RPAGF Chapter 45 Voting, Investment, and the Francois
Chapter 45 Voting, Investment, and the Francois
Melbourne and Palmerston were not prepared to tell the Spanish about the news in Manila, or even announce it directly in Britain, as that would affect their plans.
The two first urgently prepared for the discussion and voting on the "Great Han Trade and Investment Act".
British politicians in Melbourne and Palmerston naturally treated the conditions proposed by the Han emperor, combined with the emperor's invitation and promises of investment, as a single, comprehensive bill.
On April 25, Melbourne received the preliminary agreement bill documents and submitted them to the House of Commons of the British Parliament to begin pre-vote presentations and consultation debates.
After three days of consultation and debate, the bill was revised and supplemented on a major scale.
The main change was in accordance with the opposition's demands, which included restrictions on the outflow of gold and silver.
Because the Han Dynasty only accepted gold and silver as currency, and did not accept paper money issued by countries such as Britain.
At the same time, British paper money could theoretically be directly redeemed for gold.
If a large amount of hot money accumulates together, it is very likely that someone will go to the bank to redeem a large amount of gold and take it with them, which could theoretically easily trigger a large-scale bank run.
Therefore, the bill requires explicit restrictions on the outflow of gold and silver.
It is required that all future investments in overseas regions, including those in the Great Han, must be made in British banknotes or in kind.
Either take British banknotes out directly, or exchange them all for materials, machinery, and tools needed at the destination.
At the very least, they should be converted into export goods, sold overseas, and exchanged for gold and silver precious metals.
In reality, it's not cost-effective to directly bring gold and silver to invest in the Great Han.
The reasonable plan is to take goods out. Even if there are no goods that the Han Dynasty wants, they can be sold to India, exchanged for silver in India, and then invested in the Han Dynasty.
These additions are just in case, and also to allow the opposition to demonstrate its significance.
On April 28, the revised bill entered the final review and consultation phase.
Investment enthusiasm in the East has been hyped up, and despite the Whig Party's landslide victory in the parliamentary elections, many members of parliament remain concerned about India's security.
India was extremely important to Britain, as it was Britain's richest colony at the time.
To allay the concerns of centrist MPs, Melbourne and Palmerston again asked Staunton, who is familiar with the East, to speak and express his views:
"The greatest advantage of the Han Dynasty is its large population and abundant potential reserve soldiers."
"But this advantage cannot be demonstrated in India."
Between the Han Dynasty and India lie the world's highest mountain ranges and plateaus, as well as the most desolate deserts and rainforests.
"They cannot cross these natural barriers to quickly reach the Indian region and fight us."
"On the contrary, Britain, if Parliament were willing to provide funding, could mobilize tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of troops in India."
"At the same time, the Han Dynasty's navy was not large and did not have enough large warships."
"If we simply increase the size of the Indian and Singaporean naval fleets, the Great Han Navy will have no opportunity to go to the Indian coastal areas to assist in operations."
"In the region surrounding India, both at sea and on land, we, Britain, are able to gain a tremendous advantage."
After Staunton finished speaking, he went back to sit down, and Melbourne, as Prime Minister, stood up again:
"What we can be sure of is that even if this vote passes, we will only use the conditions in the bill as our bottom line in negotiations."
"Diplomatic personnel will certainly try their best to persuade the Han Dynasty to send only civil officials to India to supervise the destruction of the plantations."
"If that cannot be achieved, then take a step back and demand control over the size of the troops deployed."
"The number of troops that the Han Dynasty sends to India should be kept below one thousand and absolutely not exceed ten thousand."
"As long as we show sincerity in negotiation, the Emperor of Han should also show tolerance."
Although opium was widely used in various European countries, including Britain, the opium used in Europe mainly came from the Ottoman region of Asia Minor.
Opium plantations in India were originally developed and built for export to the East.
Indian opium typically contains around 6% active ingredient, while Ottoman opium typically contains around 12%.
Therefore, for Europeans, Indian opium was not potent and did not fetch a good price in Europe. Moreover, the cost of transporting it back from India was higher than that of Ottoman opium.
Therefore, Indian opium was almost never sold in Europe.
In addition, with the Han Dynasty's continued severe crackdown on the opium trade, the profits of opium plantations in India were already very low, and the scale of the plantations was naturally declining.
Therefore, the fact that the Han dynasty destroyed India's opium plantations would not cause much complicated discussion in Britain or in Parliament.
After making his final statement, Melbourne looked at the whispering members of parliament and signaled to the Speaker that he could order a vote.
The British House of Commons has a total of 658 members, but most of them are not present.
Only 542 people participated in the vote for the Opium War, while there are 598 people here today.
After a rather lengthy vote count, 336 people voted in favor, 248 voted against, and 14 abstained.
The on-site approval rating was 56%, and the total approval rating of all councilors was 51%.
The final advantage wasn't significant, but we still managed to pass smoothly.
The Speaker signed the document based on the vote results, and Melbourne took the document to see the King.
William IV also signed this unusual document with a sigh.
The matter was finally settled, and Melbourne and Palmerston began organizing a formal mission.
The official delegation is the same as the one from the previous visit.
Foreign Minister Palmerston will remain the official representative, with Staunton serving as the deputy representative.
The team of trade directors already appointed in Wuhan, consisting of Napier, Davis, and Elliot, also accompanied the delegation once again.
They should be able to take office normally this time.
The visiting delegation of engineers and scholars from the public was led by Robert Stephenson.
The civilian delegation is still being formed and the number of members is still increasing; it will not be finalized in the short term.
The planned departure time was at least after autumn, so that it could arrive in the Han mainland by following the monsoon the following spring.
Before setting off, the nobles, merchants, and engineers involved in the investment had to organize manpower and raise more funds and equipment.
This was supposed to be the first visit and investment, fraught with uncertainty.
If the emperor of the Han Dynasty indicated that he did not need a certain technology, then the corresponding personnel might not necessarily be able to build factories and produce and sell products in the Han Dynasty.
If investors are conservative and prudent, they probably won't invest too much money in this visit.
But at this time, most British investors were impulsive and blind.
They are currently in a state of having money but nowhere to spend it, with more than 50 million pounds of idle funds every year.
Stephenson and Talbo, two members of the delegation, attracted the most investment because they were directly recommended by the Emperor of the Han Dynasty.
Talbot's technology is still immature, and the specific application methods are still under development. The key issue is that the application scale will not be very wide, but it has still quickly accumulated an investment of more than one million pounds.
Stephenson possessed mature manufacturing technology, and trains were a large-scale infrastructure and machinery industry, making them a popular investment in Britain, where the investment quickly exceeded five million.
Engineers from various industries who decided to join the delegation, as long as their technology was deemed to have industrial production value, also received investments of tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The total investment of the entire delegation quickly exceeded ten million pounds.
This investment of over ten million pounds will, apart from a small portion used to pay personnel costs, be mostly used to purchase machinery, equipment, tools, materials, and other goods that the investors believe the Great Han might need.
This, in turn, spurred new investment in Britain, with large sums of money flowing into factories that produced these items, helping them to rapidly expand their production lines.
Liu Yulong never imagined that his fabricated demand would cause the British machinery industry to overheat.
Outside of Britain, news of the British mission's return to Europe, along with the various messages they brought back, gradually reached the European continent across the Channel, thanks to continuous newspaper reports and publicity.
For the rest of Europe, intelligence about the Eastern Emperor was more captivating than Britain's own internal affairs.
The news that the Han emperor had invited British engineers and scholars to visit sparked discussion across Europe.
France, in particular, across the Channel, has always regarded Britain as its primary competitor.
Franz's large landowners and merchants, members of parliament and officials, as well as elite scholars with a simple sense of national sentiment, quickly joined the discussion.
Most Francois naturally assumed that since Britain was able to send a mission to visit the Han Dynasty, and more importantly, had received an invitation from the Han emperor, it could send engineers and scholars to visit and invest in the Han Dynasty.
France should also organize a delegation to visit the Han Dynasty and strive to obtain similar treatment as Britain, that is, to be able to invest in the Han Dynasty. In short, it is not to be inferior to the British.
There's not much loss in this kind of thing; the cost isn't small, but it's not huge either. The key is that it should be profitable.
Trade between the East and the West, originating from the Han Dynasty, was the most profitable business of that era.
Even if such a visit does not ultimately yield good results, it is still equivalent to the government organizing a large-scale trade event.
This demand quickly gained unanimous support from the king to the prime minister, from members of parliament to businessmen.
King Louis-Philippe I of the Franco-Orléans dynasty quickly decided to follow the will of the people and appointed Victor de Broy, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers (equivalent to Prime Minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs, to take full charge of organizing a formal mission to visit the Han Dynasty.
To demonstrate his importance and to subtly enhance the influence of the royal family, Philip I arranged for his second son, Louis-Charles Philippe, to join the delegation as a representative of the Franco royal family.
Considering the characteristics of the monsoon climate in the East, the general travel plan of the Frans Mission was basically the same as that of Britain, and they also planned to set sail in the autumn and winter of 1835, and try to arrive at the Chinese mainland in the spring and summer of 1836.