Chapter 355, The Tricks of the French
The French State Department did propose a bill to do so, and there is more than one. The first was to ask the French government to publicly condemn the atrocities committed by the British government.
Everyone doesn't particularly care about this bill, anyway, the French government condemns the British government, or the British government condemns the French government, and it has been the norm over the years. Basically, every once in a while, the French government would denounce the British government for undermining free trade; In the same way, every once in a while, the British government condemned the French government for its gross interference in internal affairs. So, condemn it, condemn it. Anyway, according to the usual practice, after the condemnation, everyone will continue to do business together.
But this time the situation seems to have changed, because the French State Department has also introduced a bill to establish a "human rights review committee" to review the human rights situation in other countries of the world every year and publish a white paper on a regular basis. The French government can take action against these countries on the basis of this white paper.
Although the bill still leaves a lot of room for ambiguity and does not require the government to take immediate action, it is an excuse for the French government to investigate various British goods at any time and impose temporary punitive taxes. Of course, according to this decree, these temporary tariffs should be used to help those who are "persecuted by tyranny."
Theoretically, whether or not this tax will be levied, or not certainly, if the French government thinks it is unnecessary, then it can not be collected, maybe, every year when the white paper on human rights is published, the French government will take out this special tariff to scare and scare the British, so that they can make concessions in some respects in France's favor, and then do nothing.
This time, however, the French seemed to be playing for real, and as soon as the State Council passed the bill, Napoleon immediately said that a special tariff of 15 percent would be levied on British textiles entering France to help the persecuted "English textile workers".
Napoleon announced that any English textile worker could go to the French embassy or consulate in England, and after passing the "basic French exam", he could get a sum of money from the French embassy or consulate to pay for the ticket to leave England for mainland Europe. (The money was of course paid for with increased customs duties from British textiles, or, more clearly, with British money) and then upon arrival in Europe, they were able to take out a loan from the Louisiana Development Bank at a relatively favorable interest rate to cover the ferry ticket to Louisiana, as well as the cost of settling in Louisiana. (Regarding this money, it is said that it was actually shared between the warring Spain and the Mexican Republic.) )
Immediately afterwards, the Paris municipal authorities announced that they would rename the street where the British Embassy in France was located "Rue des Textile Workers", the small square in front of the British Embassy as "Place Collia", and that a statue of Mr. Collya, president of the "Federation of Textile Workers", and other victims would be erected in front of the entrance of the British Embassy. It is said that the famous sculptural artist, the Italian Antonio Canova, has taken on this task and has left Rome for Paris.
In fact, when the Paris City Hall made this decision, the reaction of the whole of Europe was rather strange.
The British government, of course, protested loudly and threatened to rename the street where the French Embassy in Britain was located "Avenue Louis XVI". In this regard, the Paris City Hall said: "The affairs of London are my business. Napoleon, on the other hand, said: "We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Britain." ”
As for the rest of Europe, the republic of the Rhine Union, as well as the Republic of the Netherlands, naturally applauded loudly - they had long since looked at British textiles as unpleasant. Austria and Prussia, as well as Spain and Russia, were silent, because fundamentally they did not want such a troublesome thing as trade unions to appear to them.
But for most of the people of European culture, they were really moved by the performance of France. The famous German playwright Johann Christopher Friedrich von Schiller issued a statement in the newspaper, praising France for upholding the purest ideals of the Revolution in this matter, and deserving to be a beacon and hope for the whole of Europe and even the whole world. At the same time, he also said that he was ready to create a play for the textile workers in Britain to commemorate their great struggle.
Immediately afterwards, the famous musician Beethoven also said that if Schiller completed this work, he hoped to adapt it into an opera.
Of course, Beethoven was busy at this time, because he had just accepted a commission from France to compose a suite for the Olympic Games, which had been interrupted for a millennium.
In addition to these people, there are many more literary and artistic youths, even including those in Britain, who are resolutely on the side of France.
And this trick of the French also gave the British a headache. First of all, although the entire "Textile Workers' Federation" has been smashed, at least on the surface, the people in the police department, or the textile industry guilds, know that things are not so simple at all, and nothing else, except for the president Kolya, no other representatives of the union have been arrested. There is information that some delegates have taken refuge in French embassies or consulates. But in such a situation, it is unlikely that the British would have entered the French embassy directly to arrest people - and to do so would mean war. And if the problem with France can be solved by war, then where is the need for such trouble now?
But it also gave the British a little chance to propagate themselves internally, that is, to promote the workers' leaders as "traitors". In any case, although the French have been protesting, the British have been able to control the situation, at least superficially, through their control of the press.
But then, contrary to the expectations of the British, leaflets bearing the name "Textile Workers' Union" began to appear in the streets and alleys of London.
"Is there any result from the analysis of the leaflets?" Sir Huey asked. During this time, these sudden leaflets put a lot of pressure on him, and the "Textile Workers' Federation" is still in action, and they are now showing their presence to the whole of London, and indeed to the whole of England, through these leaflets. And these days, they are still in the shadows, leading the workers, and the strikes of the workers in the textile industry are still going on. Of course, production was maintained by bringing in new workers and arresting vagrants and then renting them out to factories as slave laborers, but the productivity of the factories did drop dramatically.
This is also normal, because the labor efficiency of the slave prisoners is not as good as that of the free workers, they have no hope, so they will use all means to passively slack off, and more importantly, although they have a whip waving on their heads, as government slaves, they always have a bite to eat. In addition, they will use all possible means to destroy the machine, because then they can rest.
So whenever possible, factory owners preferred to use free workers rather than government slaves.
Generally speaking, in a stalemate between workers and business owners, workers are at a disadvantage. Especially after the Pakistan Fair has passed and the large orders have basically been obtained, the factory owners can always stalemate for far longer than the workers. Because even if the factory owner loses a few days, the loss is limited, and he may be able to catch up by increasing the labor intensity. But if the workers don't work for a day, they will starve. This unequal situation is also one of the reasons why they dare to push the police to attack the "Textile Workers' Federation".
Today, however, things have changed. First of all, these leaflets are distributed everywhere, which has successfully attracted the attention of some so-called "charitable organizations". So these "charitable organizations" actually went to places like petticoat alley and set up porridge sheds.
These charitable organizations are not only made by some British who have been brainwashed and confused by the French, but also by those who are more troublesome. It is rumored that behind the French charities were some French and Dutch businessmen. These merchants knew that the British had a large number of unfinished orders in their hands, and this was certainly a good thing. But if the strike continues, the liability for not being able to fulfill the order will make the entire textile industry in England cry. And if this happens, it will be a huge victory for the weavers of the Netherlands and France.
So, although emotionally, these fellows who are also capitalists, because of their own ass, are naturally more sympathetic to those British capitalists on this issue, but considering that the absence of those British is very important to them, they still take out money to make trouble for those British.
Of course, in order to ensure the success of the troublemaker, or to put it more clearly, to ensure that the British did not dare to break the situation with violence, they even found a very influential person in the whole of Europe, and there was a very free and nosy big man to preside over the matter himself.
This big man is naturally Polina Bonaparte, who impressed many British people.
In the petticoat alley, accompanied by a group of people such as Jager Galen, the sister of the first consul of France, the president of the French Academy of Sciences, the most famous female writer in France, the mother of science fiction, Polina Bonaparte, dressed in a typical French worker's costume - a rattan hard hat, a blue canvas denim jacket and a pair of blue canvas denim trousers there to personally serve cereal potato porridge to the workers.
In this era, Polina's outfit can really be said to be shocking, and many people even want to say that it is "bad morals". But that's nothing? Because Polina actually felt that it was too hot, she unbuttoned the opening of her blouse, revealing the white shirt inside. On the white shirt, Fagin's head is also painted, as well as the phrase: "Hold on to victory!" ”
At first, the Metropolitan Police really had a plan to violently smash the table, but when Polina's walking big trouble appeared, the Prime Minister immediately sent someone to inform the police department, don't act rashly.
Polina's presence, and her such a showy activity, certainly made the conservatives resent. But this shocking approach, and her initiative to serve the poorest and poorest, made her a poor man's saint after the Toulon saint, or the people's saint.
Under the guidance of her glorious image, the status of women in France was greatly improved, and for this reason, in later generations, the standard-bearers of the women's liberation movement often regarded Polina as the founder of this movement.
Since there is nothing to do with the charity activities of the French, the police station can only find the trouble of those leaflets printed underground. Generally speaking, it takes quite a lot of machines to print so many flyers, and these machines take up a lot of space, and the sound of running is difficult to hide, so logically speaking, these things should be easy to find. But until now, the police have not been able to find out where the printing house was hidden in the ghetto.
"Your Excellency, after analyzing the leaflets, we have made a discovery - we suspect that these leaflets may not have been printed with a printing press, as we imagined, but were done using some kind of technology that we are not yet familiar with." A technical official said.
"Lloyd, what did you find?"
"Director, do you remember the typewriters we imported from France? These leaflets were typed out of a typewriter. You see, their letter f, this position is missing, in all their leaflets, all the f's are exactly the same in this position. This is a typical feature of typewriters, and it is absolutely impossible to do so if it is typesetting and printing. Lloyd replied.
"Are they just using one typewriter to type out so many leaflets?" Director Xiui asked rhetorically.
"Of course it can't," Lloyd replied, "but, I'm afraid our assumption that there must be a factory building and a noticeable noise may be completely wrong." ”
In a safe house that Jager Golem had prepared for his former companions, Buck watched as Oliver took a piece of wax paper off the typewriter, and he took it and walked to the other side of the room, where there was a small hand-cranked machine, and he carefully loaded the wax paper on the drum of the machine, and then added the ink, and then began to shake the handle next to him, and with each turn of the handle, a printed leaflet was brought out by the wheel. And on the other side of the room, the butcher—no, the butcher of the past, Fagin today—was shaking another mimeograph machine. Fagin never dies, Fagin lives forever.