Chapter 489: Splitting the Royal Family Consortium
During the construction of the new palace, Arthur has not considered the construction of underground air raid shelters, or underground security bases, but it seems that there is not much need at present.
First of all, the island chain outside Australasia has already determined that it is basically impossible for foreign aircraft to enter the mainland of Australasia.
If the mainland of Australasia is really threatened, then what Australasia will face must be an unprecedented war, or even a full-scale nuclear war.
Not to mention how far away that time was from now, even if we build an underground air defense base that we think is safe now, it may not be able to block the attack of weapons at that time.
Especially air-raid shelters specifically designed to protect against nuclear weapons. With the development of science and technology, various radiation-proof materials will be slowly invented.
It is better to wait until the radiation protection materials are mature in the future before building a complete underground base, instead of adding unnecessary pressure to the construction of the palace now.
After a few days of inspection at Fort St. Arthur, Arthur finally felt relieved and decided to return home.
There are still several more important things to deal with next, which also leaves Arthur without much free time, and he is not even in the mood to travel around.
It was already the end of March when he successfully returned to Sydney. As soon as Arthur arrived at the palace, Steward Kent had already asked to see him.
"Butler Kent, what happened?" Arthur asked slightly curiously.
As the chief butler of the entire palace and the real controller of the royal consortium, Steward Kent has no fewer things to do than Arthur.
The hard work and dedication of Kent's butler must also be indispensable for the royal family's consortium to develop into a huge enterprise that is now as wealthy as the country.
"Your Majesty, the royal consortium has developed to its current situation, and I think it's time to split it up." Steward Kent said with a formal look and a hint of seriousness.
"Split? Why so sudden?" Arthur was suddenly stunned and asked curiously.
"Your Majesty, the royal family consortium owns thousands of factories and enterprises, with more than one million employees. It is not easy to have such a scale, but the royal family consortium should not have such a large scale. As your official industry, the royal family The size of the consortium must be reduced to at least one-third of its current size in order to be more acceptable to people," Butler Kent explained.
The development of the royal consortium covers Australasia's mining, steel industry, petroleum, automobile industry, aviation industry, military industry, shipbuilding industry, agriculture, animal husbandry, light industry and food industry, which can be said to be closely related to the life of Australasians. closely related.
Although this seems very powerful, the meaning behind it is also terrifying.
The royal consortium controls almost all aspects of the country. There may not be any problems during Arthur's reign, but there will definitely be problems in the future.
After all, it is no joke to say that people are fearful. Not every monarch has such a high reputation as Arthur, and not every prime minister is as loyal as Prime Minister Kent.
"Do you have any plans? Steward Kent?" Arthur nodded and approved Steward Kent's plan to split up the royal consortium.
"Your Majesty, from the overall perspective, we must at least split the royal consortium into 3 to 4 large consortiums. The royal consortium will only retain military industry, shipbuilding and banks, and all other consortiums will be divided into new consortiums, and they will appear to have nothing to do with the royal family. Relationship." Steward Kent sometimes hesitated and laid out his plans.
Military shipbuilding and banking are definitely one of the most important industries of the royal consortium. Needless to say, several military factories and shipyards possess the most advanced military technology in Australasia, which the royal consortium cannot give up.
In addition, the Royal Bank is currently the largest bank in Australasia, with more users than several idle private banks and the national bank established not long ago by the government.
The royal consortium, which owns the military industry, shipbuilding industry, and royal bank, is already considered one of the giants in Australasia. As a royal consortium, its apparent assets are completely sufficient.
As for the remaining factories and companies in various messy industries, they were split into three or four consortiums, large and small. Arthur only needed to control them secretly and introduce a public controller to completely separate them from the royal consortium. .
But this still belongs to Arthur's property, but it seems that the royal family's property is not so exaggerated and is not easily jealous.
There is another important reason for splitting up the royal family consortium, that is, the current royal family consortium is too large and it is not easy to manage.
As the actual manager of the royal family consortium, Steward Kent knows this very well. Dealing with the affairs of the palace and the consortium at the same time made Steward Kent exhausted.
This time, taking advantage of the request to split up the royal consortium, Steward Kent also wanted to resign from his position as the head of the royal consortium, and serve the Arthur family with peace of mind as the butler of the palace in the few remaining days.
Arthur thought for a while and finally agreed to Butler Kent's proposal.
On April 1, 1919, the split of the royal consortium officially began.
All enterprises except military industry, shipbuilding and banks have changed their names and abolished the word "royal".
This also means that these companies have nothing to do with the royal consortium on the surface. They will have their own people in charge or merge into other consortiums.
Within a few days, several large consortiums in Australasia were established one after another. A separate heavy industry group was established in the steel industry, a joint group was established in the agriculture and animal husbandry industry, and all oil companies were merged into the Royal Petroleum Company and renamed the Australasian National Petroleum Company.
As for the various enterprises and factories invested or established by the royal consortium, all their names have been changed, and the royal or royal titles have been cancelled.
The unified explanation given by the royal consortium is that some properties were divided due to financial issues.
Coupled with the comprehensive control of news by the propaganda department, no bad news leaked out.
There are even stories among the people that the royal consortium spent too much money to help the poor every year, causing some companies to fall into losses and debts, so they had to cut off, allowing Arthur to earn a lot of fame invisibly. .
The originally behemoth royal family consortium has turned into unrelated royal family consortium, heavy industry group, joint group and major enterprises.
The more famous Benz Automobile Factory and Diesel Engine Research Laboratory still retain their original names.
After all, Benz and Diesel's reputation in Australasia is not small. Most people think that the bosses of these two companies are Benz and Diesel.
People saw news reports that the royal consortium only had military industry and banking businesses, and even requested to reduce citizens' welfare benefits to let the royal consortium breathe a sigh of relief.
Arthur naturally rejected this. After all, truly smart people would know what was going on. Using such an excuse to reduce welfare benefits would not be enough to stop the fire.
What's more, Australasia's current welfare benefits are an important guarantee for attracting immigrants. Although at least 2 million immigrants can be obtained from Russia every year, the country's ethnic composition will be unhealthy if it relies solely on Russian immigrants.
As a country of immigrants, Australasia welcomes immigrants from Europe and all over the world, but it must also have a clear understanding of its own ethnic composition.
As the main ethnic group in Australasia, British people are the unchangeable foundation and the guarantee for maintaining the stability of Australasia.
Of the current population of more than 20 million in Australasia, the British population accounts for just over 10 million, barely exceeding 50%.
After catching up in the past few years, the proportion of the Russian-origin population has reached close to 40%, which is a population of about 8 million.
This also means that if there are no restrictions on immigration, the proportion of Russians will soon exceed that of British people, which is not necessarily a good thing for the stability of Australasia.
Only by introducing a large number of British immigrants can the ethnic balance and national balance of Australasia be maintained.
Not long after the royal consortium was split up, Arthur dressed up to attend the opening ceremony of the Nobles United Bank, the Nobles United Bank.
The New Aristocracy is definitely a rising star in Australasian politics and is watched by everyone in Australasia.
With a total investment of A$3 million, Nobles United Bank is the largest investment of the Nobles United Consortium and the third largest bank investment in Australasia.
However, with the suppression of the royal family consortium, the opening of the Noble United Bank did not cause much splash.
After all, the royal bank alone has more than 8 million users. Except for the national bank established by the government, other banks have no hope of catching up.
The National Bank is the national finance bank and the bank that pays the salaries of all officials and some workers. The total number of users is as high as more than 5 million.
In addition to these two very large banks, before the establishment of the Noble Union Bank, the largest banks were banks established by European capitalists, but they had less than 1 million users.
More than 100 of Australasia's new nobles were also present to attend the founding ceremony of the Union Bank.
All of them were smiling. After all, the profit and loss of United Bank was also related to the amount of their dividends. The larger the scale of United Bank, the greater the interests they had.
Union Bank currently only has head offices and branches in Sydney and Melbourne. After all, bank expansion is not that easy.
After all, United Bank is not an official force like the royal family or the government. If it wants to have more users, it will inevitably have to compete with other small and medium-sized banks.
As the two largest cities in Australasia, the opportunities to develop in Sydney and Melbourne are undoubtedly the greatest.
If Union Bank can establish a foothold in Sydney and Melbourne, it will have the capital to expand beyond Sydney and Melbourne and open branches in each state capital.
Before that, it is better to lay a solid foundation, operate the business honestly for a few years, and gradually acquire a group of old customers.
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(End of chapter)