The spring breeze of reform blew across the British Isles, but Britain was not able to change its face. It is not that reform cannot be carried out, but the crux of the matter lies in how to carry out reform.

The country's economy continued to decline, irritating the British, and the elite knew that Britain had reached a fork in the road and that social reform was necessary.

Despite economic problems, Britain is still at its peak. The European world does not have the idea of prosperity and decline, and they have been awesome in the history books of Britain.

If it weren't for the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, which increased the pressure on them, it is estimated that the vast majority of British people would not even have a sense of crisis.

In fact, even now the British do not have a strong sense of crisis, and do not think that the mighty British Empire is at risk of overturning.

There is no way, the HRE is too peaceful. Even if a super battleship is created, it will just come out and go back after a circle.

The expected arms race, because the Vienna government did not follow up in time, made the British discouraged.

After all, there are still a lot of old battleships in Britain, and at this time, if you provoke a "dumpling competition", the old battleships in front of you will all be scrapped.

The landlords' families also have no surplus grain, especially in the downturn of the domestic economy, the government's fiscal revenue does not rise but falls, and the budget has to save a little money.

Anyway, there is strait protection, as long as the advantages of the Royal Navy are still there, everyone will not panic.

If there is not enough external pressure, there will naturally be no internal unity. After all, reform is also a double-edged sword. Some people benefit from it, and some people suffer from it.

Vested interest groups are unwilling to give up their interests, and contradictions arise. From the beginning of the reform, the British Parliament fell into a noisy mode.

In those years, the British government had very limited powers. Not only is there a parliamentary check, but there is also a king on top.

As Britain's reinstated monarchy, Edward VII was no rubber stamp. If the Cabinet government wants to toss around, it is simply impossible.

With the strength of the conservatives and the internal control of the government so great, the reform progress of the Campbell administration is naturally not fast.

For a big country, reform is naturally more likely to be carried out than in a hurry. It's okay to be slow, but it's a big problem to be fast.

But for businesses, the situation is very different. The traditional industry is okay, it has established a moat itself, and it can survive even if there is a shock.

The real bad luck is still the emerging industry. Constrained by the small local market of Britain, it is congenitally deficient, and the start is a step slow? Not yet fully developed? Competitors are killed.

Among them, the most typical is machinery and equipment manufacturing and automobile industry chain, and the related enterprises have not gone bankrupt? It's on the verge of bankruptcy.

……

Step out of a government office building? McCall's smiling face is gone. As the owner of a leading high-end machine tool production company in Britain, it stands to reason that McCall's small days? It should be very moisturizing.

The reality is quite the opposite, because of the misjudgment in the second industrial revolution? McCall's machine tool factory has always focused on traditional areas.

Not just him? Britain's machine tool manufacturers have plunged headlong into the field of steam engines, and have not laid out the burgeoning field of electricity at all.

With the large-scale popularization of electricity, electric power has also sprung up, gradually occupying a dominant position in industrial production.

Slow step? Slow steps.

When McCall reacts? Competitor products have made their way into the British Isles. With excellent performance and low running costs, a large piece of the pie was quickly snatched from them.

Thanks to the conservatism of British capital, it was not diligent in the issue of replacing equipment, plus the steam engine still had merit and was not completely eliminated? McCall's factory survived.

It's just that with the strong entry of competitors, a large part of their orders have been snatched away? In particular, the overseas market is almost completely lost.

Market share has decreased, in order to survive? The British machine tool companies that chose the wrong way were passively caught in a cruel price war.

Even if it's a leading company? It can't be an exception. After all? Now they're just the dragons of Britain? Not a worldwide faucet. Compared with international counterparts, McCall's enterprises have lagged behind in comprehensive technology.

It's easy to change tracks, but it's not so easy to do it on a new track.

In order to survive, McCall had to turn to the government for help.

What nonsense is "free economy, oppose government interference in the market", those are slogans shouted when needed; Now that I don't need it, I naturally have to throw it away.

As a leader in the "high-tech" industry, there are always some privileges. Regardless of whether the technology has lagged behind its international counterparts, it is still a brother in the domestic machine tool factory of McCall.

As long as the London government does not want to see the high-end machine tool field fall under the control of competitors, it must support local enterprises.

For the sake of his own vital interests, McCall, a teenager who once advocated free trade, has now become a staunch advocate of "trade barriers".

There is no way, if you don't use extraordinary means, normal business competition, you can't do competitors at all.

Even if McCall were to increase his R&D budget by £50,000, it would be far from matching the investment of his competitors.

It is backward in technology and insufficient in R&D investment, and it is obviously a big dream to rely on technological breakthroughs to overwhelm competitors.

It is not impossible to continue to increase investment, but McCall is first and foremost a capitalist. For capitalists, profit comes first. As long as you can make money, it doesn't matter if you can outperform your competitors.

If you really invest unlimitedly, you may be able to catch up technically, but the return on investment will definitely not be able to see people.

If you can't make money, it's useless even if you become the world's first.

Investors have one requirement for the company - to make money; There is only one indicator to evaluate whether a company is excellent - whether it makes enough money.

McCall has long passed the age of the second year of secondary school, so naturally he will not stud all his net worth for the sake of a name.

Instead of trading in scientific research, it is better to engage in political PR and directly keep competitors out of the country.

Relying on the domestic market alone may not be able to make enterprises make a lot of money, at least to ensure long-term profitability.

As long as there is enough time, McCaul believes that his company will definitely catch up behind, and then go to compete with international competitors for the market when the time comes.

As for how long this time is, no one knows. Maybe it's three years and five years, or maybe it's twenty or thirty years Chinese New Year's Eve, anyway, there is always hope.

……

No matter how the situation changes, as long as the life can go on, a banquet is always indispensable.

Leaving Government Street, McCall drove a limousine from Shinra to the outskirts of the city, with the destination being a manor named "Patel".

Tonight, there is a banquet organized by business tycoons. As an important member of the business community, McCall was also invited.

Although he arrived in advance, there was still a lot of noise in the manor, and it was obvious that there were many people who suspected the same thoughts.

I don't know since when the "banquet" is no longer just a "banquet". Most of the time, the people who attend the banquet carry their own purpose with them.

Walking into the venue, McCall found his own small circle. Once McCall was the focus of a banquet, flattering him everywhere he went.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, with the intensification of competition in the machine tool industry, the voice of machine tool enterprises in the market is constantly decreasing.

Gone are the days when production orders were lined up a few years later, and the days when goods were based on relationships.

In order to survive the company, McCall had to put down his face, actively participate in social activities, and strive to maintain relationships with customers.

Of course, this alone is not enough. Capital pursues profits, if the product quality is not good, no matter how good the friendship is, it will not matter.

One of the important factors that can maintain the current fundamentals is that everyone is mixed in the same consortium and has a certain proportion of cross-holdings.

Everyone is a community of interests, and in the case of the same cost-effective product, everyone is still more willing to use their own products.

The performance can't be compared, so you can only kill the price. The machine tool industry, which was originally profitable, has recently hit the price of cabbage.

The pure machine tool business is now selling one at a loss. If it weren't for after-sales service, McCall's machine tool company could now consider closing its doors.

After a short glass of wine and a touch with the visitor, McCall smiled and asked, "Byron, I haven't seen you for a long time, how are you doing?" ”

No matter how much pressure he is in, he has a passion for his clients. It is this positive marketing attitude that allows McCall to crush its domestic counterparts and sit firmly on the throne of the leader of the subdivision track.

The middle-aged man shook his head and replied with a wry smile, "Very bad. Damn the Austrians, like rats, are constantly grabbing our wealth.

I haven't had a good day since they launched a new model last year. I'll tell you the truth, I've made three layoffs since the beginning of the year. ”

It's no secret that if you look at the brand of car that everyone is running, you can know what kind of life the British car companies are doing.

The characteristic of industrialization is that the more products produced with the same product, the lower the production cost of a single product.

Britain's automotive industry did not start late, one could even say early. As early as 1680, the famous British scientist Isaac Newton conceived the jet car. Although the jet car was not built, the idea of the car was proposed.

In 1804, the British engineer Richard ? Trevisick, who built the world's first steam engine car, kicked off the British automotive industry.

It's a pity that the king of the opening game was played bronze in the end. Since then, the history of automobile development has shifted from Britain to France, and then to the HRE.

The steam engine car was also a car, and although it was not very convenient, it was still valuable for specific occasions, so it was produced in small quantities.

It stands to reason that British car companies with industrial heritage should not be left behind, and the key to the problem lies in the second industrial revolution.

Missing the second wave of the industrial revolution, the internal combustion engine technology did not keep up, and the engine of the car became the biggest shortcoming of the British automotive industry.

If you can't keep up with the performance of your own engine, you can only import it from overseas, anyway, it's the era of free trade, and you can buy it if you want.

The core technology is controlled by others, and it is impossible not to pay the price, and the most direct manifestation is that the production cost has risen.

It's just that the engine is expensive, it's bearable, and it's a big deal to make a little less.

The problem is that the production capacity of cars in Britain is very low, and the output of spare parts is not high, and the cost of production is less.

Most of the locally produced spare parts are not only more expensive than imported ones, but also cannot keep up with the performance.

There is no such thing as supporting domestic production, and capital is naturally buying cost-effective profits, and the direct consequence is that Britain's automobile production enterprises have become an automobile assembly plant.

In addition to the name of the automobile manufacturer, there is an additional car logo, and the auto repair shop outside their work can also do it.

With the development of science and technology, information is becoming more and more transparent. After discovering this, more and more auto repair shops have played cross-border, intensifying market competition.

Originally, the domestic competition was very fierce, but I didn't expect the international competitors to kill again. With the advantage of performance, many of Shinra's car brands have gained a firm foothold.

The first is the fall of high-end brands, and if you look at the cars in the estate, you can see that they are almost all imported cars.

Including Byron, the car manufacturer, the car is also imported. There is no way, the performance of their own products is really worse. For the sake of life safety, everyone knows how to choose.

If the high-end market is lost, it will be lost, and there will not be much sales in the first place. Before the influx of imported cars, the main mode of transportation in British society was horse-drawn carriages.

Now it's different, and a lot of cheap cars are pouring in. Without an assembly plant with core technology, there is naturally no good life, and a large number of market shares are squeezed.

In order for the company to survive, Byron had to choose to lay off employees and reduce production. But these can only solve the urgent needs, and it is not enough to survive the crisis.

The customer's life is not good, and McCall naturally can't raise the issue of orders. In a sense, we're all in the same boat now.

If you want to live a comfortable life, you can only break down the free trade system and rely on tariff barriers to protect the market.

"Be optimistic, my friend, it'll get better. The difficulties were only temporary, and they were mainly problems with the free trade system.

Without this system, we would be able to raise tariffs to protect the market and buy time for businesses to grow.

That's what the Austrians did, and if it weren't for the trade barrier policy, they wouldn't have become the world's number one industrial power today. ”

Lying is also a science, and as a qualified capitalist, this is the most basic survival skill.

Although McCall himself did not believe that Britain's industry could catch up with it by trade protection, it was absolutely impossible to intimidate it.

Raising the wine glass and touching it, Byron drank it directly, and then said with the same hatred: "My friend, you are right.

It was the fault of the evil Free Trade Agreement, and if it had not been for this treaty, Britain's wealth would not have been swallowed up.

For the sake of Britain, we must correct this mistake. We must not allow this damned treaty to continue to poison the future ...... of Britain."

……