Chapter 173 Who should we believe?

"On November 8, 1903, New Zealand suffered an unprecedented disaster. A typhoon made landfall in the small town of Opunaki on the North Island of New Zealand, and successively hit New Plymouth, Piopio, and Hamilton. , Huntly, Port Waikato, Manukau, Auckland, Takapuna, Coromandel and Port Fitzroy are eleven towns for the economy, industry and various activities on the western coast of New Zealand's North Island. Infrastructure caused a huge disaster.

According to preliminary statistics, the disaster caused property damage of at least two million pounds to New Zealand, killed more than 36,000 people, and injured 84,000 people with minor or serious injuries.

After this disaster, almost the entire west coast of New Zealand's North Island needed to be rebuilt, and at least 200,000 people lost their homes.

We are grateful for the assistance from all regions and countries around the world, especially our friendly neighbor Australia, which transported 450,000 pounds of funds and more than 100,000 pounds worth of supplies to help us on the day of the disaster.

We are also grateful to countries from other regions for their assistance, including 50,000 pounds from the German Empire, 40,000 pounds from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and 10,000 pounds each from France, Britain, Italy and the Russian Empire.

We sincerely thank all countries for their assistance to New Zealand. Our friendship with you will last forever.

After the disaster, the New Zealand colonial government will mobilize the power of all New Zealand to help all people on the west coast of the North Island rebuild their homes. At the same time, we also call on more New Zealanders to join this rescue operation. As of now, many New Zealanders are still missing and they need more rescue. "

Since November 12, this report has been printed in all New Zealand newspapers and distributed free of charge to all New Zealand towns.

In a short period of time, almost the vast majority of New Zealanders have seen such newspapers and reports, and they all understand what kind of disaster happened in New Zealand's North Island.

Although a few people are curious about what kind of organization can unite all newspapers in New Zealand to publish this report simultaneously.

But more people have been attracted by the information in the report, and have focused all their eyes and attention on New Zealand's North Island.

In the report, in addition to the shocking death toll and heartbreaking property losses, the most concerning thing is the aid from other countries.

New Zealand is a colony of the British Empire, and it is a great honor for other powers to provide certain assistance.

New Zealanders think so too, especially the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, which currently provide the most aid among all the great powers.

However, as the current sovereign state of New Zealand, the British Empire's aid is at the same level as that of other great powers, and is even far lower than the aid of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This disappointed many New Zealanders loyal to the British Empire, who believed they had been abandoned by the British Empire.

Compared with these countries, Australia's aid is much larger. There is not only financial assistance of 450,000 pounds, but also material assistance worth up to 100,000 pounds.

This is the most important thing for New Zealand after the current disaster. There are a large number of refugees in urgent need of supplies and food to ensure their normal life.

As the saying goes, there is no harm without comparison. Compared with a large number of European countries, especially the British Empire, Australia's aid appears to be much more sincere.

What's more, the report clearly states that Australia provided assistance on the day the disaster occurred, rather than New Zealand taking the initiative to request assistance like European countries.

After this report, many New Zealanders gradually changed their views, at least becoming much friendlier towards Australia.

Many New Zealanders already regard Australians as New Zealand's friendly neighbors and are full of expectations for the union between New Zealand and Australia planned by the United Party.

On November 14, 1903, Australia's second batch of aid arrived in New Zealand.

Most of this aid is manpower that is very important to the current rescue work. Australia has donated 30,000 Southeast Asian indigenous people to New Zealand to help New Zealand better carry out post-disaster reconstruction work.

These manpower are a timely help for New Zealand's current rescue efforts. New Zealand's population is not large to begin with. Even after several years of development, it is only just over 1.1 million.

This typhoon directly caused the loss of at least 40,000 people in New Zealand's population, leaving New Zealand's economy in a sluggish state for at least five years.

Coupled with the fact that less than half of New Zealand's North Island was affected by the disaster, the number of refugees directly exceeded 200,000, greatly increasing the difficulty of New Zealand's rescue work.

On November 17, 1903, Arthur arrived in New Zealand in person. After delivering a speech in Auckland dedicated to the rescue and reconstruction work, he once again announced that he would donate half a million pounds to New Zealand as Governor of New Zealand. .

So far, New Zealand has received more than 1.1 million pounds in financial assistance and more than 150,000 pounds in food and material assistance.

This has reduced New Zealand's logistical burden to a certain extent and also accelerated New Zealand's rescue work.

Starting from the end of the typhoon on November 10, New Zealand's rescue work continued for seven days until November 17.

The subsequent work will mainly focus on post-disaster reconstruction, rather than rescuing missing people.

This was also a helpless choice. After seven days of long waiting, the other people who had not been rescued basically lost hope of survival. Perhaps by the time the rescue team found them, they would have already turned into corpses.

Many of these refugees were placed in the northern part of the Auckland Peninsula. There are more than ten small towns on this peninsula and can accommodate 20,000 to 30,000 refugees.

Some were moved to areas such as Palmerston North, Picton, Sharhat and Wellington in the southern part of New Zealand's North Island. This is currently the core area of ​​New Zealand and the area where Wellington, the colonial capital, is located.

It can accommodate at least 80,000 refugees, who are distributed to major cities, supplementing the population of New Zealand's North Island cities.

Nearly 100,000 refugees are willing to stay in their homes, which have been destroyed.

The most important part of this reconstruction work is the reconstruction of the Auckland area. The Auckland region has Auckland, the second largest city in the North Island of New Zealand, and there are two major cities in the north and south, Takapuna and Manukau.

The population living in this area has exceeded 200,000, and more than half of them have become refugees.

Most of the disaster-stricken areas in the southern part of the west coast are small towns. The population of these towns varies, ranging from large towns with five to six thousand people to small villages and towns with less than a thousand people.

The enthusiastic New Zealanders who came to participate in the rescue work after seeing the news reports were assigned to these towns. They will be responsible for the reconstruction of these towns, specifically helping the refugees rebuild their houses and homes.

The main task of the 30,000 indigenous people donated by Australia and the New Zealand garrison was to rebuild the Auckland area, especially the city of Auckland.

Auckland is an important hub connecting the Auckland Peninsula and the main part of New Zealand's North Island. It shines with Wellington in the south and is New Zealand's two brightest pearls.

The disaster in Auckland is the last thing New Zealand wants to see, and rebuilding Auckland is also the most urgent thing at the moment.

On November 18, Arthur once again transferred 20,000 indigenous and tens of thousands of Australian workers from Australia.

These workers, many of whom are construction workers with knowledge of the construction industry, will play a vital role in rebuilding New Zealand.

At the same time, Arthur also adopted a work-for-relief approach in the disaster-stricken areas, encouraging a large number of lightly injured and non-injured refugees to invest in the reconstruction of their homes.

As a reward, they will receive more relief supplies and a small portion of financial incentives, which will also make up for their property losses to a limited extent.

Such a policy was supported by many New Zealand refugees, who also actively participated in the work of rebuilding the west coast of New Zealand.

Just a week later, there were more than 50,000 Aboriginal and 150,000 New Zealanders living on the west coast of New Zealand, making the rebuilding of cities and towns even faster.

Arthur was busy at this time, and so was Grant.

As the leader of the New Zealand Unionist Party, Grant, under Arthur's instructions, quickly launched into reconstruction work, setting an example for all New Zealand political parties and officials.

This also allowed the Alliance Party to once again win the favor of New Zealanders. After all, those who can personally contribute to New Zealand's reconstruction work are far better than those officials who only stay in the office.

During this period, Arthur personally visited all the disaster-stricken towns in New Zealand and visited New Zealanders who were working on the reconstruction work in these areas.

Arthur was welcomed by almost everyone, and there were even many fanatical people who shouted "Long live!" crazily when Arthur arrived.

Arthur had no reaction on the surface, but in fact he was very satisfied with Grant's actions.

Based on the current level of recognition of Arthur in New Zealand, coupled with the fact that New Zealand was hit this time and the amount of aid from Australia and the British Empire was different, maybe something can really change in New Zealand.

On November 26, 1903, a piece of news was released that completely excited New Zealand.

The headline of the news was very simple, with only a few words, but it was deeply rooted in the hearts of all New Zealanders.

The British Empire and Australia, who should we believe?

The British Empire and Australia both have a special relationship with New Zealand. The British Empire is the current suzerainty of New Zealand, and New Zealand also nominally belongs to the British Empire.

New Zealand was once part of Australia and successfully separated from New Zealand a few decades ago.

Three thousand words chapter, please support!