortium between nobles.

As a result, Sydney will have four large hospitals. Although only three of the hospitals are open to the public, the number of them exceeds the entire Australasia.

In addition to these large hospitals, Australasia also has hundreds of small and medium-sized hospitals. The composition of these small and medium-sized hospitals is relatively complex. Some are built by the government and some are jointly operated by private parties.

However, the Australasian government's review of these small hospitals is still relatively strict. First, it improves the medical environment of these hospitals, and second, it tries to avoid the phenomenon of killing patients as much as possible.

The most important part of the four-year plan proposed by Prime Minister Kent is actually reflected in the above-mentioned immigration, industry, military, science and technology and education.

In addition, the four-year plan also sets out economic expectations. Australasia's fiscal revenue in 1918 was A$172.9 million, an increase of only 4% over the previous year.

According to Prime Minister Kent's expectations for the Four-Year Plan, the growth rate of government revenue in the Four-Year Plan is expected to remain above 5%. This also means that the Australasian government's annual fiscal revenue will exceed A$200 million in four years.

Among the various infrastructure projects driven by the government, Australasia's economic growth is certain.

In 1918, Australasia's gross national product was approximately US$2.441 billion, equivalent to 488.2 million pounds in pounds and 976.4 million Australian dollars.

Although this economic level has made significant progress compared with before the war, it is still far behind those larger countries, and there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Due to the impact of war and influenza, Australasia's economic growth was not fast, generally maintaining a rate of 7% to 8%.

After entering peacetime, Prime Minister Kent's expectation for the Australasian economy is to maintain an annual growth rate of about 9%. This also means that the GDP of Australasia is expected to reach US$3.445 billion after the end of the four-year plan. Before the war, he was ranked seventh in the world, but after the war, he was already among the top five in the world.

Taken together, if this four-year plan can be implemented smoothly, Australasia will become one of the top five countries in the world in terms of industrial, economic and military scale in four years. Every country has the power to fight.

Of course, this does not mean that it is incapable of fighting against Britain and France. However, Britain and France can rely on a large amount of colonial blood to recover. Facing these two countries, Australasia has no hope of victory for the time being, and there is no need to compete with them.

The main interests of the French are in Africa and Europe, which is also a blank area of ​​interest for Australasia.

Although the British have interests in all oceans, compared to Australasia, France and the United States are currently Britain's competitors, and the United Kingdom also needs Australasia to share the pressure from the United States.

In addition to several major items in the four-year plan, there are also some minor items that have not been highlighted, such as the construction of roads and railways.

For a country, the mileage of roads and railways is very important. It not only promotes economic exchanges, but also improves control over various regions.

Because the railway and highway construction plans have been set before, they are not mentioned in this four-year plan. However, the original railway and highway construction plans still need to be vigorously carried out.

In addition to these, the construction of large reservoirs and hydropower stations is also very important in the next development of the country, and is not even weaker than the development of industry.

Australasia has a somewhat special environment. It does not lack energy, but it is very short of water resources.

Especially after taking control of oil in the Persian Gulf region, the prices of fuel and petroleum products in Australasia have been significantly reduced, and people can safely squander gasoline and diesel. Anyway, there are no environmental protection laws to restrict fuel vehicles.

But water is always a problem in Australasia, and it will become increasingly apparent as the population grows.

In order to meet the water demand after the population explosion in the future, it is necessary to further build more water storage reservoirs and build certain hydropower stations based on these reservoirs.

First, new hydropower stations can produce more relatively clean energy, which has certain benefits for environmental protection.

Both, new water storage reservoirs will also safeguard Australasia's water needs. Before the start and completion of the north-south water diversion project from New Guinea, Australasia relied on these reservoirs for its water needs.

Even the construction of heavy industry, civil industry and various road construction, which are relatively important in the Four-Year Plan, require a large amount of water resources. Irrigation of agriculture and animal husbandry and civil water resources are also very important. Without enough water Resource reserves will not do.

In particular, water storage reservoirs prepared for large cities must be built and made more solid and durable.

Throughout the world, Australasia's development potential is definitely among the best. Although the French recaptured Alsace and Lorraine, the French mainland, especially more than a dozen provinces in the northeast, were occupied by the Germans as soon as the war began and suffered huge damage during the several-year war.

Most of these occupied areas are relatively important mining areas, steel and textile centers, and their scale has a very important position in the entire French industry.

After the area was destroyed, although the French took back a lot of factory equipment from Germany, France's industrial output in 1918 was less than 70% of what it was before the war in 1914. In particular, steel production suffered a lot of damage, and steel production dropped from The peak of 4.69 million tons in 1913 dropped to 1.8 million tons in 1918. This figure is only half of the current annual steel production in Australasia, which is enough to show how seriously the war damaged French industry.

If it were not for the size of other French industries, judging from the huge losses suffered by France in the steel industry, France's industry would not even be as good as Australasia.

If Australasia is going to have a long period of development, then what the French need is a long period of recovery.

Unlike the French, the British industry hardly suffered much impact, and even the growth during the war was not small.

In 1914, the British steel output was 7.96 million tons, and in 1918 it had increased to 9.69 million tons. The growth was still very rapid.

Especially after defeating the Germans, the British industry has regained its second place in the world, second only to the record annual steel production of 37 million tons set by the Americans in 1918.

Of course, American steel production seems huge, but in fact Americans also have quite serious industrial problems.

Americans have not grown much in steel production from the outbreak of the war to the present. Especially in the three years from 1916 to 1918, the annual steel production in the United States has remained at around 35 million tons, without much growth.

Especially after suffering the impact of the influenza, whether the United States can continue to maintain an annual steel output of 35 million tons this year is a question worth pondering.

It can also be seen from this data that the situation of several victorious countries is not very good. The French suffered massive losses in the war, and their goal in the next decade was simply to catch up to France's pre-war economic and industrial levels.

It is worth mentioning that it seems that France's economy surpassed that of France in 1913 only in 1929, which even caused the French to celebrate.

But this also means that in the 16 years from 1913 to 1929, the French made no economic progress, which is terrible for a country.

The 16 years of stagnant progress also doomed the French colonial empire to collapse. Unless the French can grow rapidly economically in the next period of time, it is obvious that soon there will be another war that the French do not want to see.

It is actually the French capitalists that are hindering the recovery of France's economy and industry.

Germany has to be mentioned here. As a former industrial power, German industrial products have always been famous for their high quality and affordable prices.

Although this war caused the Germans to lose a large amount of heavy industry and military industry, some small and medium-sized civilian industries remained. After all, the British did not want to see the French fully absorb German industry.

It is worth mentioning that the industrial products produced by these German companies are fully accepted by France and the United Kingdom at very good prices.

This also makes French capitalists unwilling to quickly restore French industry. After all, the market has been occupied by a large number of cheap German industrial products. Isn't this more cost-effective than expensive French industrial products?

As for the development of French local industry, this is not within the scope of thinking of those capitalists. After all, capitalists have no national boundaries. They have no sense of recognition for the country, only for interests.

This means that Australasia keeps a low profile and takes care of the French. Otherwise, the Australasian government can really shout the slogan of surpassing France in four years and catching up with England in eight years!

In fact, this is really not an exaggeration. According to the intelligence from the Royal Security Intelligence Service in the UK, the British industrial situation this year is far less than last year, let alone positive growth. Whether it can maintain the scale of last year is a matter of fact. one question.

If we expand our perspective to the entire world, we can actually see a relatively obvious problem, that is, almost all industries around the world are growing slowly. This is not only due to the impact of the flu, but also because of the pain period after the war in various countries.

Because of the lack of sufficient labor force, it is bound to have a certain impact on the economy and industry.

This period of time is also a good opportunity for Australasia to surpass. It is even expected that after the completion of the first four-year plan, Australasia's industrial level will be raised to the world's second only to the United States, Britain and Germany. fourth.

There is actually a question here, that is, where are the Russians who originally had a pretty good industrial scale?

Although Arthur wanted to place Russia in the ranks of industrial and economic powers, judging from various intelligence reports reported by intelligence personnel, Russia's environment was already very bad.

This is not just Tsarist Russia or Soviet Russia, this badness refers to the whole of Russia.

Before the war, Russia actually had a certain level of industry. Although not high, the steel output in 1913 was maintained at around 4.23 million tons, which was worthy of its status as the fourth great power.

But from the beginning of the war, Russian industry suffered a lot. First, the Germans occupied large industrial areas, followed by revolution, civil war, and the influenza that killed millions.

Russia's industrial level has suffered a huge blow, from the annual steel production of 4.23 million tons in 1913 before the war, to the annual steel production of 400,000 tons last year.

Although this number is only an estimate by intelligence personnel, it may be slightly different from the actual situation.

But the error will never be too big, which also means that Russian industry has experienced a devastating blow.

To put it nicely, Russia can still maintain the scale of a great power by virtue of its own population.

But if the worst is to be said, apart from its current huge population, Russia has almost nothing compared to other great powers. There is even no result on which party the country's supreme power belongs to.

But this is also good news for Australasia. It is precisely because of Russia's excessive darkness that many Russian immigrants have given up their homesickness and confidence in their hometown, and instead supported the Australasian government.

Faced with the chaotic environment in Russia, the Russian people began to believe and agree that the political environment in Australasia was the best. After all, it was this political environment that allowed Australasia to prosper in less than 20 years. Grow into a middle power.

The growing strength of Australasia and the growing weakness of Russia made these Russian immigrants very smart in knowing which side to choose.

Even before the Australasian government could influence these immigrants, they began to claim that they were Australasian, as if admitting that they were Russian would cause them to lose face.

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