African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1094: Chapter 103: Expenditure

Of course, the situation during the construction of the East African Grand Canal was vastly different from the circumstances today in implementing the national canal plan.

Now, driven by economic development in the 1990s and the two five-year plans, East Africa has undergone tremendous changes in industry, transportation, and infrastructure, with national railways reaching 200,000 kilometers, essentially covering the entire country, accompanied by a more developed road network.

Moreover, tools such as tractors and automobiles are now being mass-produced on a large scale and can be utilized for infrastructure and transportation construction. At the same time, East Africa’s education has made comprehensive efforts, and there is an abundance of relevant professionals.

Under such circumstances, the conditions for the construction of the national canal plan far exceed those during the construction period of the East African Grand Canal.

In other words, when the East African Grand Canal was built, East Africa was still an agricultural country, but before the national canal plan commenced, East Africa was already considered a semi-industrialized strong country. Of course, according to the world industrial development situation in the early 20th century, a semi-industrialized country was basically considered an industrialized country.

Therefore, implementing the national canal plan will not be significantly more difficult than the East African Grand Canal, and it might even greatly simplify the process.

Take the United States’ Erie Canal as an example, which is over 500 kilometers long, connecting New York and the Great Lakes region. The U.S. constructed the Erie Canal at the beginning of the last century, and at that time, the industrial capacity of the U.S. was about the same as when East Africa built the East African Grand Canal. But now, East Africa’s industrial capability definitely far surpasses that of the United States at the time. Even today, the U.S. may not be much stronger than East Africa. Although the overall industrial output of East Africa compares to the U.S. is less, East Africa and the U.S. have mutual advantages and disadvantages in heavy industry capability.

The main challenge for implementing the national canal plan is actually human resources, but this is not very difficult for East Africa, and the main confidence of the East African government comes from black laborers.

The East African government’s psychological expectation is to sacrifice at least three million Black laborers to achieve breakthroughs in East Africa’s nationwide inland water transport, something basically impossible in other countries.

Ernst coldly and mercilessly said to government officials, ”Of the more than seven million Blacks domestically now, even if they do not participate in national construction, they will pass away here due to age-related issues. Therefore, utilizing this last wave of labor dividends to achieve great achievements in our country’s water transport system is a century-long task for the Empire.”

”The national canal plan will be included in the Three-Five Plan as the primary engineering project from 1911 to 1915, meaning it will be completed within five years. The timeline is relatively tight, so various departments must cooperate with the Ministry of Water Resources to ensure the project can be completed by the end of 1915.”

”Even though the timeline is tight, there must be no compromise on quality. After all, our industrial base in East Africa is vastly different from ten years ago. Now the nationwide production of steel, cement, and large-scale engineering machinery is incomparable to the time when the East African Grand Canal was built.”

Ernst’s words basically determined one important purpose of the East African national canal plan, which is to consume East Africa’s Black labor. Compared to the United States’ eradication of Native Americans, East Africa obviously does more excessively. It is akin to seizing the landlord’s house and then forcing and enslaving the landlord to clean the house again, ultimately driving them out when they have no more use, a true kill-at-heart strategy.

”Although the cost of using Black labor is lower, the Empire can never rely on slavery to build the nation. After all, there has been constant international criticism about this, so by 1920, we must completely eliminate Black labor domestically.”

By 1920, the current batch of Black laborers in East Africa would no longer have any utility value, leaving only the old, weak, sick, and disabled, and East Africa could not possibly provide for these non-utilizable Black laborers in old age.

”Yards, continue speaking!” Ernst said.

Yards nodded and continued with the script, ”After the national canal plan is completed, our country’s three major river systems and three major lake systems will be interconnected, which includes the Nile River, the Congo River, and the Zambezi River, with the Great Lake (Lake Victoria), Soron Lake (Tanganyika), and Lake Malawi.”

”At the same time, other smaller rivers and lakes will also be involved, thereby establishing a domestic inland shipping network covering about forty percent of our country’s total area, mainly covering the eastern, central, and western regions.”

Forty percent of East Africa’s territory is roughly more than 5 million square kilometers, and this water transport network can basically connect East Africa’s most economically developed areas, facilitating goods transportation between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

”If the national canal plan is realized, our country’s freight costs will be significantly reduced, greatly narrowing the economic development disparity between regions, which is especially important for our inland areas.”

The central region, with Rhein City as its core, is evidently the most crucial beneficiary of the national canal plan, promoting central economic development.

”Although compared to railways, this plan can’t reach the strategic importance of railways due to practical limitations, it remains an essential supplement to the existing transportation network.”

Even though water transport has a considerable cost advantage over railways, the East African national canal plan, even if achieved, can’t overturn the strategic position of the railways.

After all, building canals lacks the flexibility of railways, so even if canal construction is completed, the inland water transport network will still remain fragmented.

Of course, the main reason lies in East Africa’s river conditions, particularly the main river channels. Taking the Zambezi River, which is critical for East Africa’s economy, as an example, if massive locks are not built, full-line navigation is impossible, and East Africa currently lacks the technical capacity to build such scale locks on the Zambezi River.

While the main river channels cannot be used, the amount and depth of tributaries are insufficient to support larger-scale vessels, thus determining the upper limit of East African water transport.

Therefore, compared to railways, East African water transport is essentially unlikely to replace its position. Nevertheless, water transport will exert a significant impact on the existing railway system.

However, Ernst foresaw this issue from the start, so East African railroads haven’t expanded crazily like U.S. railways, where today American railroads exceed 400,000 kilometers, while East Africa has less than half of that, even considering that East African territory is nearly twice the size of the United States, putting East African railway density far below the U.S.

Of course, East African railways will continue to expand during the Three-Five Plan period, given that East African railroads haven’t yet reached saturation, with considerable potential still remaining.

However, the railway development plan doesn’t conflict with roads and water transport, as the East African national water transport plan is a beneficial supplement to the current East African transportation.

After all, the fundamental aim is to reduce East Africa’s logistics costs, which have always been a significant factor affecting industrial costs. The lower the logistics cost, the more favorable it is for the development of industry and other industries.

And when East Africa competes with other countries or regions worldwide, the most significant weakness is water transport. If this issue isn’t addressed, East Africa will face problems similar to Russia.

An essential reason for Russia’s development restrictions is high logistics costs. Besides the well-known lack of good ports, inland water transport is also a limiting factor for Russian industrial development. Because Russian territory stretches from east to west, while its main rivers flow south to north, the rivers’ economic promotion effect is not prominent for Russia.

The United States also faces similar issues, such as the north-south flowing Mississippi River, while American economic activity is concentrated in the Northeast, explaining why the U.S. constructed numerous railroads and canals like the Erie Canal.

In contrast, Europe and the Far East Empire do not have this problem as their main domestic rivers and economically developed areas are largely aligned in terms of flow direction.