Chapter 1321 The Miserable British Textile Industry

London's smashing and looting continued for a whole week.

The whole of London has become a mess, not only the buildings have been destroyed, but there are also traces of smashing, burning and looting, and even the British Museum and the Guildhall have been looted.

Now, the situation has finally stabilized. More than 80,000 troops and more than 20,000 police officers were mobilized from all over Britain to surround the whole of London and begin to search for rioters in every neighborhood and alley.

In fact, nothing was found but a small group of honest craftsmen who had followed the real thugs and had not yet grabbed their belongings. The real thugs and those who have succeeded in looting have long been in hiding and quietly hiding their belongings.

With the exception of London, the rest of the major cities in the UK are not much better, and they are full of chaotic places. Members of parliament condemned the rioters and began to protest the cabinet's inaction, and contemplated the impeachment of the entire cabinet.

Inside the Royal Gardens of Buckingham Palace.

Queen Victoria, whose image has changed dramatically, sat in a wheelchair, two palace ladies supported her to stand up slowly, and Prime Minister Gladstone next to her picked a delicate moon flower and presented it to her.

After receiving the flowers, Victoria's face did not show a smile, but still bruised, and reprimanded: "Gladstone, how did you make my Kingdom of Great Britain like this?" Look at what the whole of London has become, if it weren't for my guards guarding the gates, even my Buckingham Palace would have been almost broken into by the mob! What did the police and the army do?

I've received the news that more than two-thirds of the MPs are ready to impeach you, they've come to my side, and I can't help you this time! ”

Gladstone had already received the news, and knew that this was the result, so he lowered his head and let the queen scold him without saying a word.

Victoria asked a few more questions, and her anger slowly subsided a little, and she began to ask about the cause of the riots: "Tell me, Gladstone, why is there a sudden economic crisis in my kingdom of Great Britain?" So many commodities were originally good, why can't they be sold all at once, and how can there be a huge surplus of goods produced?

Tell the king the real reason! ”

"Your Majesty, our goods cannot be sold, mainly because we have lost the market, especially the market on the European continent, and the local market has also shrunk severely!

This is because the overseas colonies have been lost, and there is no way to control these overseas markets; Second, it was mainly the impact of the goods of the Chinese Empire that caused the goods of Great Britain to suffer a serious suppression.

Take, for example, my most important export of cotton to Great Britain. The price of our cotton cloth has been slowly declining over the years due to the improvement of production efficiency and the increase of output, but four or five years ago the price was still okay and the profit was considerable. Since three years ago, cotton cloth and other goods from the Chinese Empire in the East have been continuously impacting the European continental market! It began with the Persian Ottoman Empire, and then spread throughout the European continent through the agents of Prussia and France, robbing us of the main market for English cotton cloth. Gladstone sighed helplessly: "In this way, our cotton production is seriously overproduced, warehouses and docks are piled up, and it is difficult to sell at a high price if you want to sell it, and when you sell it at a low price, it becomes unprofitable, even a loss!" Moreover, it is precisely because of this that cotton producers have lowered the wages of textile workers, contributing to social unrest. ”

Victoria was puzzled and said: "How can our cotton cloth in Great Britain still not compete with that evil country in the East?" How many years have they been able to weave? Even the looms, steam engines, and skilled workers were brought in from our Kingdom of Great Britain a few years ago? Can't the teacher compare to the students? ”

Gladstone smiled bitterly: "Your Majesty, we didn't take much precautions, in order to make money to sell textile machinery, and also joined them to build a factory in the East, but within a few years, they were forced to buy it out semi-forcibly by the other party. However, it is no wonder that the factory owners, who do not invest or sell equipment, will also sell to the Orientals in other European countries, such as France and Prussia.

And the skilled textile craftsmen of Great Britain, whose wages in London were not too high, were almost like those of cabinet members in the East, and the Emperor of the East granted them the nationality of the Chinese Empire and the title of viscount and baron, which we cannot compare with the East. As a result, many skilled weavers were poached. Together with their families, they were quietly taken to the East to settle down, and many of the cabinet governments at the time did not notice.

As for the cotton cloth of Great Britain, this is the reason why it cannot compete with the cloth produced by the apprentices of the East. Last year, my muslin from Great Britain sold for 2.2 pence per yard, mid-range calico for 4.2 pence per yard, and high-end guipure striped muslin for 6.5 pence per yard, all of which were FOB London, excluding freight and intermediary fees, while the Empire of China in the East sold 2 pence per yard of muslin, 4 pence per yard of mid-range calico, and 6 pence per yard of high-end guipure striped muslin, all of which were prices to ports in London or Europe.

And this year, it's even more excessive! Just like the lowest-end muslin, the price of leaving London is 2 pence per yard, and this is the cost price of the better weavers in Great Britain at present. But the cloth from the East, I don't know how they did it, this low-end muslin cloth in Venice, Marseille, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Presmouth and London and other parts of Europe, the direct sales price is only 1.8 pence per yard, and the mid-range calico is only 3.5 pence per yard. The profits of 0.2 and 0.5 pence made the cloth agents and middlemen everywhere ecstatic, and they all took away the cotton cloth from the East, and threw away all the cloth we had produced in Great Britain.

We can't sell our fabric, and even if we barely lower the price, we will lose money. Because of this, those textile mills in places such as London and Manchester have reduced production and limited production, which can only provide the market demand in Great Britain. But the local population market is too small, and prices have dropped dramatically. Now that the major textile factories are not doing well, the workers are not only paying lower wages, but also facing dismissal, which will cause further unrest in the kingdom!

And these, the cabinets all deduced, should be the result of the deliberate suppression of the prices of cotton cloth and other goods by the Eastern countries! Its purpose is very sinister, that is, to take advantage of the situation to weaken the industrial economy of our Kingdom of Great Britain, to crush our most powerful textile industry, and to seize the position of the world's number one industrial power! ”

Victoria's eyes were confused, and her expression was a little gloomy.

It's only been a few years. More than 20 years ago, shortly after her new accession to the throne, the British Empire was so glorious that it was all over the world, and the Manchu Dynasty in the East at that time was defeated by simply sending an army of 20,000 men at will. The British Empire continued its glory until ...... Until the damned Emperor of the East, Feng Yunshan, came out of nowhere, shattering and interrupting the imperial process of the British Empire. Especially the damned Feng Yunshan led the Chinese Empire, which developed to this point in a few years, and even harmed the original glorious British Empire where the sun never sets! Not only was most of the overseas colonies snatched, but even Ireland was separated from the neighborhood, and even the local workers' civil strife was manipulated, and even the constitutional monarchy of the government was almost overthrown, and it became a so-called republican state dominated by some kind of workers' leader. This is undoubtedly the sorrow of Queen Victoria.

What is even more tragic is that the British Empire, which has always been the most powerful, was defeated several times by the rising Chinese Empire in a short period of time, and both the naval fleet and the infantry on land suffered a miserable defeat. As a result, the British Empire, which has always ranked first in the world in terms of military strength, is now not even an empire, but weaker than France, the old neighbor of the second millennium, let alone the eastern power that defeated the British Empire!

Now, not only militarily, but also industrially, the Kingdom of Great Britain is being defeated!

What Gladstone said, Victoria believed very much. There is no doubt that such a cheap cotton cloth was sold as a result of the deliberate efforts of the Eastern countries. Unexpectedly, in just a few years, the other party is so powerful, even the industry has developed to such an extent, through the advantage of labor, after learning the latest machine textile technology, and then using malicious price war to seize the world's cotton market!

This is undoubtedly very sad!

And the culprit of these is the damned Kingdom of Prussia, which has been secretly befriending the evil Eastern Empire, supplying them with advanced technology and equipment and even military weapons from Western Europe. Even, after colluding with the East, Prussia has taken the opportunity to annex the weak Tsarist Russia, and has a conflict with France, which is ready to dominate the European mainland, the Kingdom of Great Britain is naturally willing to add a fire to the fire and let them kill each other, maybe they can take the opportunity to expand their influence, rebuild the prestige of the British Empire, and open up the European market by the way.

Thinking of this, Victoria asked, "What is the war going on the continent itself?" ”