Chapter 643 A Common Ground

As far as the issue of Xiangjiang is concerned, the greatest advantage does not lie in any clean legal system or democracy. Rather, it lies above the unique location and foreign relations, all other factors are secondary.

Replace any group of people, placed in Xiangjiang Xiangjiang will develop just as well, the geographical location has been decided. Just as if all the people of Mordor were relocated to the Tibetan Plateau, the people of Mordor would not be able to create another Mordor out of the Tibetan Plateau.

Xiangjiang in the definition of the British Empire was a free port, and if there was anything that was envied by the citizens of the homeland, the tax rate in free ports was much lower than the homeland, and before Alan Wilson went to take office in Newfoundland, Xiangjiang’s tax rate was the lowest.

That doesn’t mean that the Shannon didn’t turn over its wealth; after all, after the Great War, the British mainland was arguably poorer than it had ever been.

But compared to the 100,000 civil servants in British India who are united as one, Xiangjiang is handing over one and seventy-five percent of its annual income every year, which is not high by any stretch of the imagination.

At present, the annual income of Hong Kong is around four hundred million Hong Kong dollars, according to the exchange rate of sixteen to one between Hong Kong dollars and British pounds. The annual income of the British Hong Kong Government is less than 30 million pounds.

This is very good, Alan Wilson management of British Malaya is currently not this number. Not to mention the need to hand over more money to the Ministry of Finance to enrich the local finances.

Allen Wilson to the Hong Kong Governor Ge Lianghong put forward an invitation, the nominal invitation nominal in the United States at the request of the allies, to discuss how to combat smuggling, in fact, is to invite the other party to Malaya to exchange experience in the construction of a little bit, and in the meantime, traveling around.

In waiting for the other side of the time, Alan Wilson’s main job is to see if he is in the time of departure, Malaya’s social order is still smooth, after all, the current British Malaya’s two major ethnic groups, can be missed.

Not to mention the Chinese, Sukarno was high on Greater Indonesianism and was trying to liberate the Malays every now and then.

Thankfully, it was generally smooth, Alisa didn’t say anything unusual and asked her boss how the conversation with Mr. Lim went.

“Mr. Lim is as pedantic as a traditional Chinese can be. But there’s no problem communicating, in fact it’s good to talk about some things, at least in this part of Malaya, we don’t owe the Chinese anything.”

Alan Wilson lightly mentioned the meeting with Lin Lian Yu, instead he should let the Chinese thank him.

“The Governor has promised to make a trip to Kuala Lumpur, so the two of us will have a good talk then and see how we can deal with London.” Alan Wilson said with intent to his most reliable subordinate.

“Then I wish my superior and the Governor a good outcome of their meeting.” Alisa’s eyes lit up, indicating that Xiangjiang and Malaya should show unity in facing London’s affairs.

“I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with that, after all, we’re all facing similar situations, and more than half of Malaya’s residents are also Chinese.” Alan Wilson smirked, “In fact, among the problems faced by the Governor, at least there is no ethnic conflict. And that’s where we have to be careful, the civil servants in Malaya are more worried.”

The Hong Kong Governor’s job was actually more on the diplomatic level, as long as the issue of Xiangjiang’s status was clarified, the rest was fine.

The other colonies were a different story, mostly with ethnic conflicts. The basic strategy of the British overlordship of the colonies was not to divide and rule, but to unite the people, if not the Hindus and the Pacifists really couldn’t piss in the same pot. It was always Britain’s intention to protect the integrity of British India to let it become independent.

That way an independent India wouldn’t have to be fragmented due to the loss of the Indus Valley and the Ganges estuary, and the major geographic boost alone would have kept India from being too weak in the future.

Burma was similar in that the Burmese had only about half the population and territory of the whole of Burma. Britain was worried that Burma would be swallowed up by Thailand or India next door, so it set up a federation with various ethnic groups in Burma, but it turned out that the Burmese intended to dominate the whole federation and ended up causing civil wars, in which the Rohingyas brought in from Bengal were even more troublesome due to their peaceful religious identity.

As for Malaya, where Alan Wilson is from, the Chinese and Indians were introduced to dilute the ethnic status of the Malays.

Even without Allen Wilson, this policy was implemented for a long time, except that his proposition accelerated the growth of the Chinese population, the original history of the Malays because even the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, and the important islands of Singapore and Penang are Chinese catchment areas, Singapore and Penang excessive Chinese population led to the federal destabilization, and finally had to kick out of the stronger autonomy of the Singapore to reduce the proportion of the Chinese population .

Now with Alan Wilson around, even if Malaya was independent, the Malays kicking out a Singapore would not be enough. The remaining Chinese are still not less than the Malays.

Before waiting for the Governor of Hong Kong to arrive, Allen Wilson contacted Rangoon by telegram. Since the independence of Burma, the relationship between Rangoon and London could not be said to be very close, but there was no falling out either.

Regarding the value of jade, Alan Wilson can not bypass the Burmese government, and now is not before independence. The two countries also do not exist up and down relationship, normal business talk is good.

As for the meeting with the Governor of Hong Kong, it is to take a common position in dealing with London. The current Governor of Hong Kong is Grantham, a civil servant by birth. Grantham was promoted to Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific at the end of World War II, of which the post of High Commissioner for the Western Pacific was once put on hold during World War II. Although Grantham had acted as Governor on several occasions in his earlier roles as Auxiliary Secretary and Chief Secretary, the post of Governor of Fiji was his first official appointment to the rank of Governor.

Arriving in Hong Kong in 1947, overseas civil servants in fact all took much the same position of looking after the interests of their location.

If the relationship between Whitehall and the Cabinet was by and large passable, the overseas civil servant was completely unaware of any positive role for the Cabinet. It’s more of a believer in that logic that it’s power that lasts forever.

And colonial officials always have to have a way back for themselves, a way back that can’t be counted on in London, but still has to start with the colonies they manage.

In Whitehall’s eyes, Grantham was a less than obedient overseas civil servant. The surrender of one and seventy-five percent of Xiangjiang’s financial expenditures not only involved the interests of the British civil servants in Xiangjiang, but also led to frequent tug-of-war between several departments in London under Grantham’s lobbying.

The main direct contribution to the British government was the defense expenditure for the defense of Hong Kong itself, but the Ministry of Defense and its predecessor, the War Department, and the Colonial Office often tussled over this expenditure:

The Ministry of Defense argued that the colonies should always be responsible for their own security and defense spending, and that if they did not have sufficient financial resources, the colonial ministry should find its own way rather than taking advantage of the empire, and that Hong Kong had served the British Empire with cash in World War II, and that it should be more responsible for its own defense spending in the face of external threats now;

The Colonial Office, on the other hand, thought that it should distinguish between how much Hong Kong could afford to pay and how much it should pay, and said that Hong Kong had already supported a large amount of money in World War II, and that the Ministry of National Defense should not continue to beat up on Hong Kong’s finances.

Anything can be viewed dialectically, the Ministry of Defense believes that Hong Kong has a precedent of paying, it can be one and can be repeated; the Colonial Office believes that it is a lion’s mouth to pay for what has been given.

The Ministry of Finance, because of its own interests, agreed with the Ministry of Defense that Hong Kong’s tax rate had always been very low, and the government’s debt was slight, so it could afford to contribute more to the Empire’s defense.

The British civil servants in Hong Kong believed that the importance of the territory, unlike other colonies with large territories, lay in geography rather than in resources, and after the compromise of the Colonial Office, the Colonial Office, the top boss, also became the enemy of the civil servants in Hong Kong.

The key to why Heung Yee Kong can then fight with the local toppers but not Malaya is that Heung Yee Kong is really making profits and Malaya is fighting for London’s support.

One is making money of course the bottom line, while Malaya is still in the stage of needing local support. Alan Wilson of course hardened, wait until the development of Malaya into a positive cycle of state, he can also and Ge Lianghong learn, how to play taijiquan with the local.

The well-trained, rooted civil servants of the British Empire generally viewed their London superiors as the enemy when it came to the question of handing over their finances. Had it not been for the outbreak of the Second World War and the fact that British India was going to become independent immediately after the war, the civil servants of British India would have been no different from the present-day Hong Kong in their attitude towards the homeland.

The British Indian civil servants after 1945, that was just seeing that British India could not sustain itself any longer, and it was only because one and all of them glorified the spirit of ownership of the imperial civil servants and did so in order to prove their ability.

Of course, the colonial officials dare to go against London, must be built again on the basis of the colonial profit point. Simply put, it is necessary to have money, Xiangjiang a port of more than two million people, nearly 30 million pounds of financial expenditure, is the basis of London is willing to peace of mind.

As for the unprofitable and geographically unimportant colonies, in the eyes of the London Cabinet and even Whitehall, it is an existence to be taken at random.

The exchanges between the Governor of Hong Kong, Grantham, and London, now in an equal capacity, were exactly what Alan Wilson was striving for. And with the foundation of British Malaya, he felt that he could do better and establish a new type of relationship with the mainland.

Finally, Grantham arrived in loyal Malaya and felt the sunny beaches of British Malaya.

In a good mood, he was very satisfied with Alan Wilson’s arrangement and expressed his gratitude, “Big places naturally have the benefits of big places, and the scenery here is much better than Xiangjiang.”

“This is nature’s devilish work!” Alan Wilson laughed out loud, after all, given the size of Xiangjiang, it really couldn’t ask for too much.

“The key is that we have to maintain local interests, the bureaucrats in London are very greedy and can’t let us have too much.” Grantham of course knew the deeper purpose of Alan Wilson’s search for him.

The telegram power just went out, the chapter didn’t save it

Now my head is buzzing, I’ll slow down on coding a chapter for bed, don’t wait yet.