African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1081 Consumption

Of course, the situation during the construction of the East African Canal is very different from the situation today when the national canal plan is being implemented.

Now, driven by the economic development in the 1990s and two five-year plans, East Africa has undergone tremendous changes in industry, transportation and infrastructure. The national railway is as long as 200,000 kilometers, basically covering the entire country, and is also equipped with a more developed road network.

Tractors, cars and other tools have already been mass-produced and can be invested in infrastructure and transportation construction. At the same time, East Africa's education is developing in an all-round way and there is an abundance of relevant professional talent.

In this case, the construction conditions of the East African National Canal Project are far beyond the conditions during the construction of the Grand East African Canal.

In other words, when the Grand East African Canal was being built, East Africa was still an agricultural country, but before the construction of the national canal plan was launched, East Africa was already a semi-industrialized power. Of course, according to the development of world industry in the early 20th century, semi-industrialized countries were basically considered industrialized countries.

Therefore, the implementation of the national canal plan will not be much more difficult than the East African 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. The United States built the Erie Canal at the beginning of the last century. At that time, the industrial capacity of the United States was similar to that of East Africa when the East African Canal was built. Now East Africa’s industrial capacity is certainly far greater than that of the United States at that time. Even today, the United States may not be much stronger than East Africa. Although East Africa’s overall industrial output value is much lower than that of the United States, in terms of heavy industrial capacity, East Africa and the United States have their own advantages and disadvantages.

The main difficulty in implementing the national canal plan is actually human resources, which is not difficult for East Africa, and the main confidence of the East African government comes from black laborers.

The psychological expectation of the East African government 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 said to the government officials coldly: "There are more than seven million black people in our country now. Even if we don't allow them to participate in national construction, they will die here due to age problems. Therefore, making good use of this last wave of labor dividends to achieve great achievements in our country's water transportation system is a century-long plan for the empire."

"The national canal project will be included in the Third Five-Year Plan as the country's top engineering project from 1911 to 1915. That means it must be completed within five years. The time is quite tight, so all departments must cooperate with the water conservancy department to ensure that the project can be completed by the end of 1915."

"Although time is tight, we must not slack off on quality. After all, the industrial base in East Africa is very different from that of more than a decade ago. The output of steel, cement and large-scale construction machinery in the country is not comparable to that during the construction of the East African Canal."

Ernst's words basically confirmed an important purpose of the East African National Canal Project, which was to consume East African black labor. Compared with the United States' extermination of Indians, East Africa obviously went even further. This was equivalent to snatching the landlord's house, forcing and enslaving the landlord to clean the house again, and finally driving him out when he was no longer of any use. It was a heart-breaking act.

"Although black labor is cheaper to use, the empire can never rely on slavery to build the country. After all, international public opinion has always been critical of this. Therefore, before 1920, we must completely eliminate black labor in the country."

By 1920, these black laborers in East Africa were no longer of any use and were left with only the old, weak, sick and disabled. It was simply impossible for East Africa to provide retirement support for these useless black laborers.

"Alsted, go on!" Ernst said.

After nodding, Yarsde continued to talk to the manuscript: "After the national canal project is completed, our country's three major river systems and three major lake systems will be connected together, namely the Nile River, Congo River and Zambezi River, the Great Lake (Lake Victoria), Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika) and Lake Malawi."

"At the same time, other smaller rivers and lakes will also be involved, thus realizing an inland waterway network covering about 40 percent of my country's total area, basically covering the three major regions of eastern, central and western my country, a world-class large-scale water transport network."

Forty percent of East Africa is about five million square kilometers, and this water transport network can basically connect the most economically developed regions in East Africa and facilitate the transportation of goods between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. "If the national canal plan is realized, my country's freight costs will be significantly reduced, greatly reducing the economic development differences between regions in my country, especially for my country's inland areas."

The most important beneficiary of the national canal plan is obviously the central region with Rhine City as its core, which will promote the economic development of the central region.

"Compared to railways, although this plan cannot reach the same level of importance as railways due to practical limitations, it is also an important supplement to the existing transportation network."

Although water transportation has huge advantages 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 in East Africa is completed, the inland water transportation network will be in a fragmented state.

Of course, the main reason is that the conditions of East African rivers are not good, especially the main river channels. For example, the Zambezi River, which is the most important to East Africa's economy, cannot be fully connected without building a large number of locks. At present, East Africa does not have the technical capability to build locks of this scale on the Zambezi River.

The main river channel cannot be used, and the water volume and depth of the tributaries are not sufficient to support larger ships, which determines the upper limit of water transportation in East Africa.

Therefore, compared with railways, it is basically impossible for East African water transportation to replace its position. Of course, even so, water transportation will have a huge impact on the original railway system.

However, Ernst thought of this problem from the very beginning, so the East African railway did not expand as wildly as the American railway. Today, the American railway has reached more than 400,000 kilometers, while East Africa accounts for less than half of the United States. This is also considering that the land area of ​​East Africa is nearly twice that 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. After all, the East African Railway has not yet reached saturation and its potential is still huge.

However, the railway development plan does not conflict with highway and water transportation. The East African National Water Transportation Plan is a beneficial supplement to the current East African transportation.

Fundamentally, it 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 it is 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 similar problems as Russia.

An important reason for Russia's limited development is the high cost of logistics. In addition to the old problem of the lack of good ports, inland water transportation is also a limiting factor for Russia's industrial development. This is because Russia's territory is east-west and its main rivers are north-south, which makes the role of rivers in promoting the Russian economy not prominent.

In fact, the United States also has similar problems. For example, the Mississippi River in the United States also runs from north to south, and the U.S. economy is concentrated in the northeast region. This is also an important reason why the United States has to build a large number of railways and canals such as the Erie Canal.

In contrast, the European and Far Eastern empires did not have this problem because the flow of their main rivers basically coincided with the economically developed areas.

(End of this chapter)