In a sense, the selection of the "Prometheus Prize" is almost a review of the scientific level of European countries. Although the award has not yet been awarded, and even the candidates have not yet had time to be fully selected, it has already made the whole of Europe, and even the British, sigh that France is the first in the world of science.

The British newspapers were not without their interest in discussing British youth, British students, and British education, and one of the benefits was that they succeeded in silencing the voices on trade issues, which allowed the British to negotiate with much less unnecessary interference. After all, when it comes to trade negotiations, Britain and France are different. In France, Napoleon said that if any category needed to be wronged, they would have to be honestly wronged; (Of course, more often than not, it is to make foreigners aggrieved) but in democratic Britain, don't even think about it.

Under the cover of the "Prometheus Prize", the British trade mission and the French reached a memorandum of understanding on the previous trade dispute.

According to the memorandum, British textiles will be granted "free trade status" on the European continent within the next year, which means that British textiles can be regarded as goods of "free trade countries". But this "free trade status" is not unconditional. Textiles in the UK are subject to an annual "free trade status" review, which is revoked if the review is not met.

As for the conditions for examination, the first is the protection of intellectual property rights. In other words, the British textile industry is not allowed to produce counterfeit European brand clothing. In order to ensure that this provision can be effectively implemented, the "free trade countries" led by France will set up a joint office in London, which will have the power to conduct unprepared, unannounced, temporary spot checks on any British factories exporting textiles to the continent, as well as their warehouses, to ensure that they are not producing illegal products. Any manufacturer found to have committed an infringement during such an inspection will be permanently disqualified from exporting. The Textile Workers Association also promised the Free Trade Association that anyone found guilty of engaging in such acts would be expelled from the association and banned from working in the textile industry for life.

Of course, the agreement of "losing power and humiliating the association" was naturally compensated to a certain extent. First, they successfully circumvented transport regulations aimed at "non-free trade countries", which allowed them to continue to make money on the continent. On the other hand, they even keep the possibility of continuing to work in the ready-to-wear industry, as long as they don't fake the high-end ready-to-wear of the French. In general, the French are relatively friendly to the British textile industry. The main reason for this turmoil is that some of them are so unreasonable that they want to steal money from the plates of the Bonapartes.

After the problems of the textile industry were solved, the negotiations in the steel industry followed. The French, of course, objected to the British raising tariffs on steel products, while the British shamelessly suggested that the French could also raise tariffs on British steel products entering Europe.

"Hell it, even if we give you zero tariffs, your steel products won't be sold in Europe. If you insist on keeping tariffs high on the steel industry, then we can only raise the tariffs on your textiles, and of course you can raise the tariffs on our textiles entering the UK and its possessions in equal measure. Moreover, I am kinder than you, at least, there is still some market for our textiles in the UK. Talleyrand immediately retorted.

Talleyrand's statement is also reasonable, France does export textiles like the UK, such as the Chris series of men's clothing and the Chrissy series of women's clothing, which are bought by many people in the UK. And, interestingly, many of the men who bought and wore the Chris series of men's clothing were rebellious girls; And many of the people who buy Chrissy women's clothes and wear them swaggeringly are men. As a result, some conservative British media have scolded the "bad morals" and demanded that the French should be banned as soon as possible. Of course, this is only a name, including which newspapers, and we also know that in today's circumstances, it is almost impossible to ban French goods.

So the two sides quarreled over the tariff, and finally when the French were about to announce the "end of this meaningless talk", the British still made concessions. Because if the European market is completely lost, the loss will still be too great for the UK. What's more, the French have shamelessly hinted that peace and friendship between the two countries are maintained precisely by the trade relations between the two countries.

The implication of this is that if you really dare to raise the tariffs on steel, believe it or not, we will dare to let the "free trade" go out and destroy free trade!

A few months earlier, the French had just decommissioned the first USS Free Trade and sold it to the British Navy. As soon as the British Navy got its hands on the ship, it conducted a lot of tests around it, and finally came to the conclusion that "the current level of industry in Britain is not enough to build a similar ship." ”

But just after the French retired the old "Free Trade" on the front foot, the back foot published a news in the newspaper that the new "Free Trade" officially joined the French Navy.

About this new "free trade number", "Scientific Pravda" only reported in an inconspicuous position on the first page, in one sentence. But everyone now knows a habit of Scientific Pravda: the shorter the news, the bigger the matter.

In the more professional magazine "French Ship Newsletter", there are a few more descriptions of the new "Free Trade":

"The emergence of a new generation of steam-powered corvettes that are larger, faster, and more efficient in their firepower configuration will surely bring revolutionary changes to the Navy."

Of course, as for what the "new generation of steam-powered corvettes" looks like and what their performance is, the "French Ship Newsletter" does not go into detail above, and the article above is not even dedicated to warships, it is just a new idea of the author to use the new warships, that is, ocean-going merchant ships should also use steam power.

But after a careful study of the article in the French Ship Newsletter, the British Navy became even more worried. Because according to the above calculations, it is already possible to cross the Atlantic with a fully steam-powered ship.

If the new "Free Trade" is a ship that can cross the Atlantic with pure steam power, it is even more capable of undermining free trade. And because he can maintain a high level of maneuverability throughout the entire journey, it can decide autonomously whether to enter or exit the battle at almost any time. Considering that the old "Free Trade" already had the ability to threaten Britain's ties with its colonies, especially those in the Far East, the new "Free Trade" would be a nightmare for free trade.

Therefore, after the French issued such a threat, the British could only strategically coax it for the time being. In the end, the British took a step back and demanded that relatively high tariffs on machinery produced in France be maintained in order to protect the British machine-building industry, but abandoned the high tariffs on steel products.

The French were not particularly pleased with this proposal, but considering that the construction of the navy was not completely completed, and the construction of overseas colonies would take a period of peace, and in addition, the preparations for the Olympics were about to take place. Therefore, I reluctantly accepted this condition. As a result, the two sides formally reached a new "Franco-British Paris Trade Agreement" in Paris, which can be regarded as a pause for the recent trade dispute.

Now that the matter of trade was temporarily settled, the British naturally asked whether the French intervention in the strikes in England should be stopped.

On this issue, however, the French have again sung a high voice, claiming that they cannot go against the French spirit and abandon their international obligations.

The British naturally understood what the French meant. In the eyes of the French, these striking workers were a very useful tool for them to use to trouble the British in times of need. And now, because of the death of the former president of the "Federation of Textile Workers", the Federation has suffered a major blow, and it is entirely by the sudden insertion of the French that it has stabilized its position and kept its organization. As a result, the influence of the French in the "Textile Workers' Federation" increased rapidly. For the French, as long as they were kept, they would have one more tool to make trouble for the British. Of course, they don't just throw away such a useful tool.

However, the French also said that they also did not want to see a large number of orders defaulted by British textile companies because of the strike. Therefore, they advised the British textile merchants to reason with the workers. Now that their trade problems with the French have been resolved, they no longer have to keep their wages down to survive, so they can assure them that they will not reduce their wages or increase their labor intensity.

As for the question raised by the British, the "Union of Textile Workers" was already an illegal organization under British law, and they could not negotiate with an illegal organization. The kind-hearted Talleyrand said that the law is of course sacred, and since it has been enacted, it should not be changed casually, but.

"As far as I know, the law in your country only prohibits unions in individual factories from forming joint unions. But the unions themselves are not forbidden. "And the 'Textile Workers' Union could have been renamed to avoid this problem, for example, they could have changed its name to the 'Textile Workers' United Club', which is theoretically a place for the trade unions of the various factories to get together for a party, isn't that enough?" ”