Arthur was in a very good mood, because the tests of both Giant-class aircraft carriers were very successful, and Australasia was arguably the first country to master an aircraft carrier in the true sense of the word.

Of course, the progress of the British will definitely not be too slow, and Arthur's investment in the navy will definitely not be reduced, let alone blinded by the results achieved so far.

After encouraging and rewarding those who participated in the test, Arthur returned to the palace in good spirits to prepare for a cabinet meeting to determine the tasks of the Australasian government in the new year.

Truth be told, Australasia had definitely quite a few tasks in 1919. In addition to the basic tasks of the construction of the country in all aspects, the relocation plan of the new capital, the construction of the fourth phase of the Leonora industrial base, etc., are also large projects that require a lot of money and energy.

At the cabinet meeting, Arthur also specifically instructed the importance of the quality of the project, and demanded that the government must strictly control the quality of all projects, and even blame everyone in the cabinet government if there is a problem.

In addition to these constructions, elections for a new cabinet government would be held in 1919.

This also made Australasian politics very busy since the arrival of 1919, after all, every time there was a change of cabinet government, a large number of politicians were busy with it, just vying for the dream of the highest power stage.

In February 1919, Arthur received the good news that the British government had largely agreed to a swap between Kuwait and the truce states, and that Australasia could obtain extensive land along the Persian Gulf coast from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates.

After this land swap is completed, it is time to officially develop the oil resources along the Persian Gulf coast.

When the news of the exploitation of a large amount of oil along the Persian Gulf coast is reached, the British will definitely not give up their interests, and the Persian Gulf coast is destined to be controlled by Britain and Australasia.

You know, with the advent of airplanes and tanks, and the increasing popularity of automobiles in the world, the price of oil has undergone a seismic change compared to more than a decade ago.

Gasoline and diesel, made from oil, are the main fuels for engines today, and various petroleum products are also used in all parts of the world.

Another advantage of joint control of the Persian Gulf coast with the British is that with the influence of the British and Australasia, they can completely control international oil prices.

The coast of the Persian Gulf contains nearly 60% of the world's oil reserves, and its impact on world oil prices is irreplaceable.

As a result, it is unclear whether the peoples and states of the Middle East will be able to become as smoothly independent as they have historically.

After all, oil will definitely be the most important energy source in the world within 100 years, and there is no such thing.

The Middle East, which has a large amount of oil reserves, is also destined to be a fragrant bowl for all countries to compete for, and will never be separated from the disputes in the world situation.

Even if these countries were able to achieve independence, they would be influenced by and even directly manipulated by more powerful countries.

After all, the husband is not guilty, and everyone understands the truth of guilt, in this world where the weak eat the strong, the weak country has resources and is itself worried.

After the land change, the Middle East colony is still named the Australian Persian Gulf Territory, which is directly controlled by the Australasian royal family.

In order to successfully exploit the oil along the Persian Gulf coast, Arthur decided to invest 5 million Australian dollars, 5.5 million Australian dollars in alliance with the government and oil equipment, to establish the Royal Australasian Petroleum Company, with the royal family and the government holding 40% and 60% of the shares respectively.

The large and small oil companies originally owned by Australasia have also been merged into the Royal Petroleum Company, and the Royal Petroleum Company will also become the symbol of Australasia in the oil industry, and it is definitely a Fortune 500 company from the beginning.

Even with oil from the Persian Gulf coast alone, the potential of the Royal Oil Company is destined to reach even the world's top 50.

The news of the swap between Kuwait and the UAE is definitely not big news in the UK and Australasia.

After all, both of these regions are located in the Middle East, and the land area is not large, and the development potential is not very high, so they have not attracted much attention in both countries.

Even the news clarified by the Americans is more popular than these two news, but not many people believe the clarification of the Americans.

For the Wilson administration, trying to get rid of the responsibility of the U.S. government and separating the pandemic from the United States is the most important task at the moment.

As long as the United States remains tied to the pandemic, the United States will never be able to take the initiative to expand outward, which will be more constrained in diplomacy.

If President Wilson continues to put forward his theory of establishing a new order, he will definitely be ridiculed by European countries for being wishful thinking.

Under the actions of the U.S. government, all kinds of news about the flu began to spread frequently, and there was a great deal of responsibility for the flu shifting to the consortia and accidents.

However, the credibility of the US government, which has experienced various incidents, is not too high, and it seems that only some of the ignorant American people believe in the theory of accidents and the theory of corporate threats propagated by the US government.

Sophistry aside, the attitude of the Americans towards reparations is still very positive. After all, the Americans also knew that post-war Europe was really short of money.

No matter how much the Americans are responsible for the flu, the Europeans have made up their minds to blame the United States.

The Americans can only bear such a big loss alone, after all, the public opinion of the whole world is now biased in favor of Europe, and no one believes the American explanation at all.

But the Americans' response is definitely not limited to using the media to explain. According to the data investigated by the British intelligence agency, the Americans have been intensively building large and small warships to expand their naval strength.

After all, with the unique geographical advantage of the United States, which can hold the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the territory of the United States will hardly be threatened by anything.

There are neighboring countries such as Canada and Mexico in the north and south of the United States, but neither Mexico nor Canada poses much threat to the United States now, and naturally the US government will not take it seriously.

It is precisely because of the fact that the Americans secretly frantically expanded their warships that the British became more wary of the Americans.

Of all the great powers in the world today, the only ones that can really influence the dominance of the British Empire are France in Europe and the United States in the Americas.

The French are actually quite restrictive, after all, the strength of the Germans has not been weakened too much, and it is no problem to reluctantly confront France.

But Americans are different. The geography of the Americans means that his native land is hardly threatened by anything.

Especially after the rise of the American Navy, the United States no longer has to worry about the threat from Canada, and is the biggest competitor of the British Empire in maintaining its world hegemony.

The French needed some time to recuperate after the war, but the Americans hardly needed it.

The Americans were not affected by the war, and they also made a small profit in the war by taking advantage of the arms trade after entering the war in the later period.

This is also the reason why the British were wary of the United States, and even immediately decided to unite with France when Australasia held the United States accountable for the flu.

Unlike European countries such as Germany and France, countries such as the United States have few natural enemies on their home soil and can only rely on United Australasia to restrict.

In order to limit the Americans' frenzied expansion of their navies, Britain proposed at a meeting of the World Alliance to limit the size of each country's navy, but the response was not too high.

First of all, the French were reluctant to limit the size of their navies, after all, after receiving reparations from Germany, France did have the idea of competing with the British.

At least now France has regained its position as the hegemon of Europe, and France is the most powerful country on the continent.

Although other countries have no idea of directly competing with Britain, no one wants their naval development to be shackled for no reason.

In addition to the mediocre response from various countries, there is another important reason, which is that the United States is not in the world alliance.

As long as the United States does not sign the treaty, he can completely free himself from the treaty and expand the size of his navy frantically.

As a result, the British abandoned plans to conclude a treaty of naval limitations, at least for a short time.

It would be unfair to the countries that signed the treaty unless it was possible to get all the great powers and those with the strength to build battleships to jointly conclude a treaty on naval limitations.

Arthur remained a wait-and-see attitude towards the British's proposal, after all, Australasia did not need a large expansion of the navy in a short period of time, and was happy to see other countries build a large number of super dreadnoughts, and they would be slow to build aircraft carriers.

Of course, Arthur was still very envious of the speed at which Britain, France, and the United States were building warships.

But even with sufficient funds, Australasia is completely inferior to such industrial powers as Britain, France, the United States and Germany in the warship race.

Improving the strength of the Australasian Navy, building new shipyards and expanding existing shipyards are also the next steps.

At present, Australasia's warship shipyards are dominated by Sydney Shipyard, Melbourne Shipyard and Auckland Shipyard.

These three shipyards are responsible for almost all the construction of Australasian warships, and the Royal Shipyard in Sydney is the largest, with more types of warships being built.

Although the Melbourne shipyard and the Auckland shipyard are capable of building tens of thousands of tons of warships, it is still difficult to build those super-dreadnoughts of nearly 20,000 tons.

Increasing the speed and level of warship construction in Australasia is necessary for the expansion of these three shipyards.

At a cabinet meeting, Arthur formally put forward a request for the expansion of the shipyard. After the study of the Cabinet Government, it was decided to invest 10 million Australian dollars to help the three major shipyards to expand.

Among them, three dockyards at the Royal Dockyard in Sydney were expanded. The existing three docks can build warships with a maximum capacity of more than 25,000 tons, but the next warships will continue to expand, and 25,000 tons is obviously not enough. If we want to catch up with the naval powers of Britain, France and the United States, we need to expand the maximum tonnage of the three dockyards at the Royal Dockyard in Sydney to more than 35,000 tons, or even 40,000 tons, and strengthen Australasia's capacity to build super-large warships.

At the same time, the expansion of the Melbourne shipyard and the Auckland shipyard will ensure that the two shipyards also have the capacity to build more than 25,000 tons of large warships.

By the time the expansion of these three shipyards is complete, Australasia will be able to start construction of at least five super-battleships or five aircraft carriers at the same time, and the pace of construction will be comparable to that of industrial powers such as Britain, France and the United States.

The expansion of the three major shipyards will take about two to three years to complete and will not affect the construction of existing warships.

This expansion time was sufficient for Arthur, and it would not affect future naval expansion plans in Australasia.

In addition to the expansion of the shipyard, rail and road construction for the Australasian mainland and the colonies are at the top of the transport sector's plans for the new year.

Among other things, the newly occupied territories would need to be fully deployed by rail and road in order to effectively increase Australasia's control over these areas.

Key areas for railway construction include the Persian Gulf Territory, New Guinea, Sulawesi, etc., as well as Australia and New Zealand, which also need to further improve the deployment of railways.

In addition to this, road construction is also very important. The construction of railways was not destined to reach every village and town, especially the colonies.

In this way, the construction of roads is particularly important, which is the situation when the penetration rate of various agricultural machinery and automobiles in Australasia is quite high.

New Guinea's Ring Road and Ring Road, as well as the Persian Gulf Territory's road and rail for oil development and transportation, will be the most important work for the transport sector in the coming year.

With the research of aircraft in various countries, the popularization of passenger aircraft is also about to be realized.

Australasia already has passenger aircraft, but there is no definite decision on whether it will be commercialized.

The maximum number of passengers on the plane is only about 12 people, and not counting the two pilot members, it can only carry 10 passengers.

Although airplanes are faster than airships, airplanes are also more expensive than airships.

At present, Australasian passenger planes are more for private use, and Arthur has flown twice during his inspections, and the rest of the time that important government officials have occasionally flown them.

But it has to be said that the stability of the aircraft is indeed higher than that of the airship. According to the Royal Australasian Airlines' tests on airships and airplanes, the probability of an airship accident is about 3 in 10,000, and the probability of an aircraft accident is about 1 in 30,000, which is up to 9 times the difference.

Although the probability of 3 in 10,000 and 1 in 30,000 seems to be low, compared with the data of later generations with a probability of aviation accidents of less than 1 in a million, the planes and airships of this era are still relatively dangerous.

That's why Arthur tries to avoid airplanes and airships. If there is really an emergency, it will also let the country arrange a plane instead of taking an airship.

After all, the probability of 1 in 30,000 is still very low, so low that the current passenger plane in Australasia has officially flown without any accidents.

4000 words for the second update, ask for a monthly pass, ask for support!

Today's 10,000 days, it has been changed to 7200/10000, ask for a monthly pass, ask for support!

(End of chapter)