Chapter 719: All good things come to America

What else was there to ask? It had all been communicated for so long, but the Cabinet Secretary was, after all, the man he respected most, and Allen Wilson agreed decisively.

A day went and returned, and informed Norman Brooke of the filing that had already been prepared, “Farouk I gave us a simple alternative, he hopes to quickly get a cheap international loan, used to build a new hydroelectric power plant in the current to complete the electrification of Egypt, so that Egypt can enter the modern society. ”

“Simple? Quick? Current and cheap?” Norman Brooke extracted several key words at once, and simply wondered if Farouk I had furthered his education in Whitehall.

This kind of vocabulary used by the venue to hand over proposals to ministers, if it was not spoken by Farouk I himself, then the answer was crying out to be answered, and Norman Brooke gave a look to Alan Wilson, who took the hint and sat down honestly.

“Simply put Farouk I, is going to build a hydroelectric power plant to be used for the electrification of Egypt. And you see no problem with this alternative?”

“Your Honor, all compared to the vesting of the Suez Canal, it’s a perfectly sensible and reasonable substitute.” Alan Wilson acknowledged to a certain extent that he thought the substitution was good, “Of course it’s not an easy thing to do, and it’s a little difficult to get rid of Farouk I by trying to take just a little bit of interest out of it.”

“But it’s a controversial filing, and we’re not prepared for it on our side.” Norman Brooke, after careful thought, described Egypt’s support for the dam to be built as controversial, in lieu of talking about the ownership of the Suez Canal.

“After careful and repeated discussions, and this is the deliberate opinion after the discussion, the project about the electrification to be pushed forward, after the Free Officers’ organization was eradicated, was the main concern of Farouk I.”

Alan Wilson mentions the process of trying to get as much for Britain as he could, and in effect selling Britain again, only having to add money to it. Indicating that the usual flies in the ointment were no longer going to impress this Egyptian king.

“Not a good idea, but I’m still going to report this to the Prime Minister as good news.” Norman Brooke sighed, calculating inside his head how to make the Prime Minister think this was a good thing.

It was not for Alan Wilson to worry about the joy of mourning, and Norman Brooke soon had a bellyful of ideas. A belabored idea about how helping electrify Egypt would be a great thing for the British Empire.

“It was a request from Farouk I. What did he think Britain was? A banker?” Prime Minister Adderley’s face was full of I don’t have any money, “And this is the best we can muster for the record?”

Norman Brooke coughed softly and spilled out, “Your Honorable Prime Minister, if you must ask me to be clear, all I can say is that in the present case, looking at the whole picture, looking at the past and the present, taking into account the average of the various departments, and analyzing and summarizing it, it might be argued that, and in summary, in summary, that you are likely to find that the situation presently confronting you, though perhaps not in a neutral way. At any rate, I am afraid the outlook is delicate in terms of choice! That’s all that can be expected at this stage!”

“But I think that such hasty decision-making may be quite perplexing.” Prime Minister Adderley froze halfway to the point of blurting out the stupidity.

“This is the assessment written by Alan!” Norman Brooke held out a report and said, “It has detailed projections of the outlook, and to be fair, the benefits are there, just unlikely to be available in the short term.”

Did the British Empire, and the other colonial empires in Europe, plunder the world, or did they make the world richer?

It really depends on how you look at it, relatively speaking it radicalized the wealth gap between rich and poor in any agrarian civilization, but in absolute numbers there is no doubt that the places colonized by the British certainly had a lot more wealth than they would have had in a purely agrarian era.

That is to say that for very mature agricultural civilizations, Britain served to inflame the conflict in that country even if it didn’t plunder much wealth, but for places that were already tribal in age, who knows how long they would have stayed put without European colonizers?

Take British India, which was certainly much richer under British rule than it was during the original period of small states.

But the beneficiaries were limited to the upper classes of the subcontinent, and for the vast underclass, which Britain could exploit much more efficiently than the original native princes, most of the Indian underclass really wasn’t necessarily better off than they were.

Norman Brooke’s point is that once the dams in Egypt are built and Egypt enters the age of electrification, Egypt as a country will certainly be much better off in absolute terms than it is now.

Egypt now can’t afford anything, except big cakes. Egypt after electrification will have increased purchasing power.

It took Adderley a while to distill the useful passages in the midst of the heavy talk, and then fell to thinking.

It was blackmail through and through, but on second thought, a dam was not unacceptable compared to getting the Suez Canal back, and Adlai knew exactly which piece was more important.

If you can use a dam loan, in exchange for five to ten years of stability in the control of the canal, for the whole of Britain is not unacceptable.

After all, Adderley is not Churchill, still doing the Sunset Empire’s dream, he clearly knows that Britain can no longer hold up the Sunset Empire’s dream of empire, the rest of the vested interests, there are some is certainly to realize.

“I’ll have to think about that!” Adderley reached out and rubbed his forehead, which was brighter than the chandelier above his head, and said that he would think it over carefully, and first asked Norman Brooke to wait for news to stabilize Farouk I.

Alan Wilson hadn’t expected that he’d have an interview with the Prime Minister so soon, but even before he met Airdrie, he concluded in his mind that it probably wouldn’t be good.

Sure enough, Airdrie was inquiring about British Malaya and whether or not he could share the matter for the British mainland.

“Honorable Prime Minister, give me a few more years and I can make Malaya play the same role as British India did in the beginning, or even better, but there is one thing that British Malaya cannot do. That is that on top of manpower it is worlds apart from British India in the first place!”

Alan Wilson is not shirking his responsibility, it is completely honest, “I can no longer take out the manpower to organize engineering teams to help the Egyptians construction to reduce costs. There is little profit in doing so in the first place, and this big project could solve a big employment problem in Egypt. Britain can’t save costs by helping with manpower from the colonies. There is also the fact that the last of Malaya’s rich human resources have been invested in the construction of the aerodrome.”

The population of British Malaya was not much more than ten million out of ten, only one-fortieth of that of India now. After a succession of planning and the transfer of industries with native support, there simply wasn’t much spare manpower left.

Allen Wilson could be proud that he, the colonial commissioner, had eliminated the problem of unemployment, at least theoretically, because in his eyes farmers were also professions and were not included in the unemployed population.

Together with the agricultural population counted as employment, the prospects for employment in British Malaya were now very good.

Malaya is not rich, but Egypt now has a much lower labor cost, and to do the planning, you can just go with British natives, and the workers can be entirely Egyptian. Using colonial workers would instead rob Egyptians of employment opportunities, which could intensify the conflict.

“Is that so?” Adderley mused after a moment’s thought, “I certainly don’t know the inside story, but feel that an eighty million pound loan may be slightly too much.”

“Actually, we can ask Washington for help, a country as important as Egypt has also just gone through a military coup. The United States is also worried!” Alan Wilson suggested in his mind, “I believe that even for this reason, the United States will not refuse on the loan.”

Egypt’s land is really barren, and Egypt’s geographical location is really important. In its original history, Egypt in Nasser’s rule was much more favorable to the Soviet Union, and simply scared Europe to death while he was alive.

This can be seen in the rapid extinction of British influence in Asia after the Suez Canal War. Even Britain couldn’t carry a hostile Egypt, let alone the rest of Europe.

The U.S. waited until Nasser’s death in order to bring Egypt back again, kept Egypt’s food needs supplied at a low price for decades afterward, and thundered military aid to Egypt whether it listened or not.

“Let’s sign the understanding, make it a fait accompli, and then talk to the IMF and the World Bank.” Norman Brooke suggested at the right time, “When the time comes for Egypt to ask for it and we help talk, it will be hard for the US not to agree to provide the loan.”

At the critical moment, the prime minister and cabinet secretary quickly took out the consensus to drag the United States down.

Alan Wilson sighed darkly, in fact, this is something that historically the United States considered, because of Egypt’s geographic location, and ultimately willing to provide the funds for Egypt to build the Aswan Dam.

The U.S. consideration was that Egypt, though a country where Britain and France still had influence, was better than falling to the side of the Soviet Union.

According to current considerations, as long as Egypt takes the initiative to propose opening up to the International Monetary Fund and Britain stands by in solidarity, it is indeed difficult for the United States to disagree.

To take a step back, the United States finally vetoed the Egyptian loan request, then the United Kingdom to consider taking over the same can also be. It would also allow the US to offend the Egyptians for nothing.

With the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary so physically carrying out the Anglo-American special relationship, Allen Wilson even felt that he could go one step further and add a clause to be placed at the end of the present understanding for Farouk I’s visit to Britain, and that clause was, “If the United States relinquishes its control of the Canal in Panama, Britain and France will return control of the Canal to Egypt regardless of whether or not Egyptian electrification is concluded. ”

This kind of clause did not need Britain to think of a way, as long as it was written in the Arabic text that Farouk I used to give an account to his country, and Britain could be treated as if it did not know about it afterward.