Chapter 1081 Consumption
Of course, the situation during the construction of the East African Grand Canal was very different from the situation today when the national canal plan is to be implemented.
Now, driven by the economic construction and the two five-year plans in the 1990s, East Africa has undergone earth-shaking changes in industry, transportation and infrastructure. The national railways are as high as 200,000 kilometers, basically covering the whole country, and at the same time, Equipped with a more developed road network.
Tractors, cars and other tools have been mass-produced on a large scale and can be invested in infrastructure and transportation construction. At the same time, education in East Africa is fully developed and relevant professionals are abundant.
Under this circumstance, the construction conditions of the East African National Canal Plan far exceed those during the construction period of the East African Grand Canal.
In other words, East Africa was still an agricultural country when the East African Grand Canal was built. Before the national canal plan was launched, East Africa was already a semi-industrial power. Of course, according to the development of world industry in the early 20th century, semi-industrialized countries It is basically considered an industrialized country.
Hence, the implementation of the national canal plan will not be much more difficult than the East African Grand Canal, and may even be greatly reduced.
Take the Erie Canal in the United States as an example. The Erie Canal is more than 500 kilometers long and connects New York and the Great Lakes region in the United States. The U.S. built the Erie Canal at the beginning of the last century. At that time, the U.S. industrial capacity was almost the same as when East Africa built the East African Grand Canal. , and the industrial capacity of East Africa is definitely far greater than that of the United States at that time. Even now, the United States may not be much stronger than East Africa. Although the overall industrial output value of East Africa is much lower than that of the United States, in terms of heavy industry capacity, East Africa is comparable to the United States. There are advantages and disadvantages to each other.
The main difficulty in the implementation of the national canal plan is actually human resources, which is not difficult for East Africa, and the main source of the East African government's confidence comes from black labor.
The East African government’s psychological expectation is to sacrifice at least three million black workers to achieve a breakthrough in inland water transportation across East Africa, which is basically impossible to achieve in other countries.
Ernst ruthlessly said to government officials: "Today, there are more than seven million black people in our country. Even if they are not allowed to participate in national construction, they will die here because of age, so make good use of this last opportunity." It is a century-old plan for the empire to use the labor dividend to achieve great achievements in our country’s water transportation system.”
"The National Canal Plan will be included in the Third Five-Year Plan as my country's primary engineering project from 1911 to 1915, which means it will be completed within five years. The time is relatively tight, so all departments must cooperate with the water conservancy department. work to ensure that the project can be completed by the end of 1915.”
"Although time is tight, we must not relax in terms of quality. After all, our industrial base in East Africa is very different from that of more than ten years ago. Today, the national output of steel, cement and large engineering machinery is not the same as the construction of the East African Grand Canal." The times can be said to be the same.”
Ernst’s words basically confirm an important purpose of the East African National Canal Plan, which is to consume the black labor in East Africa. Compared with the United States’ extermination of Indians, East Africa obviously went to more extremes. This is equivalent to robbing the landlord’s house. , and forced and enslaved the landlord to clean the house again, and then kicked him out after it was no longer useful, which can be described as murderous and heart-breaking.
"Although the cost of using black labor is lower, the empire can never hope to rely on slavery to build the country. After all, international public opinion has always criticized this, so before 1920, we must completely eliminate domestic slavery. Black Labor.”
By 1920, this group of black workers in East Africa would no longer have any use value, leaving only the old, weak, sick and disabled, and it was impossible for East Africa to provide for these black workers with no use value in their old age.
“Alsid, go on,” Ernst said.
"At the same time, other smaller rivers and lakes will also be involved, thereby realizing a world-class large-scale water transportation network covering about 40% of my country's national area, basically covering the three main regions of eastern, central and western my country. network."
Forty percent of the mainland of East Africa is almost more than five million square kilometers, and this water transportation network can basically connect the most economically developed areas in East Africa and communicate cargo transportation between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. "If the national canal plan is realized, my country's freight costs will be significantly reduced and the economic development differences between my country's regions will be greatly reduced, which is especially important for my country's inland areas."
The most important beneficiary of the national canal plan is obviously the central region with the Rhine City as the core, which will play a role in promoting the economic development of the central region.
“Compared to the railway, although this plan cannot achieve the important status of the railway due to practical constraints, it is also an important supplement to the existing transportation network.”
Although water transportation has a huge advantage over railways in terms of transportation costs, even if the East African National Canal plan is realized, it is impossible to overturn the strategic position of the East African Railway.
After all, the flexibility of canal construction is far less than that of railways. Even if the canal construction is completed in East Africa, the inland water transportation network will be fragmented.
Of course, the main reason is that the conditions of East African rivers are not good, especially the mainstream rivers, such as the Zambezi River, which is the most important to the East African economy. Without the construction of a large number of ship locks, it is impossible to connect the entire line, and there are currently no such That technical capacity to build a lock of this size on the Zambezi River.
The main river channel cannot be used, and the water volume and depth of the tributaries are not enough to support larger-scale ship hulls, which determines the upper limit of water transportation in East Africa.
So compared to railways, it is basically impossible for water transportation in East Africa to replace its status. Of course, even then water transportation will have a huge impact on the original railway system.
However, Ernst thought of this problem from the beginning, so East African railways did not expand as crazy as American railways. Today, American railways have reached more than 400,000 kilometers, while East Africa only accounts for less than half of the United States. This must also be taken into consideration The territory of East Africa is nearly twice the size of the United States, so the railway density in East Africa is far less than that of the United States.
Of course, the East African Railway will continue to expand during the Third Five-Year Plan period. After all, the East African Railway has not yet reached saturation and the potential is still huge.
However, the railway development plan does not conflict with highways and water transportation. The East African National Water Transportation Plan is a beneficial supplement to the current transportation in East Africa.
The fundamental purpose is to reduce logistics costs in East Africa. Logistics has always been an important factor affecting industrial costs. The lower the logistics costs, the more conducive to the development of industry and other industries.
When East Africa competes with other countries or regions in the world, its biggest shortcoming is water transportation. If this problem is not solved, East Africa will face problems similar to Russia.
An important reason for Russia's limited development is the high cost of logistics. In addition to the common problem of lack of excellent ports, inland water transport is also a limiting factor for Russia's industrial development, because Russia's land runs east-west, and Russia's main rivers are It runs north-south, so the river's role in promoting the Russian economy is not prominent.
In fact, the United States has similar problems. For example, the Mississippi River in the United States also runs north-south, and the U.S. economy is concentrated in the northeastern region. This is also an important reason why the United States builds a large number of railways and canals such as the Erie Canal.
Looking at the European and Far Eastern empires, the directions of the main domestic rivers and economically developed regions basically coincided, so there was no such problem.
(End of this chapter)