Reborn South Africa as a police officer

Chapter 172 Ten Miles

Born in America, only death and taxes are inevitable.

The same applies to the UK as well.

Britain has a population of 21 million in the 6500st century, and the British Internal Revenue Service has 6.6 employees, while the British Royal Navy, which once dominated the world, has only 4.45 people. A comparison shows how much the British government attaches importance to tax work.

The same is true for the Pretoria Taxation Office. During the Republic of Transvaal, the owners of the Rand Gold Mine were prone to tax evasion, and the Cape Colonial Government condoned it to a certain extent.

Now that the Cape colonial government has annexed the Transvaal, the former allies immediately turned against each other, and the tax bureau's first stab was at the owners of the Rand gold mines.

As the chief of the Johannesburg Police Department, Roque is obliged to cooperate with the tax office, so the current police station is regarded as an "accomplice" of the tax office.

"Director McPherson, if I want to buy farms around Johannesburg, what should I do?" Rock has to spend money, buying farms is a good idea, and there are not too many abandoned farms around Johannesburg.

Because the Expeditionary Army Command stipulates that if Boer farmers are found to be helping the guerrillas, all farms and houses within 10 miles of the surrounding area will be burned. Therefore, there are a large number of abandoned farms around Johannesburg. It is impossible to generate taxes, so Pretoria will not allow this situation to continue.

The final result is that these farms abandoned due to war are likely to be auctioned off in a centralized manner like the gold mines some time ago.

To Roque's surprise, the UK does not have a unified land management agency at the central level. There is only a land registration office established in 1862. The original function of this land registration office is not management, but only on the basis of resources. register.

In 1896, the United Kingdom stipulated that all land transactions must be registered, and the Registration Bureau is the only government department engaged in the review, confirmation, registration, issuance of certificates and transfer of certificates of land ownership.

If you think about it, you can understand that the land area of ​​the United Kingdom is too large. There is no such thing as a colony in the United Kingdom. All colonies are British land, and according to British law, all land belongs to the Queen. Such institutions only have the right to use the land, so the British government has no right to set up an institution to manage the property belonging to the Queen.

That's an offense to the Queen.

So Neil McPherson's answer is very simple: "You want to buy a farm? Just go and buy it. The current farm should be very cheap. I heard that the Governor is considering encouraging the farm to resume cultivation. It is estimated that even the money is not enough. You don’t need to spend money, just go to the Internal Affairs Office and file a case.”

Farms are not gold mines, so the Transvaal government will not focus on farms. Rock suspects that the Transvaal probably doesn't have regulations in this regard yet.

Of course, not paying attention does not mean not caring. Abandoned farms are worthless, but if the farms are re-cultivated, profits will start to be generated, and taxes will naturally be generated. Therefore, the governor will encourage re-cultivation sooner or later. Small, but also meat.

The crux of the problem is that the Transvaal is now sparsely populated, and even the most important gold mines are in short supply of miners, let alone farms. That's why the former Transvaal Republic allowed Zulus to buy land .

Anyway, idle is idle.

The Boers in the past, as well as the British now, have not yet noticed what kind of trouble those seemingly harmless Zulus will cause South Africa in the future.

Only Rock has a clear understanding of this.

In fact, sooner or later, the Governor General will start to pay attention to this issue.

Unlike the sparsely populated Boers, the total population of the UK is vastly different from the Boer population. Therefore, the British government will not be as enlightened as the Boer government in some aspects, such as buying farms. During the Republic of Transvaal, the ancestors Ru people can buy farms in the Transvaal.

This policy was quickly abolished after the end of the Second Boer War. In 1913, the then Union of South Africa passed the Native Land Act, which prohibited Africans from occupying or buying land outside the "Native People's Reserve".

The British treat the Zulus, or treat all people of color extremely harshly. Even the Indians, who claim to be "the most loyal dog of the British Empire", are still an inferior nation in Cape.

The war is not over yet. Before the signing of the peace agreement, the Boers were the biggest enemies of the colonial government. The colonial government is still unable to take action against the colored races. It will be hard to say after the peace agreement is signed.

So during this period of time, Rock still has the opportunity to buy a farm. After the war, the Chinese must also belong to the ranks of colored people.

Of course, the more likely situation at that time is that because of Rock's existence, Alfred Milner will definitely take Rock's factors into consideration when formulating policies. After all, Rock is now the chief of the Johannesburg Police Department and is a senior official. After the war, they may be honored by the Queen, and may even be awarded a knighthood, so it is inappropriate to confuse Chinese with other people of color.

It is also for this reason that before the signing of the peace agreement, Roque should introduce Chinese workers as much as possible, or promote more Chinese workers to become free citizens, preferably free citizens with the right to vote, so that in the future when the Governor's Office formulates policies, The interests of the Chinese will be fully considered.

Obviously, Neil MacPherson does not have such a long-term vision. What worries Neil McPherson most now is that there are not enough tax sources, so as long as Rock’s proposal can increase tax sources, Neil MacPherson Felson will not care about the population ratio of the Transvaal. That is the governor's concern. Neil McPherson only cares about taxation.

As for other problems arising from this, it is a matter for the future Commissioner of Inland Revenue and the future Governor to worry about.

Back at the police station, Roque immediately sent a telegram to Liang Dingxin. There were no women in northern Qing Dynasty who met Roque's requirements, but there were plenty of men. Roque couldn't pin all his hopes on Hoover.

In fact, Liang Dingxin is not useless. After Rock learned that the vast majority of women in northern Qing Dynasty had their feet bound, he asked Liang Dingxin to shift the focus of his work to assisting the family members of Chinese policemen to immigrate. There are more and more family members of the police, and some even came directly to Johannesburg.

Rock wants to buy the farm, which is for the families of these Chinese policemen.

Well, farmers in this era don't actually need to work on their own.

The Cape Colonial Government promulgated the "Glen Gray Law" in 1894, which stipulated in the form of legislation: adult African men, unless they have worked outside their own settlements for 12 hours in the 3 months of the previous year month, otherwise a labor tax of 10 shillings must be paid.

The core of this law is to force blacks to work for whites.

At the end of the 19th century, there were 7.5 white people in Johannesburg, of which 1.2 worked in the mines. During the same period, there were as many as 10 Zulu miners.

Did you notice?

At the end of the nineteenth century, there were only 7.5 whites in Johannesburg——

In 1904, more than 5 Chinese came to Johannesburg that year.

and so--

It's not impossible to be naive, it just takes an X factor.

Rock is the X factor.

-

Going back to the "Glen Gray Act", white people used legal forms to force Zulus to work. Many Zulus became miners, and more Zulus worked for Boer farmers. Their compensation is usually the use of an acre or two of land Right, which is nothing to Boolean farmers who typically own hundreds of acres of farms.

Therefore, after the families of the Chinese policemen came to Johannesburg, even if the hostess was not good at walking due to foot binding, it would not delay the hostess from running the farm. The work would naturally be done by those Zulus, and the farmers could enjoy the profits.

After learning about the procedures for buying a farm, Rock went directly to Owen, who was Philip's secretary.

"Why do you want a farm? One acre of pasture can only raise one sheep, and one cow needs five acres of pasture. Is this more efficient than a gold mine?" Owen mocked the Boers unscrupulously. Farming technology has become a joke in Johannesburg.

"That's for the Boers. The Chinese are farming people. They have been farming for thousands of years. How much land does the Netherlands have?" Rock also despises the Boers' farming skills. If the Chinese's farming skills are If the full level is 100, then the Boers' farming skills will be at most ten to fifteen.

"How much do you want to buy?" Owen no longer entangled in this issue. Compared with the farming technology of the Chinese, the farming technology of the British is also scum.

"How much?" Rock's appetite grew.

"God knows!" Owen was dumbfounded. After Philip came to Johannesburg, he focused all his work on the gold mines. He didn't even count how many farms there were around Johannesburg.

There is no way to count. There are no remote sensing satellites these days, and there is not enough manpower. As far as the current Johannesburg city government is concerned, even if all the policemen in the police station are counted, it may take 20 years to complete this work.

With this energy, wouldn't it be better to use it to find more gold mines?

"In this way, after the attack on the Somerfield Gold Mine some time ago, all the farms within ten miles around the Somerfield Gold Mine were burned down, and the farmers were also thrown into concentration camps. Are those farms abandoned now?" Rock said method, no specific data is better.

"Yes." Owen said truthfully, he is different from Arnold, and has a good relationship with Rock.

"That's it, how much is the farm around the Summerfield Gold Mine?" Rock made a decision, seemingly not paying attention to the size of the ten-mile range.

Ten miles here is a circle with a diameter of ten miles, so the area is 5×5×3.14——

The total area is about 78.5 square miles!

Converted into kilometers, about 204 square kilometers! ! !

Johannesburg in the 21st century has a total area of ​​about 269 square kilometers.

In other words, this circle encloses most of Johannesburg.

In other words, this policy of Kitchener is actually to exterminate the Boers.

(End of this chapter)