Chapter 174: Crisis Spread (16)
"Gentlemen, have you ever attended a rally of unemployed workers in the workers' quarters?" Councillor Cecil 61 Rhodes said loudly in parliament.
The question was too acute for all the parliamentarians to speak out. The British economy is up and down, the economic crisis is once in a decade, and the unemployed workers are like beasts in the eyes of the parliamentarians. This is not to say that these parliamentarians are born with a bad conscience, and even after they have come to power, it does not mean that their compassion has dried up completely. However, these people have a position. Let the parliamentarians and gentlemen discuss how to increase employment opportunities, increase people's incomes, and finally benefit those at the bottom of society. They talked. It is undoubtedly taboo to talk openly about unemployed workers or to speak in a tone that agrees with the concept of unemployed workers to a certain extent.
"At those meetings, I heard the workers shout the most of the only word, 'bread', 'bread', 'bread'!" Cecil 61 Rhodes didn't care about the stares of the other councillors, and no matter what others thought of him, he had a high opinion of himself. Including earning power and moral level.
"I think a lot of parliamentarians, or all parliamentarians, know one thing. According to the Times report, China has proposed a state-backed social system. Since China's grain production has exceeded the absolute limit of food for Chinese, they are ready to establish a social security system based on ensuring that people do not go hungry. We have criticized and ridiculed this system. However, I believe that in the rallies of unemployed workers in China, there will probably be no shouts of 'steamed bread', 'steamed bread' and 'steamed bread'. "Chinese culture is becoming more and more influential in the world, and there are many introduction columns of Chinese food in Europe. Chinese restaurants became popular in Europe, and Cecil 61 Rhodes himself had eaten Chinese steamed buns, knowing very well that Chinese steamed buns were equivalent to British bread.
"Why is China strong? In Southeast Asia, they produce palm, rubber, and teak. In Sudan, they produce table salt and alfalfa. In East Africa, they built railways, opened mines, and sent a steady stream of gold, silver, and copper back to their homeland. In North America, what we once considered a burden of colonies has been turned into a rich land with tens of thousands of miles of railroad in the hands of the Chinese. There are endless farms on the plains, and plenty of vineyards in the mountains. I heard that in the estuarine area of western North America, the Chinese have even started to artificially hatch salmon eggs, and more than 50% of the salmon eggs can be successfully hatched, so that the Chinese can harvest more salmon every year. ”
"For hundreds of years, our British ships have come and gone in these areas. The Englishman on the ship, after seeing the land in the telescope, only snorted contemptuously and called it a wild place. Or ask with doubt, is it possible to hunt black slaves there? ”
A burst of self-deprecating laughter came from the crowd of parliamentarians, and Cecil 61 Rhodes described the British very vividly. It was not until the Chinese landed on East African soil that the British and even the whole of Europe understood that the fertile land rich in grain was not only on the banks of the Nile River in Egypt.
Sudan was originally a hot desert in Europeans' mind, with the Nile River rolling through the desert. At present, more than one-third of the alfalfa in Europe is imported from Sudan, and the high quality and low price are loved by European farmers. Even the Netherlands, which is rich in alfalfa, has become a big customer of Sudanese alfalfa, and a large number of high-quality Dutch cheeses have entered the European market.
The quality is high, and it can also be said that the Chinese have a vision and are good at planting. The price is low, that can only be said that the British are gone. In hindsight, no one wanted that kind of desert land, and the cost of growing alfalfa in Sudan was zero. Can the price of alfalfa be low?
When the laughter stopped, Cecil 61 Rhodes said with a resolute expression: "Gentlemen. When some people think of land, they think of wealth in the trading market, some think of the source of land rent, and some think of building it as a hunting ground or the glory of owning a vast land. However, for the Chinese, land is only a means of production for production, and all other meanings of land are ruthlessly deprived except for production. I think that's where China's strength lies! ”
The ridicule was so loud that the members of the British Parliament who represented the land deal, the members who represented the interests of the landlords, and the members who were themselves rich all felt offended to a certain extent. However, it is not uncommon for parliamentarians to express their support with applause, and the number cannot be considered low. After all, Britain is an old industrial country, and the proportion of forces that have broken away from the old land system is quite high.
Simply waving to the pro-parliamentarians, Cecil 61 Rhodes went on to say in a sonorous voice, "The idea of land as wealth, as a tool for making money, has left Britain completely behind China in the competition. It's time to change that mindset! Gentlemen, is not the land owned by our British Empire sufficient for every inhabitant to live in abundance? We have enough land! Isn't the land owned by our British Empire enough for the cheapest supply of ore for all the British factories? Our mine is enough! Isn't it possible for every British family to have five or six children, and for each pair of children to have five or six children? Our land definitely meets such a need! Now the British Empire has 40 million inhabitants, and the next generation should have 120 million, and the next generation should have 360 million. A vast territory, a large population, and a strong industry will surely reverse the disadvantages we now face in China. The moment for change is now. One step, one step to reverse our notion of the land, and a bright future will come to the British Empire! ”
If Weeser, Uncle Ma, and Uncle En were also in the British Parliament to listen to the speech of Cecil 61 Rhodes, they would probably have froze. China has carried out a system of nationalization of land, deprived of the private ownership of land, and positioned the attribute of land as an important means of production for large-scale social production. In Europe, this system aroused great hatred among the private owners of land, the rich hated it, the big landlords hated it, and even the ordinary private owners of land were hostile to the state ownership of land. However, in the parliament of Britain, the leader of capitalism, Cecil 61 Rhodes, a colonial politician, in addition to shouting in a loud voice the taboo phrase "land ownership", made clear his opinion on changing the nature of the land......
The vitality of the capitalist system does not seem to have yet been exhausted.
Amid angry opposition and applause of support, Cecil 61 Rhodes concluded his speech.
The colonial imperialist did not intend to limit his thoughts to a single speech, and in the days that followed, Cecil 61 Rhodes visited British heavyweights. Some have already heard Cecil 61 Rhodes' ideas, some have not heard Cecil 61 Rhodes' visions.
Mr. Cecil 61 Rhodes, a diamond magnate, a mining magnate, a member of the British Parliament, and a graduate of Oxford University, pitched his idea: to regain the United States, move the British capital to North America, and establish a new Britain with a vast territory, a large population, and a developed industry.
Britain itself is small, and the land has long been owner. Councillor Cecil 61 Rhodes was not prepared for an agrarian revolution in the British Isles, where relations were complicated. He set his sights on the United States, which has a land area dozens of times the size of the British Isles. If the United States could be taken down and the British Empire could be transformed from an island nation on the edge of Europe into a truly powerful continental power, the future of Britain would be completely different.
"The British Empire did not go from a European country to a North American country. If you think so, I think it's just a misinterpretation. Wireless telegraphy and submarine cables made communication between the British Isles and North America extremely fast. The exchange of information is nothing more than an hour, or even a matter of minutes. Faced with questions from heavyweights about the change in British attributes, MP Cecil 61 Rhodes struggled to explain.
"The current situation is that the British Isles support the entire British Empire, and if my proposal is approved, the already powerful British Isles will have a strong homeland behind the already powerful British Isles that is ten times stronger than the British Isles. Britain's influence in Europe will not only not decrease, but will increase several times, more than tenfold. Your Excellency, do you think that the population of Britain will quadruple in the next forty years, given the land of the present Britain? But once North America is recaptured, I can guarantee that the British population will quadruple or even more. At that time, the population of the British Empire was equivalent to the total population of the whole of Europe, and in the face of such a British Empire, could any European countries dare to resist? ”
This prospect is easy to understand, and the only thing that the British giants cannot accept is probably the revolutionary attitude of MP Cecil 61 Rhodes. After paying a huge price for annexing the United States, he actually wanted to establish land ownership in North America. Congressman Cecil 61 Rhodes should say that it is up to the British giants to start a new round of carve-up in North America.
But Cecil 61 Rhodes was an idealistic man, and he firmly believed that the new Britain should have a new and progressive attitude.
For eight years, from 1873 to 1881, Rhodes spent nearly half of his time in addition to economic speculation, returning to China to study economics and philosophy at Oxford University. During these 8 years, a whole set of extremely reactionary theories of Rhodes began to take shape. A philosopher in Oxford once told him that England, in order to be "the source of light and the centre of peace in the whole world," must "seize any fertile wasteland it can enter, and do all it can to establish colonies opened up by the most powerful and courageous men as quickly and far as it can."
Although the rise of China, Britain's current strong enemy, is surprising and even strange, China's rise path is precisely such a path in the eyes of MP Cecil 61 Rhodes. Everywhere the powerful and brave Chinese went, barbarism became civilization, and barbarism became rich. Now that the state ownership of land has proven to be effective, there is no reason why Britain should refuse to learn from the successful wisdom of its enemies.