Although the income level of the residents of the new Chinese colony is not very high, they still consume some of these ordinary consumer goods from time to time in addition to the necessities of life. For example, an ordinary shipbuilder with a monthly income of 5 yuan has an annual income of 60 yuan, and if his family of four (husband and wife plus two children) spends more than 30 yuan a year on food such as sorghum and wheat. If you add to this the consumption of daily necessities such as cotton cloth, salt, palm oil, and honeycomb coal, and buy some beef every once in a while, this salary will basically not be left, and it may not even be enough.

Of course, the reality may not be so embarrassing. Because most of his wives can also work, although the salary is not as high as his, it is not difficult to have an income of 3-4 yuan a month. That would give them an extra $40 a year in cash, which they would have to spend now that the government no longer sells to local residents. They may choose to buy livestock, furniture, renovate their homes, and of course spend more on goods such as tropical fruits, dairy products, tobacco, sugar, wine, etc.

If the prices of these commodities rise sharply, thereby shrinking their real purchasing power, then their satisfaction will obviously decline. In fact, strictly speaking, the prices of goods such as mangoes, bananas, sugar, cream, tobacco, cashew nuts and eggs sold to the east coast by Zambezi housewives in Mozambique have risen slightly, but the overall trend is still very stable. However, after the state-run stores were wholesaled to hawkers at a fixed price that did not change, the final retail price experienced a sharp increase, and the prices of many goods such as sugar, tobacco, and eggs soared by more than 50%. Staggering.

There are many reasons for this. But the main point is that supply is less than demand. Insufficient supply of goods. That is, there is more currency circulating in the market, but the supply of consumer goods has not increased, and the influx of money brought by foreign merchants has slowly caused inflation in the local area. Moreover, in the long run, the faster the local economy develops, the deeper the inflationary trend is likely to be.

The main solution to the problem is to increase the supply of goods, but to be honest, this is difficult. And it also takes time. The reaction speed and pace of life of the Portuguese on the other side of the sea are super slow, even if the East Coast people ask them to increase the supply of goods, even if there are a lot of business opportunities waiting for them, they are still so slow and leisurely to expand production, can make the East Coast people who are accustomed to fast-paced life rush to death.

"We can't increase the effective supply of goods in a short period of time. Then we have to find a way to reduce the amount of currency in the market, that is, to direct the money to invest in other areas. Just like Captain Shi said, we buy beef to eat called living consumption, but there is another kind of consumption called production consumption, and we can direct funds to this aspect. Kyle looked at the twenty or thirty people sitting in the venue, and continued, "Before Captain Shi left, there was a package, and there were three main plans. ”

"One. It is to continue to expand the scale of sisal plantations on the existing scale. The government will set aside a large area of land in Sai Heung for sisal cultivation. The land is leveled by the local township government and then leased to the growers, which should be able to absorb a lot of money. ”

The current sisal production in the new Huaxia area is not very large, after all, the growth cycle of this thing is very long, it takes two or three years before the first leaf can be picked, and by the time it can be picked in large quantities, it has been six or seven years. In addition, this tropical plant, which is native to Central America, is not very local, and the planting area has not been expanded enough, so the yield has not been very large.

However, its demand is increasing in today's East Coast Republic of China, because of the strong fiber tensile force, high flexibility, corrosion resistance of this plant, so it has a wide range of applications for both military and civilian use. At present, the largest customer in domestic demand is the navy (military cable), in addition to army rope, industrial rope and so on. With the development of the fishing industry in the Heishui region of the Far East, the demand for this high-quality fishing net raw material has gradually increased, so the sisal planting market in the new China region is indeed favored by many people.

It's a good idea to put a lot of money into sisal farming, an industry with a long investment cycle but a decent rate of return. On the one hand, this can increase the returns of investors, and on the other hand, it also absorbs a large amount of funds, leaving time for the government to develop various industries and stabilize prices. And because of the unique geographical environment of Madagascar, many of the common biological pests and diseases on the continent are not available here, so this has laid a good foundation for the large-scale development of cash crop cultivation. It is not for nothing that later generations called the world's fourth largest island a closed continent. The unique climate, the unique species of flora and fauna, and the rarity of pests and diseases are of great value to agriculture.

Second, after the fall of the Ottoman Grand Vidzi Mustafa Pasha, the originally closed café was revived due to the great power of the new army, and it is now spreading throughout the country. The Hornisian family also asked us if we could export coffee beans in large quantities to the port of Suez, which is another good business. After our research, we decided that we could organize large-scale cultivation of coffee beans, which was in great demand in the Ottoman Empire and even in the Islamic world, and the local climate was very suitable for growing this crop. At the beginning of this year, some European pirates and their descendants on St. Mary's Island were already experimenting with this cash crop, and it is believed that once we raise the yield and make a name for ourselves, we will be able to capture the hearts and minds of Muslims, which is also a promising industry. ”

Kyle's words really went into McKinley's heart. He also visited St. Mary's Island once, as a staff member of the agricultural technology station, on a naval ship, and docked in the harbor that the pirates had called "old nests". It is said that the pirates of St. Mary's Island are increasingly connected with the people of the East Coast, and they need all kinds of goods from the East Coast, from daily necessities to weapons and ammunition. Even some of the wounded pirates were able to go to the towns of the East Coast to receive simple treatment and recuperation, which they would never have been able to get anywhere else. All they needed to do was not attack the ships of the people on the East Coast (including ships of other countries trading with them), and the pirates gladly accepted this.

With the increasingly close contacts, some old pirates over the years even ran to the two east coast towns of Xinhuagang and Tacheng with the savings they had accumulated over the years to ask for settlement. Shi Qinjie, who was tormented by the ultra-high mortality rate, naturally did not refuse to come, and approved their settlement request with a stroke of a pen. St. Mary's Island also had a large number of settlers descended from pirates, most of whom were descendants of European pirates and locals, some of whom had passed for generations, and who did not even speak European languages.

These people are also emotionally close to the East Bank, for only the Republic of the East Coast, a civilized world, is willing to accept them. Considering that there were more than a dozen European pirates on St. Mary's Island, and there were six or seven hundred permanent settlers, and many of them had experience as sailors, it did not hurt to unite them. Therefore, in the past year, the people of the East Coast have repeatedly visited St. Mary's Island on the basis of good relations between the two sides, and instructed them to grow crops, build bridges and houses, and operate it as if it were a vassal domain.

McKinley had been on the island since the beginning of the year, when he was working with the stationmaster of the agricultural technology station, and his main job was to instruct the island's elderly pirates and their children in planting coffee trees. The seeds are the famous Robusta coffee tree, which was provided by the people of the East Coast and was planted in St. Mary's Island, Tacheng and Xinhua Port. Once the planting is successful, then there will be one more export product for the local area in the future. And the pirates and their descendants will sooner or later be officially co-opted by the Easterners as they get to know the benefits of growing coffee, and that's the best of both worlds.

McKinley himself was interested in growing coffee trees, and his Akito wife kept clamoring for someone else to grow some lychee trees, but McKinley always felt that the shelf life of the thing was too short, and there was a lack of factories in the area to process the fruit, so he was not optimistic about the prospects of planting this tree. On the contrary, he genuinely thinks that growing coffee trees is a good business, it is in high demand (mainly in the Islamic world), easy to preserve, and not very expensive, and it is definitely worth the investment. There are many people who think the same way as him, and everyone is even discussing what kind of coffee planting association to organize, just like the sisal farmers who planted sisal set up a sisal planting association, and the members of the association help each other, benefit and prosper together.

"Third, vigorously develop beekeeping in coffee and lychee planting areas to harvest honey. In the same way, there are no bee pests and diseases that have plagued the inhabitants of the Old World for thousands of years, and it is a unique treasure here. The local Malagasy bees are more tame, and there are eucalyptus forests everywhere in the seaside, mountains, and inland, and the end of each year to the beginning of the next year is the honey flow period, which is very suitable for bees to collect honey, and the development is also a good thing for the benefit of the country and the people. ”

"In addition, the introduction and planting of teak, East Indian pepper, and South American cacao trees are still being further demonstrated...... "With Kyle's words, the audience gradually began to discuss in a whisper. Truth be told, there are all those who have a little spare money in their hands, and many of them have participated in the battle against the Bezimisaraka, and they have received a lot of spoils after the war, and most of them have not invested their money in the sisal cultivation that has a long payback period. Many people turned to buy some livestock, and bought some cheap corn and sweet potatoes from local farmers to raise hump cattle and pigs, and make some quick money.

But now that they heard Kyle talk about these "ways", they also felt very good, so they were all a little eager to try, and decided to call friends to raise funds through joint shares, and get a vote. There are not many pests and diseases on the island, and the climate is very suitable for the growth of these plants, and perhaps the only thing lacking is the lack of labor, but this is nothing, you can start small. (To be continued......)