Holy Roman Empire - Chapter 170

Chapter 170: Chapter 57, Industrial Regulation

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The unpredictability of human hearts is the most difficult to fathom; Franz naturally had no knowledge of the minor incident that occurred in Pesci City. As an emperor, as long as there was peace throughout the land, individual thoughts were not within his scope of concern.

By now, the bureaucrats of the Austrian Government had become accustomed to three major assessment indicators: education, stability, and economy.

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The easiest to achieve was social stability. With a strong government, local power factions remained compliant, and a few troublemakers who disrupted social stability could simply be dealt with.

Next, there was “education.” With regulations in place and coupled with the Ministry of Education’s plans, everything could be advanced step by step.

Of course, to achieve results in this area, one must adapt strategies to local conditions and put in considerable effort.

The most troublesome aspect remained economic development. In bustling cities, this was less of a problem; the nation’s economy was growing rapidly with large cities being the main drivers of economic growth. Formulating suitable local policies would suffice.

For remote areas, economic development was much slower. In some places, progress was virtually at a standstill. Even if the bureaucrats wanted to make an effort, they often didn’t know where to start.

The uneven regional economic development had become a perplexing issue for the Austrian Government, and it was a problem without an apparent solution.

Franz was also powerless in this regard; not just now, but even a hundred or two hundred years later, these issues would still be challenges that plagued countries around the world.

Many factors constrained regional economic development, including transport, resources, climate, geographic environment, and population…

Compared to the others, the transportation issue was the easiest to solve. At worst, it was a matter of building roads, a problem that could be resolved sooner or later with adequate investment.

The population issue also had solutions; climate, resources, and geographic conditions were beyond human control, at least in the 19th century.

Looking at the economic development report in his hand, Franz let out a helpless sigh.

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He was aware that channeling a significant amount of resources into large cities would exacerbate regional economic disparities, yet the practice had to continue.

There was no choice; this approach yielded the highest returns. Investing in isolated and impoverished regions would not even generate a bubble of output, which was utterly disheartening.

“Prime Minister, why are the investments in the irrigation projects all located in the plains?” Franz inquired with concern.

With industrial development focused on large cities, there was no issue, but agricultural development should not only consider the plains. Many mountainous regions also had potential for development.

For political considerations, the government must also take into account the welfare of various regions during its investments.

Prime Minister Felix explained, “Your Majesty, it mainly concerns the distribution of the population. At present, Austria’s population is primarily concentrated in the plains, while other regions have relatively fewer inhabitants.

From the perspective of optimizing resource allocation, we first concentrate on developing the populous plains. Other regions with fewer people and less competitive pressure have proportionally lower demands for irrigation projects.”

Franz nodded. From an agricultural perspective, the plains were more suitable for growing food crops and had greater demand for irrigation projects.

Mountainous regions, depending on their specific geographic conditions, were better suited for growing cash crops.

Don’t assume that growing cash crops is always more profitable. This is the 19th century, after all, and people’s living standards are limited. Aside from a few industrial raw materials with significant demand, most cash crops are not suitable for large-scale development.

High-value agricultural products had a meager market demand in this era; the general populace simply couldn’t afford them, and there were too few people with purchasing power.

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There was no need to push for off-season agriculture. The spontaneous production by farm owners alone was enough to meet market demand. As for large-scale development, that could be considered once everyone was more affluent!

After some thought, Franz said, “Prepare a national agriculture production report. According to local conditions, regions can pilot economic agriculture. If there are results, we can gradually promote it. For example, the Italian Area could cultivate silk.

In recent years, the domestic food production has increased rapidly. We must be proactive to avert potential crises; it would be unfortunate if an abundance of grain were to harm agriculture.”

Food production is not a matter of the more, the better. If it weren’t for the Holy Roman Economic Alliance, Austrian agriculture would already be facing overcapacity.

Given this situation, promoting suitable cash crops in certain regions is necessary.

The growth of the food demand market in this era could not keep up with the rate of increase in food production. Blindly increasing food production was not appropriate for Austria.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Felix replied.

Continuing to peruse the report in his hand, Franz suddenly thought of future industrial pollution. He certainly didn’t want Vienna to become like contemporary London.

Industrial development inevitably caused environmental pollution, but where the pollution occurred could be controlled.

In consideration of his future well-being, Franz thought it was necessary to limit the industrial development of Vienna, even if it meant sacrificing the city’s growth rate.

Franz pondered and said, “Vienna is developing too quickly. In just a few years, the city’s population is going to surpass one million. The number of people is increasing, but the urban infrastructure isn’t keeping up. Problems arising are just a matter of time.

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Taking the actual situation into account, the government needs to find a way to divert some businesses to other cities, especially those that pollute significantly— those shouldn’t be in Vienna.”

Redistributing some of Vienna’s resources to other regions and creating a new industrial city seemed like a worthy investment to Franz.

Vienna is a landlocked city; concentrating a large amount of resources here is essentially a waste.

It’s not always better for a city to grow bigger; more importantly, you have to consider its capacity. In Franz’s plan, the future Vienna should reach a limit of two to three million people.

A megacity with a population over ten million isn’t needed in Austria, nor does it have the capacity to sustain such a large city.

Prime Minister Felix thought for a moment and said, “Your Majesty, the inflow of capital is regulated by the market. Isn’t it wrong for us to interfere artificially?”

In this era, the economies of European countries were naturally regulated by the market, with Austria being an exception where the government directly intervened in economic development.

This intervention, however, wasn’t through administrative orders but rather by formulating economic policies to guide the market or through state-owned enterprises.

What Franz was proposing now was for the government to intervene in the market through administrative orders, something very rare worldwide.

Franz shook his head and said, “We can just explain it to the outside world. Say that Vienna has reached its capacity limit, the population is growing too quickly, and our resource supply can’t ensure sustainability.

Using media, we can publicize the adverse effects of rapid population growth, such as the decline in per capita living space, insufficient material supply, and so on.

The government should then reach out to capitalists, not concern themselves with the factories already established, but encourage those not yet built to relocate to other cities.

For the next five years, Vienna will no longer approve the establishment of any new factories. Those that have already been established must undergo strict reviews and cannot engage in heavily polluting industries.

Regarding industrial pollution, the government can set a hazard level based on the environmental risks and optimize the allocation during factory construction.

With the development of industrial technology, heavily polluting industries will continue to increase. Without comprehensive considerations, one factory could potentially destroy a whole city.”

Vienna is the political, economic, and cultural center of Austria, and Franz didn’t want to add an industrial center to that list.

There are many cities in Austria more suitable for industrial development than Vienna; there is no need to crowd factories there.

Investing in Vienna is fine, but establishing factories is unwelcome from now on as far as Franz is concerned.

It is much better to reject them now rather than to move people out after the factories have been established.

The issue of environmental pollution wasn’t something that everyone was aware of in this era, or perhaps the harm it caused wasn’t severe yet.

“Your Majesty, isn’t that a bit extreme? Can one factory really destroy an entire city?” Prime Minister Felix said in disbelief.

“Is that so difficult? Take our steel mill, for example. If its capacity is significant enough, just the industrial wastewater discharge can pollute an entire river.

If a city’s water source becomes polluted, can that city continue to exist?” Franz countered.

This wasn’t alarmist talk; in later times, there were indeed cities that were destroyed due to contaminated water sources.

It’s not only that industrial wastewater discharges into rivers can pollute the river water; actually, the groundwater can hardly escape being affected as well.

If other places are polluted, so be it, but not Vienna. Franz had no plans to relocate the capital, so taking precautionary measures became an inevitable choice.

The pollution in Vienna isn’t severe now, but that may not be the case in a few decades. With the development of the chemical industry and the rise of chemical plants, the consequences could be dire.

London is a negative example where tens of thousands of people died from smog at its peak. Franz couldn’t live in such an environment, and he guessed he would have moved away long ago if he had to.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Felix answered.

If he couldn’t understand, he could take his time to understand it later. Anyway, the concept of severe consequences from “environmental pollution” was now firmly in his mind.