Chapter 335

  The end of 1912 was relatively peaceful, and Arthur experienced a dull November and December.

  On Christmas Day in December, Arthur delivered a customary speech at Sydney Square, encouraging Australasian people to contribute to the development of their country and to love all their fellow citizens in solidarity.

  Of course, in addition to this more peaceful discourse, Arthur's speech also touched on military aspects, such as the re-expansion of the navy and army in the coming years.

  On Christmas night, a newspaper carrying Arthur's speech was distributed nationwide in Australasia.

  Of these newspapers, Arthur's speeches occupied almost the largest pages, and the rest of the news had to be reduced to the smallest font and printed in some areas of the side and back of the newspaper.

  Words such as rejuvenating the country through science and education and becoming a military power were also circulated in the streets and alleys of Australasia along with Arthur's speech at Christmas.

  It is said that after Arthur's speech, many families chose to let their children strive for scientific research.

  Becoming a good researcher has become the most honorable thing for many Australasian families.

  Of course, Arthur's talk of an army and navy expansion within a few years has attracted the attention of a large number of Australasian people.

  The salary of Australasian soldiers is among the highest in Australasia, and the benefits of the army are also very generous.

  Many people have already started exercising in advance, trying to improve their physical fitness as much as possible before the next recruitment, and have been selected by the recruitment office in Australasia.

  Of course, another major condition for the conscription review, the political background review, cannot be changed.

  This also makes some people who do not meet the conditions sad, and can only shift their goals to scientific research or other directions.

  On major holidays like Christmas, it is common for the royal family to give out small gifts to the people.

  This year's gift is a pound of beef and lamb and a litre of milk, which is theoretically available to all Australasian people.

  Of course, immigrants who have not yet acquired Australasian citizenship are also counted, and can receive them from their villages, cities and governments during the months from Christmas to National Day.

  Although one person only has a pound of meat and a liter of milk, Australasia has a large population, which will be an expenditure of more than 5,000 tons of beef and mutton and more than 5,000 tons of cow and sheep milk.

  Because of the vast territory of Australasia, the time for people to receive supplies has also been extended to the end of the National Day holiday.

  From Christmas Day in December to January 17, when the National Day holiday ends, people have more than half a month to collect their supplies.

  If you fail to receive the goods within the time limit, you will be deemed to have voluntarily given up receiving the goods, and there will be no compensation for the overtime.

  However, this should not be seen in the civilian population of Australasia. For civilians, a pound of meat and a liter of milk are not too much, but who wants to give up something free?

  Arthur and his family spent a merry Christmas at the palace and also prepared a gift for William and Anna.

  The gift to William was a special model of an AS-1898 semi-automatic pistol.

  Because it is a model, it does not have any lethality, and there is no need to worry about the safety of William and the people around him.

  And giving such a gift to William also represents Arthur's intention, that is, to let his eldest son and heir cultivate a love for military weapons from an early age, so that he can master the army more calmly in the future.

  For Arthur, his heir must be capable enough to inherit the current Australasian system.

  As the founding king of Australasia, Arthur's popularity and prestige in Australasia are undoubted.

  In Arthur's time, Australasia, the power of the monarch was definitely beyond the reach of future monarchs.

  There are advantages and disadvantages to such a high degree of monarchy, and the requirements for the ability of the country's monarch are also very strict.

  Since he is Arthur's heir, William must have some ability in terms of martial arts in order to continue to lead Australasia to a higher level.

  It is worth mentioning that because they have reached the age of three, from the second half of this year, William and Anna have begun to receive basic aristocratic education.

  This makes the pleasant time of the two little ones almost disappear, and most of the time is spent on extracurricular education on weekdays, except for aristocratic etiquette.

  Of course, Anna is fine, after all, she is the only princess of the country, and she only needs to receive a noble education and a simple pre-school education.

  But William is different, William's long learning career has begun now, although he is only three years old, but there are already a number of private teachers who are teaching him some truths.

  In addition to all kinds of knowledge, the riding and shooting skills of the traditional nobles were also within the scope of William's learning.

  Of course, in order not to pull out the seedlings to help grow, plus to give William enough rest, William can get two days off a week.

  A gift to Anna, a delicate princess tiara.

  This tiara was specially created by Arthur Jean jewellers, and contains gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls and other jewelry, which looks very delicate and beautiful.

The cost of these materials alone is more than $1000,000. If you add in the manual cost and its potential value, I am afraid that this princess tiara is worth hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars.

  And the model of the pistol given to William definitely cost no more than a hundred dollars. The price difference between the two gifts is as high as a thousand times, in fact, it can also be seen that Arthur has a different attitude towards cultivating William and Anna.

  For Arthur, Anna is not the first heir, and because she is a girl, of course she needs to be rich.

  And William, as the first heir of the country, has a heavier burden on his body than everyone else, so he needs to be trained more harshly.

  Even Arthur had planned that after William graduated from high school and completed all his knowledge and education, he would be sent to a military academy for training, and even sent to serve in the army. Only by knowing everything about the army can you better control the army.

  This also doomed William to have no good days in the next twenty years.

  His studies and ability development are constantly supervised by Arthur, and his external image and life are also supervised by the House of Representatives and the people.

  With Arthur in front of him, William had to do better and convince the Australasian people if he wanted to better control the country.

  A few days after Christmas, the time came to the last day of 1912.

  Since the next day was New Year's Day in 1913, on the last day of 1912, the 1912 annual summary report meeting was held as usual.

  It's the familiar meeting room of Sydney Palace, where the annual report meeting takes place.

  For Arthur, there is still a lot of good news this year.

  First of all, the population of Australasia this year has reached 12.116 million, with a total population of 9.727 million in Australia, 2.237 million in New Zealand, 90,000 in New Guinea, 42,000 in Australian Timor, and 20,000 in the Royal Territories.

  At the current rate of population growth, Australia's population should exceed 10 million by the time of the next annual summary report.

  Australasia's population of 12.11 million can also rank in the top 20 in the world, more than 10 to be exact.

  However, there is still a big gap between the countries and the great powers, whose populations are often tens of millions and hundreds of millions, which is also the heritage and strength of the great powers.

  According to the strength revealed by the countries of the world, the top eight local populations of the world's major powers are currently ranked as follows:

  1st place, 165 million people in Russia (impact of migration)

  Second place, 94.31 million people in the United States (decrease in immigration)

  3rd place, 65.41 million people in Germany (impact of immigration)

  In fourth place, Austria-Hungary 52 million people

  fifth, island nation with 51.3 million people

  Sixth, 44.1 million people in the UK (immigration impact)

  In seventh place, France has 39.7 million people

  8th place, Italy 35 million people

  From this population arrangement, it can be seen that among all the currently recognized powers in Europe, all but Australasia are the top eight countries in terms of population.

  The only one of the top eight countries in terms of population is not a major power, and it is also an island country that is almost the same as Australasia's comprehensive strength.

  This also shows how important population is to the development of a country.

  To become a regional power, it must have a population of tens of millions. To become a regional hegemon or a great power, you must have a population of tens of millions.

  The good news for Australasia is that it is an important source of Australasian immigrants, and the population of Russia is very large.

  What's more, the Russian upper echelons did not pay much attention to the loss of population. In fact, this is also normal, after all, the population of Russia grows by as much as two or three million a year, and even four or five million in some cases.

  Under such circumstances, hundreds of thousands of people of less than one million are lost every year, and it is natural that the Russian top brass does not pay attention to it.

  Russian immigrants have replaced British immigrants as the largest group of immigrants in Australasia in a year.

  Australasia's population grew by more than 1.6 million people over the course of the year, compared to the previous year's annual report.

  Among them, nearly 310,000 new people and the remaining nearly 1.3 million people are all immigrants from Europe.

  Of these 1.3 million people, Russian immigrants are as high as 770,000, accounting for more than half of all European immigrants.

  Under the Russian immigrants, there were 290,000 British immigrants and 170,000 German immigrants.

  Because of the good in-law relationship between Russia and Australasia, coupled with the relatively lax management in Russia.

  Therefore, it is certain that Australasia will still be able to attract a large number of immigrants from Russia even if a future war breaks out in Europe.

  Of course, when the time comes, attracting immigrants may require some exchange of benefits to the Russian government.

  But for Australasia, which is already stockpiling strategic materials such as food and munitions and medical care, it is definitely cost-effective to exchange some of the munitions for the population.

  Just change it today, ask for a leave, and continue tomorrow.

(End of chapter)