The Rise Of Australasia - Chapter 360

Chapter 360: Chapter 310: Why Not Support Australasia?

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The screening of the film “The Dream of Australasia” continued throughout National Day Week in Australasia.

According to the joint statistics of the three major film companies, throughout National Day Week, more than 30,000 screenings were held across Australasia, attracting millions of viewers.

This doesn’t mean that the rest of the people weren’t interested in watching the movie, but each screening was overcrowded, which inevitably left some people unable to get in.

Regardless, the film has been watched by at least 70 million people so far, setting a new record for the number of viewers.

Arthur believed that if there had been more screenings or if the film had been shown for a longer period, at least tens of millions of Australasians would have watched it.

Even in later generations, the appeal of a free movie would draw many spectators.

In this era when entertainment options were limited, a free sound film promoting the country and its people was bound to attract even more viewers.

Of course, these thirty thousand screenings cost the three major film companies up to two million Australian dollars.

Adding in the cost of purchasing projection equipment and training projectionists, as well as the cost of filming and editing the screenplay, the total expenditure for this movie was probably in the tens of millions of Australian dollars.

But in reality, for Arthur, this 10 million Australian dollars was the best and most worthwhile investment he has made recently, without any doubt.

What was evident was that after National Day Week, the crime rate and cases across Australasia had significantly reduced, and conflicts among various ethnic immigrants had also decreased.

Many people were even able to put aside their previous prejudices and become friends or partners just because of the phrase “We Are All Australasians.”

For the first time, the broad and vague concept of the Australasian ethnicity was widely accepted by all Australasians and all immigrants.

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Even according to the news from the Royal Parliament, since National Day holiday, there have been dozens of applications to form nationalist parties, and “Australasian” has become the most honorable recognition in the eyes of all the inhabitants of Australasia.

This was a good thing for Arthur, as it could mitigate the hidden dangers posed by non-British immigrants.

In attracting immigrants, Arthur could finally absorb a large number of European immigrants without worrying about the decline in the proportion of the main ethnic group causing internal problems and contradictions in the country.

It could be said that as long as the concept of the Australasian ethnicity was well managed, there would always be only one unified ethnicity in Australasia.

Those who did not accept the unified concept of being an “Australasian” would become outsiders in Australasia, not only unaccepted by those around them but also excluded from the government’s welfare policies.

Yes, many welfare policies would be available for Australasians in the future, but all with a single premise: only Australasians could enjoy them.

With the arrival of mid-January 1912, the British Empire’s naval policy was officially changed, accompanied by a debate and meeting in the British Cabinet.

In fact, the trend of changing the United Kingdom’s naval policy had already been revealed during the Cabinet meeting at the end of last year.

The actual reason was quite simple: it all went along with Naval Minister Churchill’s plan that for every battleship built by Germany, the British Empire would build two.

A 1:2 ratio of battleship construction quickly led to the British Empire’s active and planned battleships outnumbering Germany’s.

However, the problem was that Germany was building a significant number of battleships and investing heavily in their navy.

This meant that Britain’s investment was double that of Germany’s, and even with the vast resources of its colonies, the British Empire couldn’t withstand this terrifying consumption for long.

At the end of the financial report in 1911, the British Cabinet was shocked to find that Britain’s finances could barely keep up with the progress of the Naval Act.

Based on Churchill’s 1:2 ratio, if Germany was to build three battleships and one battlecruiser every year, it meant that the British Empire had to build at least six battleships and two battlecruisers each year.

From 1912 to 1914, the British Empire would have to build a total of 18 battleships and 6 battlecruisers in a three-year period, with a cost of over 40 million pounds for main battleships alone.

Even if this cost was divided over three years, the annual cost of building main battleships alone would be at least 15 million pounds.

Even with the British Empire’s current annual military budget of over 60 million pounds, they couldn’t afford such a terrifying expense.

It’s worth noting that even the previous, less intense naval arms race had put a considerable burden on the European countries.

If the terrifying construction plan continued, the British Empire’s finances would inevitably face problems in the long run.

At this point, it’s worth mentioning the series of welfare policies enacted in the United Kingdom during the reign of Edward VII after the Reform Party took control of the government.

These welfare policies greatly improved King Edward VII’s and the British government’s prestige, making the people of the British Empire more united.

However, these welfare policies had already put a strain on the British Empire’s finances. If the massive battleship construction continued, the empire’s finances would inevitably become unsustainable.