Holy Roman Empire

After half a year of negotiations, Britain and Austria finally reached an agreement.On November 12, 1877, representatives of the two countries signed the "British-Austrian Free Trade Agreement" in Paris, and Austria officially joined the free trade system.

I have to say that the Paris conference is a comedy. It was originally intended to reconcile the contradictions of various countries and eliminate international conflicts. As a result, what I wanted to do was not achieved, and many irrelevant treaties were born.

It is also correct to think about it. Anyway, it is also a high-level meeting of various countries. Without any results, how can you be so embarrassed to go back?

Digression is inevitable, everything is for political achievements.As of now, eight treaties have been produced at the Paris conference, involving most European countries.

This is still just plain. No one can know how many secret contracts there are in the dark. In short, the Paris conference did not open in vain.

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At the Palace of Versailles, Napoleon IV dropped a glass and scolded: "Damn Briton, damn Austrian idiot, they must have deliberately!"

Napoleon IV ’s guess was correct. The British-Austrian free trade negotiations were actually conducted in Vienna, and they ran to Paris to sign a treaty, which was strongly requested by the British.

The reason is needless to say, the French arrange the Queen Victoria so much, and the London government cannot react without it!

Diplomatic protests have no way to block the French. The French newspapers dare to publish even the emperor's lace news, not to mention the Queen of England?

From the initial "curse", it has now developed into peachy news, and even erotic novels have appeared, and the content is unsightly.

The Strait cannot stop the spread of entertainment and gossip. Through the dissemination of these newspapers and novels, it has long crossed the ocean and entered Britain, and spread it secretly.

It ’s one thing to have content, but it ’s too humiliating to make the British people very unhappy.Everyone asked the London government to stop the bad behavior of the French.

Of course, the British royal family should play a major role in this.Under the pressure of all parties, the London government will naturally take action.

Since you can't stop the French, you can make a big news, divert everyone's attention, and hit the French by the way.

The "British-Austrian Free Trade Agreement" is undoubtedly the best killer, directly hitting the French.Once the treatment is not good, France, which is already lagging behind, will really go down.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Allen: "Your Majesty, it is not time to worry about them. The top priority is to minimize the impact.

Britain and Austria have reached an agreement. It is estimated that it will not take long for the two countries to take action to attract more countries to join the free trade system.

Now the big European countries that are out of the free trade system are us and Spain.Now we must stabilize the Spaniard, otherwise we will be in trouble."

I have to admit that the British diplomacy is powerful. In the past few decades, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, the Nordic Federation and other countries have joined in.

Now that Austria has joined the free trade system, the remaining Switzerland, the German Federal Empire, Greece, and Montenegro will naturally join the free trade system.

France was once again isolated, and Spain, the only remaining country, must grasp it anyway.Fortunately, the Spanish royal family was supported by Napoleon III, a proper pro-French school.

Foreign Minister Montero: "It's not that simple, the Spaniards may not stand with us this time.

There are too many chips in the hands of Britain and Austria, and the price they can give will be much higher than ours.

Our advantage is mainly the pro-French law of the Spanish government, but in the face of interest, it is difficult to say how much this advantage can play.

The situation is now very obvious, and it is our turn to make a decision.The current semi-free trade model, which was feasible before, has now become the worst choice."

"Semi-free trade system" is an economic policy formulated by Napoleon III with reference to the economic policies of European countries and according to the actual situation in France.

Simply put, it is to implement duty-free or low tariffs on industrial raw materials required by France, and implement trade protection policies on goods that can be produced in the country.

To some extent, before this, the economic policies of France and Austria were somewhat similar, and they were protecting domestic industry and commerce.

Unfortunately, Austria seized the opportunity of the second industrial revolution, took the lead in completing the industrial transformation, and also supported by agriculture, and now has the ability to participate in international competition.

France is different, not to mention its own lack of resources, domestic capitalists do not like to invest in manufacturing.

Even Napoleon III encouraged the development of manufacturing, but failed to change the nature of French capital's preference for usury.

With insufficient capital flowing into the manufacturing industry, industrial development naturally lags behind.The core factor that caused all this is essentially the lack of raw materials for French domestic industry.

Although France is also a colonial empire, it is also a desert empire.Most of the vast colonies are deserts, and the colonial output is relatively insufficient.

This, combined with the annexation of the more resource-poor regions of Italy, has made France ’s resource crisis even worse and has to rely on imports.

Now more than 70% of the world's industrial raw material exports are monopolized by Britain and Austria.In order to crack down on competitors, Yingao, which has the pricing power of raw materials, artificially raises the market price of raw materials.

The development of industry by importing industrial raw materials naturally raises costs.In the international competition, the competitiveness of French industrial and commercial products is obviously insufficient.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Allen: "His Excellency, joining the free trade system is easier said than done. If it is implemented, we must first consider whether domestic industry and commerce can withstand the impact.

According to the statistics of the Paris Daily, the overall cost of industrial and commercial products produced in our country is 2.9% higher than that of the British and 2.7% higher than that of Austria.

However, the high cost of domestic industrial production is a fact. If market protection is liberalized, we will be at a disadvantage to face the international competition."

The high cost of industrial production is an unsolvable problem.Unless the price of raw materials is brought down, there is no solution.

Napoleon IV: "If industrial production costs differ by two or three percentage points, it does not seem to be irreparable.

British and Austrian capital also need to make money, they can not sell at cost, then domestic companies are nothing more than making less.

The government can also reduce this gap by lowering taxes.As long as it has survived the first wave of shocks, I believe domestic companies can gain a foothold in the competition.

The worst is that we can rely on distance and advantage to maintain the local market, which will not make the situation worse."

After hearing the words of Napoleon IV, the Minister of Finance Alan was startled and hurriedly dissuaded: "Your Majesty, things are not so simple. This gap is the total gap of all industries combined.

If it is specific to an industry, the cost gap may be enlarged to 20% to 30%, which is no longer able to make up for the adjustment of tax rate."

Just kidding, no one knows how much water there is in the data published in the newspaper. Whether it is through data analysis or speculation out of thin air.

The French government does not have a special statistical agency. When data is needed, economic experts are responsible for estimation. The government then performs art processing according to demand.

Allen did not want to change all this. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he knew too much truth, but the French people could not accept the fact that they were inferior to Britain and Austria.

Not to mention that now, after the original space-time Franco-Prussian War, the French people did not admit that they were inferior to Germany.

The World War I theory was caused by the contradiction between Germany and France, and it was actually caused by the pride of the French.After the World War I lost the arrogance of the French, there was the lying body of World War II.

Rather than daring to publish the real numbers, it is better not to count them, and everyone is confused.

In the free trade system, it is usually enough to shout slogans. If it is taken seriously, it will kill the country.

In addition to the advantages of the financial industry, most industries in France will be affected.The emergence of usury empire is not without reason.

Napoleon IV frowned, no doubt he was beaten again.This feeling is very uncomfortable, it seems that his emperor is very ignorant.

"So what should we do to solve the problem at hand? The UK and Austria are working together on a free trade system. Most European countries have joined in, and the rest of the countries will not last long.

By then, not only Europe, the whole world will be covered by the free trade system, can France really be alone?"

Napoleon IV did not understand, but rather understood too well.The free trade system that the British were tinkering with was a conspiracy in itself, and even if it was known, it could not be stopped.

Now France's industry has not erupted, and it can still be free for the time being.Once the domestic industry and commerce are further developed, and by then the reality is pressing, France still has to join in.

Of course, you can also choose to challenge the world.The original Germans of space-time were just because they lacked raw materials and markets, and lacked the right to speak in the free trade system.

The situation in France is naturally much better than that of the German Empire, but the crisis still exists.Unless the manufacturing industry is not developed, the crisis will explode sooner or later.