Chapter 363 Rapid Economic and Population Growth

For Australasia, December 1913 was definitely the busiest month. In just this month, Australasia received a large number of British and French Pacific colonies and successfully expanded its sphere of influence to most parts of the Pacific.

If we only look at the current land area of ​​Australasia, it is only more than 8 million square kilometers.

But if we count the territorial waters of Australasia, Australasia can actually be called a huge country of tens of millions of square kilometers.

You should know that the division of territorial waters among countries in the world is not clear at present, and there is no relatively unified data to define the territorial waters of various countries.

This also means that if Australasia's naval strength is strong enough, it may even turn most of the Pacific Ocean west and south of Hawaii into its own territorial waters.

If this goal can be achieved, no one will be able to invade Australasia's homeland, and the Pacific Ocean will be Australasia's inland sea.

The Australasia government attaches great importance to the acceptance of new territories, and the navy is almost on standby at any time to guard against any possible accidents.

In fact, this is indeed the case. If Australasia can completely control these new territories, it will be able to form a solid defensive island chain outside the Australasia mainland.

At that time, even if it confronts an industrial and economic power like the United States, Australasia will have sufficient strength and confidence.

At present, what Australasia lacks most is time. It takes time to develop the population and stabilize the rule of these new territories.

The navy's fleet escorted transport ships to various colonies and territories. They transported not only the governors of new colonies and territories, but also the garrisons that needed to be stationed there and some local scarce resources and food.

Time passed quickly, and in the busyness of the Australasia cabinet government, December soon came to the last day.

On December 31, 1913, as usual, the annual annual report meeting was held at Sydney Palace.

This year's annual report meeting not only reported the situation throughout 1913, but also reported the deployment of new colonies.

At present, Australasia's actual sphere of influence has expanded to the central Pacific Ocean, and these territorial waters need to be defensively deployed.

Similarly, the dispatch and communication between the colonies, as well as the connection between the mainland and the colonies, need to be stabilized by the promulgation of corresponding policies.

Throughout 1913, the population of Australasia was still in a state of rapid growth. Although some European countries have begun to restrict the export of immigrants, Australasia is not actually restricted in immigration because it has joined the Allied Powers.

British and Russian immigrants, who are more important to Australasia, are arriving in Australasia in a steady stream and becoming formal citizens of Australasia.

In 1913, the number of newborns in Australasia exceeded 400,000 for the first time, reaching 431,400.

This figure is the year with the most newborns in Australasia's history, and the policy of encouraging childbirth issued by the new cabinet government has contributed greatly to this.

The policy of encouraging childbirth has made Australasia people worry-free about childbirth. Not only can you get rewards for having children, but the government will also bear a large part of the tuition and medical expenses of newborns in the future.

This also makes Australasia people more positive about childbirth. Anyway, everyone usually has no loan pressure, and having children has become the choice of most people.

In terms of immigration, due to the large increase in Russian immigrants, the immigration environment in Australasia still maintains a state of rapid growth.

In 1913, Australasia received a total of 1.3 million immigrants, of which Russia contributed more than 800,000.

In order to attract immigrants from Russia, the Australasia government even sent people to bribe Russian middle and lower-level officials, which made the immigration road unimpeded.

For Russia, less than 1 million immigrants are simply a small number, and for the total population of Russia, it is simply a drop in the bucket.

And a large number of immigrants to Australasia can also be exchanged for some military equipment and strategic materials from Australasia, which is a completely profitable business.

Russia is not short of people, Australasia is not short of weapons and industrial products, and a large number of immigrants is a win-win situation for both sides.

Among the remaining nearly 500,000 immigrants, British and French immigrants account for more than 310,000, German immigrants are 20,000, Italian immigrants are 40,000, and other immigrants are distributed in various European countries.

Due to the popularization of welfare benefits and the construction of medical care in Australasia, the number of deaths in 1913 was actually very small, just over 20,000.

Adding the population of more than 100,000 in the newly received colonies (not counting the indigenous people), the annual increase in Australasia's population reached more than 1.8 million.

After subtracting the number of deaths from the new population, Australasia's net population increase is still as high as 1.82 million, making it one of the countries with the highest population growth rate in the world today, or even the only one.

The total population of Australasia has also reached 13.932 million, and is catching up with the population of 15 million.

Of course, when the Australasia government calculates the population, it will not count the indigenous population in Australasia, which is already as high as millions.

If the indigenous population is included, the population of Australasia has actually exceeded 15 million.

The problem is that due to the extreme nationalism in Australasia, the millions of indigenous people are not accepted by most Australasia people.

Most of these people have fundamental differences in religion and culture from ordinary Australasia people, and are not so easy to assimilate.

Those who are easy to assimilate are the indigenous people in the newly received colonies. These indigenous people have lived with local European immigrants for decades, and many of them are already proficient in English, and some of them have even converted to Christianity.

Especially in some colonies of the British Empire, many indigenous people have already believed in Protestantism and regard English as their main language.

These indigenous people are easier to assimilate and may become recognized citizens of Australasia in the future.

Although population growth is good news, the various subsidies issued by the Australasia government to newborns and immigrants have also consumed a lot of money.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Finance, the subsidies issued by the Australasia government to newborn families amount to more than 3 million Australian dollars.

These data have increased by more than 20% compared with the previous year, which is enough to show that there are more and more newborns in Australasia.

But this is good news for Arthur and the Australasian government.

Compared with immigrants, the newborn babies of the local population are the core population. These people are pure-blooded Australasians from birth, and their recognition of the country and nation is much higher than that of immigrants from abroad.

These immigrants from abroad need at least 15 years of assimilation to be completely assimilated into Australasians.

This is because European immigrants and Australasians are almost the same. If they are immigrants of different skin and race, the assimilation time will even be several times longer.

Because of the large number of newborns, the average population of each household in Australasian is as high as 6.3 people.

This also means that Australasian couples of childbearing age have begun to generally choose to have three or four children.

If this continues, it may only take a few years, and the number of newborns in Australasian alone is expected to reach millions every year.

By then, the Australasian government would not have to work hard to introduce immigrants from abroad. It only needed to properly deal with the new population in the country, and it would not be able to develop Australasian into a populous country.

According to the current population trend, the population growth rate in Australasian is very exaggerated.

If the population growth rate can be stabilized, the population of Australasian may double in ten years.

Of course, immigration will be more or less affected by the war, and it is completely possible to double the population in more than ten years.

Even if Australasian did not have more stringent requirements for Russian immigrants, the number of Russian immigrants alone would have exceeded one million people each year.

For the Russian population, Arthur only needs those civilians with clean backgrounds, that is, the former serfs.

For those with unique ideas or those who are not very peaceful, they will naturally be strictly selected and will not be allowed to enter the borders of Australasian.

Arthur does not want the future revolution in Russia to burn the territory of Australasian. What can destroy a country the most is not the invasion from foreign enemies, but the chaos from within.

Of course, foreign intelligence officers are not omnipotent, and it is inevitable that some fish will slip through the net and come to Australasia.

However, all immigrants coming to Australasia have to go through an observation period of about half a year.

During this half year, intelligence officers, immigration agencies, public security and police stations, and local governments will closely monitor these immigrants. Once any problems are found, the final fate of these immigrants is to go to the mines to work as hard labor for a lifetime.

Don't underestimate Arthur's attention to immigration. In 1913 alone, the Australasia government found hundreds of "unstable elements" with unclear backgrounds from immigrants.

Some people either committed multiple illegal actions before immigration, or were participants and planners of some revolutions.

These people don't even think about it, they are directly included in Arthur's blacklist and are happy to get the right to work in the mines.

If they want to regain their freedom, they may have to pray that Australasia will become the world hegemon as soon as possible, so that Arthur will be happy, and maybe he will let them go with a wave of his hand.

Moreover, generally, these people will go through the interrogation stage after being verified. If they are found to have a purpose and come to Australasia in a group, they may face direct execution.

For the stability and security of Australasia, Arthur holds the attitude of rather killing a thousand by mistake than letting one go in terms of immigration.

Even if he can maintain stability during his own rule, Arthur cannot guarantee that without his suppression, the revolutionary forces in Australasia will not emerge.

Therefore, solving them from the root is the only way Arthur can think of to maintain national stability.

As long as the people of Australasia can live a good life and try to prevent the entry of foreign revolutionaries, the safety and stability of Australasia can still be guaranteed.

Although Australasia is very short of population, it still maintains a six-month observation period for each immigrant.

Unless you are a particularly capable technical and scientific research talent, otherwise, if you want to directly obtain the nationality of Australasia, you must make a very significant contribution.

For example, if an American steals information about high-tech weapons from the United States, he can also obtain the citizenship of Australasia.

Of course, this possibility is very small. Because at present, the United States is not far ahead of Australasia in all military technologies.

But before absorbing European scientists and technical talents, the United States' technology was at best at the level of the great powers, and even lagged behind the old powers such as Britain, Germany and France in many aspects.

In 1913, Australasia's economic development was also very rapid. The large population growth was one of the reasons, and the other was the ongoing infrastructure construction in Australasia and the production of the Leonora Industrial Base.

In 1913, Australasia's gross national product (GNP) reached US$1.578 billion, equivalent to 315.6 million pounds and 631.2 million Australian dollars, with a growth rate of 10.3%.

Although the growth rate is already very good, there is still a certain gap compared with other major powers.

The rapid growth of GNP is most evident in per capita income.

By the end of 1913, the per capita income of Australasia was 51.7 Australian dollars, which was behind France, but had slightly surpassed Austria-Hungary, Russia and Italy.

It is normal for Russia's per capita income to lag behind. It is not for nothing that the gray cattle are called. Most civilians in Russia are still in a stage of hunger and cold, and it is a problem for the per capita income to catch up with other powers.

The gap between Italy and Austria-Hungary and Australasia is not big, and it has been gradually widening.

If the population of these two countries is not several times that of Australasia, I am afraid that Australasia's GDP would have surpassed these two countries long ago.

Although Australasia's per capita income is not as good as that of countries like Britain, France, Germany and the United States, if only the people's happiness index is counted, Australasia may be able to compete with these countries.

Arthur's millions of Australian dollars in relief money every year are not wasted. Powers like Britain, France, Germany and the United States cannot avoid people starving to death or freezing to death.

After all, they have a population of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions. Once the corresponding relief policy is promulgated, it will be an unbearable loss for the country's finances.

Australasia does not have this worry. When the relief policy was promulgated, the population of Australasia was still small. According to the per capita income and the average household income, the number of people who need relief is small, and the funds spent are naturally not much.

Although the population has increased now, the income of many people has already exceeded the per capita level.

In addition, there is no shortage of jobs in the country due to various constructions. Therefore, the number of people in Australasia who need relief remains in a relatively small range.

Being able to eat and dress warmly, have a certain amount of savings, and have a happy family. This should be the best wish of most civilians in the world!

In Australasia, this beautiful wish is very likely to be realized, which is also the real reason why Australasia people love Arthur and love this country.

Civilians really don't want much. Those in power only need to take care of civilians simply to get the favor and love of civilians.

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