African Entrepreneurship Records

 Chapter 459 Working Meeting

Beginning in 1876, the construction of the railway bridge over the Zambezi River on the East African Central Railway was completed. Trains could reach Zimbabwe directly through the railway bridge. In order to develop the inland areas, East Africa began to continue to build the East African version of agricultural cooperatives along the central railway as the main artery.

“This year we plan to build more than 1,500 new agricultural cooperatives in Zimbabwe along the railway lines to promote the development of inland areas.” The Minister of Agriculture said at a government work meeting.

Agricultural cooperatives are actually not a unique industrial model in the East. Such organizations exist in areas such as France and Germany where small farms and family farms are relatively developed. They are essentially union-type organizations, formed voluntarily by farmers.

French law in the previous life stated: "Agricultural cooperatives and their cooperative alliances are a special type of enterprise that is different from civil enterprises and trading enterprises. It has independent legal person rights and full civil rights." Agricultural cooperatives are variable capital enterprises.

Agricultural cooperatives in East Africa are different from those in France in their previous lives, because they are dominated by the East African government and are semi-political economic organizations. The land has not yet been privatized and is allocated and used by the kingdom.

The main functions of the East African Agricultural Cooperatives are to scientifically guide planting, provide improved seeds, purchase and store grain, manage and distribute livestock and slaves, maintain and manage agricultural equipment, and organize agricultural project construction.

East African Agricultural Cooperatives are affiliated to the grassroots governments of East Africa, but specific guidance is provided by the East African Agricultural Corporation, which is the upstream of the industrial chain of East African agriculture.

The East African Agricultural Corporation only exists in East Africa, but it is connected to the Hechingen Consortium industrial clusters in Germany and Austria. It provides raw materials and basic agricultural products to these Hechingen enterprises. At the same time, it maintains contact with many business groups and dominates East African grain. Export jobs.

The main business is procurement and sales, so the East African Agricultural Corporation is a syndicate-like super agricultural monopoly organization. The difference from syndicate enterprises is that it is too large and aims to strengthen the competitiveness of East African agricultural products in the global market. This kind of competition is not corporate. Competition, purely on a country-by-country basis, is a powerful weapon in the competition between East African grain and the United States and Russia. Those grain producers in the United States are indeed strong, but they also appear like stragglers in front of the East African Agricultural Corporation.

Of course, although the East African Agricultural Corporation is huge, its external exports still rely on the food companies, supermarket channels, and large and small dealers of the Hechingen Consortium in Europe. Therefore, the name of the East African Agricultural Corporation is basically unheard outside East Africa. head.

 In this way, the East African Agricultural Corporation will have a certain conflict with the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture, but for the current East Africa, it is still more suitable for the national conditions of East Africa.

The staff of the Agricultural Corporation is composed of more professional personnel, and because the education level of the Ministry of Agriculture is too low, its role in promoting agricultural development in East Africa is not as good as that of the Agricultural Corporation.

"Regarding the construction of new villages, our suggestion is to open up some tobacco fields. Just some time ago, the German government announced a tobacco monopoly. This is not a good thing for tobacco profits. More taxes will be paid, so in order to be more To monopolize the German market, we must drive down the cost of tobacco products in East Africa and maintain our advantage over the German region."

Bismarck promoted a new bill to increase revenue and reduce expenditures for the German government. However, this was a blow to the Hechingen Consortium. Tobacco taxes were already relatively high. Now that Germany has become a tobacco monopoly, they will have to pay more money to purchase a sales license.

However, no matter how dissatisfied it is, it can only be suppressed. The market is controlled by the German government, and the power of the German government is different from that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Hechingen Consortium can use public opinion to force the central government of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to make compromises. Obviously in a more centralized Germany, the Hechingen Consortium cannot do this. However, this is acceptable to East Africa. The main thing is to sell East African tobacco to Germany. The local tobacco market in East Africa has a large consumption capacity, but it is obviously not as attractive as the German market. The more important role of local tobacco consumption is Return currency.

“In recent years, all countries have increased tariffs, especially steel and agricultural import tariffs. As a steel importing country, we are not worried. The significant increase in agricultural tariffs by various countries will hit us the hardest.”

Ernst said: "Food consumption still depends on the local area. Now the development of inland areas requires a large amount of food to support the development. While increasing the inland population, we must increase the collection of inland slaves this year to provide A series of projects such as road construction and water conservancy will be added in the new area. At the same time, I plan to develop a number of mines along the Zimbabwe Railway, and the mines can also consume a lot of food."

There is nothing terrible about overproduction of grain. If there is a surplus, we will start construction projects. This kind of thing will never be completed. There are still large areas of undeveloped land in the inland areas. All of these require manpower, and development requires rations. Such extra grain can be consumed.

As for using excess food to improve the living standards of people in East Africa, haha, I think too much! To put it bluntly, this is indeed not conducive to the struggle of the people of East Africa. Although East Africa has won, but no other country has won, and if it provides some benefits to the people, it will really be easy for them.

The most typical example is Argentina in the past life. The people just wanted to receive welfare with peace of mind, and politicians used this as a campaign tool. That is, no one concentrated on work or construction. However, Argentina was not developed in the first place, so the welfare policy could only be maintained by borrowing money. , without industrial support, the country ended up in debt, and the country became lifeless.

Of course, this is just an exaggeration and one-sided statement. Argentina has too many national problems. All in all, the Argentine government has created a social atmosphere that is not conducive to struggle. Politicians and the people play an extremely abstract game to maintain Argentina’s The broken ship continued to sail.

However, Argentina does have bad conditions. Its agricultural conditions are superior to those of the United States and its population is not large. If it really cannot maintain the basic cost of living for the people, the worst is that the military government will come to power, and the game can continue, and it will always be in a cycle of reincarnation. , this style of play is actually the style of all backward countries, especially South America and Africa.

As a new country, East Africa is actually developing well. There is no need for the Hechingen royal family to join in the troubles with those imbecile "insects". Taking advantage of the current chaos in the international system, it has every opportunity to become a chess player on the international chessboard.

Don’t look at the fact that there are so many great powers in this era, but precisely because there are so many great powers and uneven distribution of accounts, other countries have greater opportunities. Japan can seize the opportunity to become one of them. This is not a kind of multipolarity.

The conditions in East Africa may not be top-notch, but they are much better than Italy, Japan and the like, and their potential is much greater than other countries except the United States and Russia.

“We must make full use of the inland iron ore and coal resources to continue to increase East Africa’s steel production capacity to at least exceed one million tons by 1880.”

 (End of this chapter)