Chapter 490 – Intrigue in the Southern Hemisphere

Australia is considered to be one of the major British colonies, the war atmosphere is the strongest one, World War I Australia’s population of three million, conscription began four hundred thousand on the battlefield. World War II Australia will be more than seven million people, formed out of nine hundred and fifty thousand troops, the current Australian population of eight million two hundred and twenty million.

This also counts the post-war years moved to Australia’s five hundred thousand European immigrants, Australia is now fifteen people, there is a new immigrant within five years, the British accounted for most of them, naturally the Crown Prince and his wife’s visit is so popular on the past.

It was getting late and Princess Margaret was practically pushed out of her room by Pamela Mountbatten.

“What Alan is tired from making the airplane and needs to rest, it’s weird that you guys will rest.” Princess Margaret sulked, the scene in Newfoundland began to swirl in her mind again, her head parted how she could not sleep.

Princesses were still so nasty? Alan Wilson was merely with his fiancée, taking a bath and then sleeping. And Pamela Mountbatten is obviously more active, so what can be done?

Canberra’s urban planning in Alan Wilson’s opinion, in fact, quite a bit stronger than London, after all, Canberra and London compared to be considered a new city, located in a completely different era, which naturally causes this effect.

The so-called infrastructure maniacs, rather than being gifted, are in a race against time. Because by the time the income level goes up, the existing infrastructure will have taken shape, and the maintenance costs of the established infrastructure will be increasing. After that it will be much more difficult to have any essential improvement, and it is not uncommon to be overtaken by future emerging countries after a hundred years.

Canberra, which is now much better than London, will surely be overtaken by Tokyo in another thirty years, and in terms of hardware, twenty-first century Tokyo is starting to pale in comparison to Chinese cities. By the time another country starts building infrastructure from scratch, the new cities will also overtake the original well-known cities.

The current attraction of Canberra, and Australia in general, to European immigrants is absolutely real.

Strictly speaking, Alan Wilson’s leave of absence had not yet expired, except that the place of leave had been changed from Europe to Australia, and a telegram had been sent by the way for Gerald Edward, High Commissioner of British Malaya, to come to Canberra as a guest.

The latter was immediately pleased to arrive, and became the second passenger on the Comet I. After getting off the plane, he couldn’t stop admiring the Comet I, which he obviously thought very highly of, “It was a perfect experience, and the ride was very comfortable.”

Gerard Edward said it was a perfect flight experience, the whole journey was comfortable and smooth, the service was superb and the meals on board were delicious.

“Fine, fine!” Alan Wilson nodded modestly, then poked his fiancée, and Pamela Mountbatten immediately described the Comet airliner.

It was possible that the future air routes of Malaya would depend on the Malayan High Commissioner in front of her, and Pamela Mountbatten, who had been reminded by Alan Wilson, immediately tried to build up her network. This was the missing part of her network of contacts, for these bureaucratic classes, her accumulation of contacts was still very insufficient.

As long as nothing goes terribly wrong with the Comet airliner, Alan Wilson feels that he can take on Boeing face-to-face anywhere except the Americas excluding Canada! Uh, except Japan too.

The latter day civil aviation market oligopolization is very obvious, Boeing is the unquestionable number one, share more than the second place Airbus ten percent, two kinds of airliners occupy close to ninety percent of the world’s share.

If the competition starts now, Comet certainly has a few years of first-mover advantage, the U.S. market as always can not get in, even the Americas market is bad enough, but elsewhere, it is the spelling of the basic disk who is big.

Dozens of colonial commissioners are widely distributed, and can definitely solve a very large part of the Comet airliner sales problem. As for Australia, Canada, these British countries, although the United States has surpassed the United Kingdom in terms of national power, but the current tiger skin is still in the United Kingdom, not necessarily lower than the United States influence.

Pamela Mountbatten, who was reminded by her fiancé, of course understood at once that a lot of the company’s performance rested on these colonial commissioners.

Alan Wilson invited the current Malayan emperor to arrive, naturally want to talk about the problem of underdevelopment of iron ore. In fact, this problem can be more extensive, for example, Australia and the Netherlands still control the island of New Guinea, 700,000 to 800,000 square kilometers there, not to mention 600,000 prisoners of war, or even six million can be eaten.

But compared to the unobstructed view of northwestern Australia, if the Japanese POWs ran to the island of New Guinea, if something really happened, even more no one would know.

“Japanese prisoners of war?” Gerald Edward looked surprised, “The US will try to get us to release them?”

“The situation is already different, especially considering that the situation in the Far East has changed in favor of the Soviet Union, the United States may look at Japan differently, that’s how Americans are, they don’t really care about what other people think as long as they think about it themselves.” Alan Wilson shrugged his shoulders and said, “So share the use of some prisoners of war in Holland, Australia and even Portugal, maybe there is still something to talk about this matter, the United States one by one persuasion, it always takes time, right? At that time, each talking to each other, many mouths to take care of the interests of all sides, time is not out of it.”

It can be said that in this time period, no one more than Alan Wilson understand the significance of Japan to the United States, how he has seen the development of the next few decades, the significance of U.S. control of Japan to recognize more profound.

Because the entire Western Pacific defense is established with Japan as the core, so the U.S. decision makers have always regarded Japan as the cornerstone of Asian stability, will maintain the U.S.-Japan alliance as an untouchable bottom line. Imagine if the U.S.-Japan alliance collapses, the U.S. military withdrawal from Japan, China and Japan and then to the joint, the U.S. forces in South Korea is a turtle in a jar, Southeast Asian countries lack of help, Guam will also be under the precarious.

As a result, the Western Pacific defense line will collapse, has long been dissatisfied with the U.S., has been trying to stand up for itself in Europe will also take advantage of the situation and move, expulsion of U.S. troops, the U.S. world hegemony collapsed, shrinking back to the range of the pre-World War II period. Realistically speaking, Japan can be said to be the foundation for securing American hegemony.

Japan is incapable of breaking free from US control, except for its population and nominal GDP, whether in terms of corporate profits, labor efficiency, and some side data such as pensions, productivity, and so on. Japan belongs to the Spanish level in European countries, not even compared to Italy.

The so-called second in the world in the 1980s was entirely supported by a population of more than 100 million, and there is no country in Europe with such a large population except the Soviet Union. European countries eight hours of work, Japan, including South Korea will need twelve hours to catch up.

The so-called seven major industrialized countries organization, Japan is the real bottom of the first, only than the general only 40-50 million people in the total number of other countries, very dominant. Then it ballooned and was weakened by the Plaza Accord.

But although Alan Wilson thought that Japan was a Spain three times the size, it didn’t make it any easier. Six hundred thousand workers of the right age going back would certainly be a big help.

Since the British colonies might be pressured, dispersing this group of POWs would also pull in feelings with the other colonial powers, especially with drawing Australia closer.

“If we take the initiative to propose that a portion of the Confederate Army’s prisoners of war be sent to the islands of New Guinea controlled by Holland and Australia, to build up the local area in the name of atonement, I don’t think that Australia and Holland will refuse, after all, the Japanese Confederate Army in the midst of the Second World War was a source of great discontent to the two countries, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Japan had challenged the colonial order in the local area, the repression in the East Indies wouldn’t have have left the Dutch at a loss.”

Standing in the colonizer’s point of view, Alan Wilson’s words have been said quite clearly, the prisoners of war of the Japanese Southern Army, it is best not to go back, directly be internal digestion can be.

“This is a big deal!” Gerard Edward was a little hesitant, what about 600,000 prisoners of war, this was not a small number.

“We can get the Dutch to propose it, and then get the Portuguese in Timor to favor it, and with someone taking the lead, the Australians will definitely be in favor of it.” Alan Wilson looked to his fiancée as he said this.

“As soon as we get wind of this, I’ll talk to the Australian MPs.” Pamela Mountbatten got the signal that it was all wrapped up in her, while adding to Gerard Edward, “There are supposedly traces of copper on the island of New Guinea, and I was thinking of sending an exploration team, but the island is a harsh environment, and I believe it would be good for everyone if there was a construction team with the discipline to build it. If a copper mine is indeed found, then Mr. Gerard, who helped this time, should undoubtedly get his share in it.”

Pamela Mountbatten, however, had just discovered the great iron ore mine of Australia, and now the whole country of Australia was talking about it, and of course Gerald Edward knew about it.

Now Pamela Mountbatten, who was already simply General Mountbatten’s daughter, had her own place in the popularity, or else there wouldn’t be people trying to dig in.

“Wow!” The smile on Gerard Edward’s face flickered, and he said with a sense of justice, “Regarding the destruction of the Japanese Confederate Army in Southeast Asia, it must be more than just the Malayan region, and it’s very normal to atone for your sins with your work.”

“Very normal.” Alan Wilson echoed the other man’s words.

“It would be reasonable for us to give some compensation to Holland as well as Australia and even Portugal.” Gerard Edward hesitantly stated, “All for the sake of peace.”

“Of great importance to peace.” Alan Wilson nodded in favor, Pamela Mountbatten following suit.

“Then wait for my good news, I’ll talk to the Dutch first.” Gerard Edward began to tell his thoughts, the room filled with whispers and every now and then a heartfelt laugh came out.