1867: An industrial golden age
Michael von Hohenzollern, Chancellor of the Republic of Germany, took the podium in the Reichstag Chambers to deliver his first "State of the Republic" address.
"When I was elected Chancellor of the Republic, I heard from some newspapers and liberals that it would be an era of endless war, with the soldiers of Germany rampaging across enemy lands. [1] As the past six months have shown, nothing could be further from the truth. The very first action I took as Chancellor was to propose the construction of a canal in Kiel, one open to commercial and naval vessels of all shapes and sizes, and that is exactly what happened.
To ensure that our sailors have the necessary equipment and provisions to carry out the defense of this canal, Minister of War Gutfreund authorized the construction of two brand new, state of the art naval bases in the city of Bruges and in the city of Harper, Liberia. Towards the end of 1867, our naval theorists made important advances in ship-of-the-line doctrine; these new doctrines enable our admirals to lead many more of these ships at one time, and naval engineers have been working overtime on plans to modernize our shipyards and bases. Minister of Education Dwyfor-Frauenkirche promised to invest considerable state funding into the Naval War College, working up new planning procedures and more extensive war games.
Yet for all of the improvements to our navy and new techniques in building field fortifications, we spent most of our attention on the domestic industry.
As the President of the State Planning Commission, Friedrich Meier, made plain in his government directives from July, while we are delighted to see the entrepreneurs of Germany invest in our country, factories which do not fit with our industrial plan cannot receive state funding. They must succeed or fail on their own merits. My administration has poured money into state-owned industrial plant, just over £377,000. Brandenburg, the Rhineland, Franconia, Hanover, and other regions will have the very latest in factory technology within the next two years.
The enlightened leadership of the Foreign Ministry saw Germany avoid needless intervention in the Far East. Rather than invest our time, money, and men into a crisis over Seoul, Korea, Germany stepped to one side and allowed Ethiopia and Poland to settle the disputes of the Ming Liberation Front with the Emperor of Korea. To the best of our knowledge, the Emperor has promised greater autonomy for Ming Chinese within their Empire.
As 1868 begins, I pledge to you all that Germany will continue to improve. Your government will continue to invest in its military and its industry in equal measure. Thank you."
[1] Somebody really needs to write a left wing newspaper to counter GUG's right wing newspaper.
Here's our economy as of 1 January 1868.
Idhrendur, a couple of things that will interest you. As requested, I cut subsidies for all industries not on the plan. (A plan which, BTW, does not include East Switzerland?) Three factories went bankrupt: A winery in Thuringia, a luxury clothes factory in the Palatinate, and a clipper shipyard in Piemonte. We have 5k unemployed in Piemonte; there's a Canned Food factory being built but it won't be open for at least a year, I think (judging by the bar's length). The regular clothes factory we closed in Franconia has some slight unemployment issues -- about 411 workers -- with a lumberyard which should finish sometime in 1868. Brandenburg also has 1123 unemployed workers, with a winery under construction (which will take about as long as Piemonte's Canned Food Factory to finish). That's where we closed the Machine Parts Factory.
East Switzerland has a full Steel and Cement Factory, a Machine Parts Factory that's about empty, and a Furniture Factory that's about a third finished. All seem to be profitable so far.
TheChalk, I interpreted your education plan as the following sequence: Naval Plans, Naval Professionalism, Late Classical Theory, Scientific Management, and Collectivist Theory in that order. Am I correct?
JackLEagle, assigning two guards to 5th Army will actually give them 45,000 troops and make them the largest army we have. Is that your intent? 2nd Army will be brought up to the standard 39,000 with the new guards brigades. We can also upgrade all present naval bases, and I think the map shows we still have a couple of places to stick new ones if we want.
Mikkel Glahder, how long do you want present NFs to run? If/when the two states still using the bureaucrat NFs reach 100%, what do you want to do with those NFs?
We are now accepting ballot measures for 1868. The period for these will be
24 hours, given the short period since our last meeting of the full Reichstag.
