Chapter 177

On January 2, 1904, the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Russian Empire successively issued statements expressing regret and sorrow for the typhoon incident in New Zealand, and announced their support for New Zealand to hold a referendum to allow New Zealanders to decide their own destiny.

On January 3rd, the British Empire, one of the protagonists, expressed its willingness to abide by Queen Victoria's will and let New Zealanders decide their own destiny.

It's a great win for the New Zealanders, who appear to be heading towards a bright future.

Arthur was not very forthcoming about this, and by all accounts, from the beginning of the march until New Zealand won the right to vote in the referendum, Arthur never made an appearance.

But in fact, only a very few people know that New Zealand was able to successfully obtain the right to hold a referendum this time, and Arthur's actions played a decisive role.

This New Zealand referendum covers the entire New Zealand region, including all overseas islands that New Zealand has sovereignty over.

This referendum stipulates that as long as you are a permanent resident of New Zealand who is over twenty years old and has lived in all areas of New Zealand for ten years, you can obtain the right to participate in the referendum.

The current total population of New Zealand is as high as 1,073,400 people, and there are more than 430,000 people who meet this condition.

The age limit, coupled with the restriction on residence time, also significantly reduces the number of people who have the right to participate in the referendum.

The good news is that New Zealand has long given women the right to vote, but currently they do not have the right to stand for election, they just have the right to vote.

Although Arthur did not participate in the entire New Zealand referendum, this does not mean that Arthur did not have anything to do during this period.

On the contrary, because it was already the beginning of the new year, the 1903 annual summary of the Australian Cabinet Government was successfully delivered to Arthur, waiting for his review.

Australia's most obvious achievement in 1903 was in terms of population. At the beginning of 1903, Australia's population was approximately 4,263,900 people.

By January of this year, 1904, Australia's population had exceeded 4,566,600 people, and the population growth rate reached a gratifying 7.1%.

This has also brought the number of Australian cities with a population of more than 500,000 to two, and Sydney and Melbourne have become Australia's two brightest pearls.

The industrial development in 1903 was not as rapid as in 1902, but the steel output also reached 390,000 tons and 670,000 tons respectively.

At present, Australia's total steel production has exceeded one million tons, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is an industrial country.

During this year, Australia also discovered a large number of newly discovered mineral resources, the largest of which were coal mines and iron ores.

At present, Australia's proven iron ore reserves are as high as 1.5 billion tons, and the total reserves of bituminous coal and lignite are as high as 13 billion tons.

Such rich mafic reserves will become a strong support for Australia's industrial development, and will also make Australia one of the countries with large coal and iron ore reserves.

It is worth mentioning that Australia has now proven more than 10 million tons of oil, most of which is distributed on the southeastern coast of Australia and the western coast of Australia.

With the sales of Benz One all over the world, the demand for oil consumption around the world is also getting higher and higher.

This has also caused the price of originally relatively cheap oil to rise all the way, and the prices of gasoline, diesel and various petroleum products have also become higher and higher. This has also allowed some countries and regions with oil to see opportunities to make a fortune.

Unlike New Zealand's livestock industry, which has suffered serious losses, Australia's livestock industry can be said to be booming.

Currently, according to rough statistics, Australia has more than 120 million sheep, tens of millions of cattle and other animals, and more than one million people engaged in the livestock industry. It is a veritable big country in the livestock industry.

Australia's current animal husbandry products, including wool, milk and goat milk, beef and mutton, etc., have established sales channels in Europe, America and parts of Asia. The annual income of animal husbandry products to Australia has exceeded 2 million. GBP.

Australia has not fallen behind in the development of agriculture. Although most of the land in the country is desert and other areas unsuitable for cultivation, Australia still has a wide range of cultivation areas because of its extremely large land area.

Because the government has begun to encourage large-scale planting, many farmers have begun to seek to expand their farm areas.

Coupled with Australia's current industrial development, a large urban population and jobs have been created, making large-scale agriculture possible.

This is good news for Australia, whose agriculture can transform into a large-scale farm model in the future.

When a large number of machines are used, a large amount of manpower can be saved, and large-scale farming can be completed with only a small part of manpower and machinery.

In terms of transportation, Australia has also made good achievements.

The first is the roads centered on the state capitals and connecting large and small towns in each state. These roads are generally funded by state governments and supported by the Australian government.

As of January 1904, with the exception of Western Australia and South Australia, which were relatively large in area, the other four states had basically connected roads to all towns and established a road network centered on the state capital.

Based on the road networks of each state, the Australian government has built a road network connecting state capitals and important cities.

This also allows Guangmao's Australia to have a well-developed road network, making travel more convenient for Australians.

In particular, the roads funded by the Australian government are basically large roads with three lanes in each direction.

Although this increases the Australian government's investment in transportation, it does make travel more convenient for Australians.

The second is in terms of railways.

Up to now, Australia's industrial railway has been under construction for more than two years, and the results achieved are very good.

Of course, the main part of railway construction is still in southeastern Australia, which is also the most populous and economically developed region in Australia.

The current railway has completed the main part from Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, to Adelaide, South Australia, and has successfully connected Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

There are countless connected cities, among which the larger cities include Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Orbost, Melbourne, Geelong, Adelaide and Port Augusta.

The total length of this railway is nearly half of the industrial railway. The reason why it was constructed so quickly is because this area already has a relatively developed railway network.

In Western Australia and South Australia, which have relatively small populations, railway construction has been relatively slow.

Fortunately in South Australia, the current railway has been built from Port Augusta to Adelaide and connects the industrial railway part of the southeast.

However, the current railway construction in Western Australia is only from the capital Perth to Geraldton and Albany, which are two port towns in Western Australia. The reason for connecting these two towns is to facilitate transportation in Western Australia.

The railway section connecting Western Australia and South Australia, that is, the section of railway connecting Perth and Port Augusta, will be the most difficult part of the entire industrial railway construction, because this area originally had very few railways, almost all of them. New construction is needed.

If all goes well, this section of the railway will be completed in four years. But if progress is not smooth, the completion of this section of the railway may be delayed to five or even six years.

However, this is still shorter than the initial planned construction time of the industrial railway. Initially, the industrial railway was planned to take ten years to complete, but now it looks like it will only take about six to eight years.

The only area that the railway plan does not reach is Tasmania, which is also the smallest state in Australia in terms of land area and population.

In order to take care of the mood of Tasmanian residents, Arthur deliberately launched a ring road construction plan in Tasmania. The main part is to connect the northern city of Smithton and the southern city of Hobart in Tasmania. , and some small towns distributed in the east and west.

Compared with road construction throughout Australia, although Tasmania's roads connect smaller villages and some farms, their scale is still only a fraction.

This is why Tasmania's road construction goes so well. So far, Tasmania has completed the construction of the ring road. The two largest cities in the state, Hobart and Smithton, have all been connected by roads, and all small towns and villages are within the construction scope of the urban network.

This has also made Tasmania the most developed region in Australia for road transportation, which has greatly alleviated the regret of Tasmanian residents because railways cannot be built in their area.

Regarding the Australian people, there is another very significant change, that is, Australia's per capita income has ushered in a significant increase.

As of January 1904, the per capita income in all Australian states had exceeded fifteen pounds. Even in more developed states like Victoria and New South Wales, the per capita annual income had reached sixteen pounds.

This year's income level has almost doubled compared to when the Principality of Australia was first established, which can also prove the development of Australia's industry and economy during this period.

Although this income level is less than half that of the great powers, it is almost at the same level as that of ordinary European countries.

What's more, Australia's per capita income level is far from finalized and is still only in a period of growth.

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