Chapter 1056: The Ashes of Time
Great Britain was a land of great people, otherwise why would French filmmakers and German entrepreneurs come here? It was not too much for Alan Wilson, a diplomat, to receive them.
The years are getting old, and compared to the peak of their face value, some of the honored guests may not be so magnificent. But this is not a reason to dislike, get along for a long time, there are always some feelings exist, not to talk about the wind and moon talk about parenting is also possible.
Reception of a circle of foreign friends, Allen Wilson dragged the tired body to find Makins, he always have to leave himself some time, Makins saw his old friend in a fatigue, but also can not help but grin, “I sometimes wonder, your salary is not higher than others?”
“Why?” Unscrewing the thermos and taking a sip of goji berries, Alan Wilson licked his lips and asked rhetorically.
“Otherwise you have no reason to work so hard.” Makins was filled with puzzlement, “You’re abroad for half of the year, right? It seems like you’re busy at all times, and that’s more than hard work can explain.”
“One must always pay for choices.” Allen Wilson said without a clue, and Makins nodded, thinking that Allen Wilson was talking about diplomatic work.
In fact, it was not at all, Allen Wilson was talking about the time when he was young and strong, he was not self-centered enough to see a luxury car and wanted to test drive it.
To this day there is no talk of regret, the body is fatigued a little, but the good thing is that the mental pleasure can wash away the physical exhaustion. Anymore, it’s a classic car, and he’s not losing out.
Alan Wilson could shrug off the fatigue as a watery trip to Africa and muddle through the subject, asking Makins what was interesting about his current job.
The Home Office was also one of the three traditionally high-powered ministries, and dealt with a wider variety of things than the Treasury and Foreign Office.
“The domestic shipbuilding industry seems to be hitting some bottlenecks.” Makins thought for a moment and shrugged, “The shipbuilding industry is not as good as it used to be, there are not as many orders as in previous years, and the profits can’t be compared.”
“So?” Alan Wilson nodded with a saturnine face, not realizing that so soon, the world’s number one shipbuilding powerhouse had run into trouble? That’s right, if you count civilian shipbuilding, the British shipbuilding industry is a stronger presence than the United States.
From the post-war Britain has half of the year, the total tonnage of shipbuilding is more than the United States, while the other half of the year in the United States behind.
Britain’s unique geographic location and water conditions make ships play an important role in people’s production and life, which in turn led to the rise of shipbuilding industry. The rise of the British shipbuilding industry and the British political environment, on the one hand, the government’s strong support for the construction of warships, led to the development of shipbuilding technology and scale.
The performance of the British free trade policy stimulated the ship as a carrier in the international competition in the role of the prominent, thus promoting the development of shipbuilding industry.
In addition, the development of the British shipbuilding industry has its own industrial advantages, which is in the leading position in the scale of the ship, ship power, construction specialization, organizational forms and patron-client relationship.
During the two world wars, Britain’s dominant position was challenged by other countries, and despite the phenomenon of being surpassed by other countries in one aspect, it was still able to maintain its position as the world’s top shipbuilding country in general.
In fact the first thing Britain recovered after the war was the shipbuilding industry, stepping on the American free-wheeler under its feet, and perennially surpassing the United States in terms of tonnage launched, which according to history should be the Suez Canal War, which caused the first difficulties in the British shipbuilding industry.
But the underlying reason was still that Britain was no longer invested in the Royal Navy, resulting in shipbuilding no longer being sustained by military orders. On the contrary, although the United States also began to appear civilian shipbuilding decline, but has been using military orders have not been the United States shipbuilding industry to continue.
The United States approach is not without sequelae, that is, after the United States warships unit price has been a sky-high.
Alan Wilson had thought that the British Royal Navy is now normal renewal of the shipbuilding industry is a favorable, but now it seems to be just a few more years to maintain the prosperity, the British shipbuilding industry is still hit the ceiling.
“You’re not thinking of an industrial shift, are you?” Seeing his old friend’s pensive look, Makins directly said, “I’ll take you to a place to turn around.”
“No, what place?” Alan Wilson was interrupted in his thoughts and said the words that came before.
“You’ll know when you get there.” Makins laughed and directly dragged Allen Wilson into the car, the two’s destination was the last textile factory on British soil, but also a dye factory, the latter was more important, otherwise a simple textile factory, it is estimated that it would have been closed by now.
The journey wasn’t far, but it was out of London’s boundaries, and before they even entered, the near-moaning sound of centrifuges dewatering could be heard throughout the halls, burrowing like pinpricks into the sinews of the workers monitoring the work in progress, concentrating their full attention on the machines, and clashing violently against the colorful fabric that fluttered like flags on the proximity machines.
The two men appeared in a factory room. Here were small machines for printing and dyeing black fabrics for men’s clothing.
The light of day shone through a thousand windows, painting the black vapor of the room and the workers a light green.
The workers stood like stone pillars with their arms folded, motionless, gazing at the machines. Thousands of meters of fabric passed through the machine and were dyed very evenly with the frothy black pigment that was sprayed out of the machine.
The walls were shaking as the factory went to work with its full capacity. An elevator mounted against the wall brought the hall into direct contact with the four floors above it.
The low rumble of the machine echoed continuously through the hall. The elevator either carried one batch of carts, goods and people up to another floor or unloaded another batch of people and goods in the hall.
“Any sense of what’s going on?” Makins asked Allen Wilson in a whisper, asking him to comment on the sight before him.
“Not much of a feeling, backward industries are supposed to be eliminated.”
Alan Wilson opened his mouth salty, but because of the special environment here, if he didn’t want to get beaten up, he was bound to put the volume of sound under control, “There is no profitability in the industry tough to retain nature is unnecessary, either innovate to improve production efficiency. But the textile industry is quite an old industry, if there is a way to innovate, it will not fall to this point today.”
In order to prevent accidents from happening, what steelmaking and machinery manufacturing is necessary to retain, this textile industry? What’s the point of keeping it, 800 million shirts for a Boeing?
Britain has the Comet airliner, there is absolutely no need to do so, as long as there are no outrageous mistakes, Boeing even if it can prevail in the future, without a few decades is also do not think too much.
“The government is extremely important to the unemployment rate, the textile industry to do so is not impossible, but if the shipbuilding industry to do so. You have to know what the status of the shipbuilding industry in the UK.” Makins let out a bitter smile and said, “I have no other intention, but simply to bring you here to see the textile industry that is about to disappear from Britain.”
“Now that I’m here, it’s good to see the ashes of the ages.” Alan Wilson squinted at his old friend, and said unhurriedly, “Nothing in the world is constant; one cannot go against the tide in everything.”
“Aren’t you the most willing to be in adversity?” Makins commented with a grin, “With a permanent undersecretary of the foreign ministry like you, I don’t see the foreign minister having much of a job.”
“The Minister has no job without me, the Prime Minister likes to direct the work on diplomacy.” Nor was Alan Wilson taking it personally against Macmillan; it was merely a fact that was more than obvious. Aidan and Nehru were close, not having doubled up as Foreign Secretary themselves and completely sidelined Macmillan.
How else could Alan Wilson have proposed that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office be merged, and how could Macmillan have been so on board?
It is also true that there is no room for him to play in diplomacy, only to think of a new track to start again, the Prime Minister likes the diplomatic arena to show their talents, he is the Foreign Secretary all right and the Commonwealth countries to contact contact can always be right?
Two senior Whitehall officials, in the fuel plant, to experience a leadership inspection treatment. Of course, this enterprise is mainly to give Muggins face, he is the permanent undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not have such a big face.
Muddy daylight streamed in through the very dirty window panes, which were covered with a layer of vapor, illuminating the machines and the people even more clearly. In the hall, under the light of the pale green day-light, long streaks of red vapor could be seen drifting back and forth, as if they were dusting the halo of the vapor lamps.
It was as if man and machine were in a state not yet awake, as if they were some phantom controlled by the terrible force generated by the movement, as if bundles of rags and piles of dust had been stirred together and thrown into a whirlpool that kept churning and roaring.
Alan Wilson held his nose, he felt that people working in this kind of environment for a long time will certainly affect their health, the consequences are much more serious than he has nothing to take people on a rocket, this factory are no need to keep, should be transferred out.
Ten Downing Street, Prime Minister Aidan listened to Macmillan’s words, fell into deep thought, as Prime Minister he is not too much interference in foreign affairs, Macmillan is not in the therefore dissatisfied, and then proposed the merger of the department of the proposal?
But since the death of Duncan, the Conservative Party is really missing a big power leader, directly agreed to Macmillan will not destroy the balance of the party?
The truth is not to hide! The question Aiden, at this very moment, was considering was whether Macmillan was reliable. There is no idea of snooping on the talisman.
Britain is an election is to choose the party, the party leader automatically becomes the prime minister, because of internal divisions in the incumbent prime minister was pulled down, is not unimaginable things, this is different from the United States.
“Harold, Duncan has only been gone for a short while, there might be some problems if we merge the Commonwealth Office now.” Aiden didn’t agree to it straight away, “How about we wait until the six-party talks have an outcome and we consider the matter? There’s always Churchill’s thoughts to consider, isn’t there?”