Chapter 111 Food and Relief (Please subscribe!)

Currently, the political party with the most say in New Zealand is actually the Alliance Party.

First of all, most of the members of the Alliance Party are retired soldiers and officials from New Zealand, and there are even some current officials.

Although most of them are only officials with very small positions, their voice is indeed higher than that of the New Zealand Labor Party, which is composed of the vast majority of workers.

Secondly, New Zealanders and Australians are both new ethnic groups that are a mixture of mostly British immigrants and a small amount of European immigrants. Although their ethnic names are different because of the different areas where they live, they can actually be counted as the same ethnic group. A class of people.

Many New Zealanders envy the speed of development of Australians today, and they also envy the Australian monarch Arthur.

This is also the reason why they support the Alliance Party. Once New Zealand joins Australia and continues to be a part of Australia as it did decades ago, they will be able to enjoy the same development speed brought by having a good monarch as the Australians.

For this reason, the Alliance Party even applied to the British Empire for annexation to Australia shortly after the establishment of the Principality of Australia, but was rejected by the then British government.

This also caused the Coalition to lose some popularity, and even some New Zealanders were disappointed with the plan to unite Australia.

But after Arthur became the Governor of New Zealand, the voice of uniting Australia became louder and louder. The Alliance Party took advantage of the situation and regained more say than the New Zealand Labor Party.

Arthur looked thoughtfully at the information about the New Zealand colony.

At present, Australia has great hope of annexing New Zealand. It can even turn New Zealand into a region of Australia and achieve complete annexation.

But there is one problem. Arthur cannot directly encourage New Zealanders. New Zealand's problems have to be solved by the New Zealanders themselves.

When it is inconvenient for Australian forces to directly participate, the Alliance Party seems to have become a good force. It is not only a political party with a voice within New Zealand, but also a force that prefers to unite Australia.

Thinking of this, Arthur decided to find a time to meet with the leader of the Alliance Party and encourage the New Zealanders in disguise through the Alliance Party.

On April 7, 1902, after more than ten days of investigation and statistics, the Royal Relief Committee finally determined the first round of relief plan in New Zealand.

Compared with Australia's relief plan, New Zealand's relief plan is more like a combination of the first and second rounds of the Australian relief plan.

The Crown Relief Commission will provide a £5 grant across New Zealand to all households earning less than thirty pounds a year and provide them with new work opportunities.

So where do the job opportunities come from? In addition to the jobs originally required by various factories, construction and facilities in New Zealand, Arthur also provided these New Zealanders with a new option, which is to go to Australia to work.

Australia is not close to New Zealand, but it is not far. It is only a two-day or three-day flight.

For people who cannot find work in New Zealand, traveling to Australia to work is also a good option.

Just getting the colonial government to agree to this policy took Arthur a lot of thought.

However, the effect was still very good. Under the suppression of Governor Arthur's identity and the threat of the guards, the colonial government simply agreed to the proposal.

Arthur did this not without intention. Allowing some New Zealanders to go to Australia to work can also strengthen the connection between New Zealand and Australia.

These New Zealanders who go to work in Australia can also tell their families and relatives in New Zealand about their experiences in Australia during their annual holidays, making more people yearn for Australia.

Subtly, do we still need to worry about New Zealanders not agreeing to merge with Australia?

For those who go to work in Australia, their work will be smoother if New Zealand and Australia can be merged into a unified country.

In the long run, New Zealand joining Australia will be a happy thing for these people.

New Zealanders are not very receptive to going to Australia to work. After all, this means leaving your hometown and going to another country.

Moreover, the per capita income in Australia is not high. Although the income of most jobs has exceeded the per capita income, it is only about 11 or 12 pounds, which is similar to the income of some jobs in New Zealand.

But their funding for relief committee relief was still welcome. In just three days, thousands of low-income New Zealanders have received assistance from the Crown Relief Committee in Wellington alone.

Expanding the scope to the entire New Zealand, more than 8,000 people have received assistance, and the number is still growing crazily.

As the saying goes, those who eat people are soft-mouthed and those who take advantage of others are short-handed. After receiving relief from the Royal Relief Committee, these New Zealanders became more welcoming to Arthur and the members of the committee, and even began to spread the story of Australia spontaneously.

This was something Arthur had not expected. Under the spontaneous propaganda of these New Zealanders who have received relief, more and more New Zealanders have a favorable impression of Australia, and the support for the Alliance Party is also growing.

Many New Zealanders have even begun to discuss the possibility of Arthur becoming their monarch, which shows that Arthur is already very popular in New Zealand.

In this case, Arthur didn't mind adding more energy.

Under Arthur's instruction, the Royal Relief Committee added another relief plan, which was to give away food to low-income people.

Because the donation included five pounds of funds, the food given was not much, only a large bag of flour and five kilograms of mutton.

Because New Zealand's livestock industry is also very developed, it is easy to buy enough relief grain.

Especially beef and mutton, meat prices in New Zealand are very cheap, especially when purchased in large quantities.

Therefore, the newly added rescue plan does not actually cost too much money. On the original basis, it only costs less than one pound per person.

But it has indeed won the favor of New Zealanders again.

These New Zealanders have never encountered a relief program that not only sends money and food, but also provides jobs.

As the saying goes, there is no harm without comparison. Even though the New Zealand colonial government had made great efforts to revive New Zealand's economy, in the face of Arthur's relief plan of sending money, food and jobs, New Zealanders instantly felt that their government and officials were not enough. Fragrant.

Third update, please support! Let's annex New Zealand completely. After consulting a lot of information, I found that this can be done. New Zealand and Australia share the same roots and have a high degree of recognition between the two countries. In addition, New Zealand is not independent, so it can still be operated.