Chapter 231: Chapter 216: Continuous Growth of Finance

Most of these universities were established just in the past two years, so it would take at least another one or two years before their first batch of students graduate.

Currently, there are many majors offered in Australasian universities, and different universities have their specialties.

For example, Australasia National University has a larger enrollment in physics and chemistry, as well as architecture majors.

The first thing that Arthur instructed Minister of Education Richard to do was to expand the scale of existing universities as much as possible and upgrade their teaching quality and standards further.

This also means that Australasia needs to import more university professors and lecturers from the European region to meet the teaching needs of its universities.

At present, there is no formal military academy in Australasia to train military personnel in various fields for the country.

After much consideration, Arthur finally decided to establish a military academy in the name of the royal family, named Australasia Royal Military Academy.

The Military Academy, Naval Academy, and Aeronautical College form a complete Australasia Royal Military Academy.

The Royal Military Academy will be funded by the royal family for 5 million Australian dollars, with Arthur serving as the honorary principal, to train military talents for Australasia in various fields.

Among the three academies, the Aeronautical College is very simple. All the trainers from the aerospace laboratories need to be transferred, and this would be the simplest scale for the Aeronautical College.

For the staffing of the Military and Naval Academies, in addition to drawing from the military, Arthur also plans to hire high-paying experts from the European region.

As long as they are capable, they will all be invited to the military academy as teachers with high salaries.

The Royal Military Academy mainly has two admission methods. One is by high school students entering through exams, who are the traditional students of the Royal Military Academy.

The other admission method is to select potential soldiers from the military for admission.

No matter which admission method is used, as long as they successfully graduate, they will become officers in the Australasia Army.

To make the establishment of the Royal Military Academy faster and improve the teaching conditions, Arthur also plans to invite a large number of experts from Germany and Britain to help the academy establish smoothly.

After all, Germany and Britain are currently the strongest in terms of the army and navy.

If a country’s army shows great potential and strength, it will often be called the “Prussia” of a certain region.

This shows that the strength of the German Empire’s army has a deep impact and is also the best praise for the German army.

Compared to the development of universities, the development of technical schools is much simpler.

Because the purpose of nurturing talent is different, technical schools usually only require experienced people to be established, and students only need to master one technology proficiently to graduate.

At present, the three technical schools in Australasia can train thousands of skilled workers and talents for the country.

If you consider various technical training provided by the private sector, the number would be even higher.

However, Arthur was not satisfied with this number and specifically instructed Minister Richard to expand the scale of Australasia’s technical schools and establish more of them.

In terms of skilled workers and talents, Australasia will never have enough, so they will train as many as they can.

After more than six years of construction and development, the transportation system in Australasia has gradually been perfected.

Firstly, the longest railway in Australasia, the Industrial Railway, has basically achieved single-track operation and is only a few months away from the end goal of double-track operation.

This industrial railway has greatly improved the transportation environment on the Australian continent, making the communication between the western and eastern parts of Australia more effective.

Next is the railway in the New Zealand region. The railway construction on the North Island of New Zealand has been basically completed, with the circumferential railway making transportation highly developed on the North Island.

At present, the South Island of New Zealand has only one railway line, from the northernmost Picton to the southernmost Invercargill on the South Island of New Zealand.

Of course, such a scale of railway cannot satisfy Australasia. Arthur has proposed the next railway construction plan for the Transportation Department, which is the Northern Railway in the Australian region, connecting the entire northern part of Australia, perfectly encircling Australia in conjunction with the southern Industrial Railway.

This railway line is not inferior in length to the Industrial Railway, and Arthur has given an eight-year period to complete it.

Fortunately, Australia has sufficient human resources and funds, and the Northern Railway construction plan has been agreed upon by all parties.

As for railway construction in New Zealand, it is already mostly perfected, and other areas that have not popularized railways are mainly sparsely populated mountain areas.

It is not cost-effective and completely unnecessary to build railways in these areas.

Therefore, in the New Zealand region, the most important job of the Transportation Department is to build more highways, enabling the highway network to cover all cities and towns in the New Zealand region and allowing New Zealanders to truly feel the benefits of transportation development.

The last to report is the Finance Department.

In the entire year of 1906, the Australasian Kingdom Government’s total fiscal expenditure amounted to 29,310,000 Australian dollars, and its total fiscal revenue was 21,120,000 Australian dollars, with a fiscal deficit reaching around 8,110,000 Australian dollars.

The reason for such a high fiscal deficit is actually due to Australasia’s ongoing industrial construction.

If only fiscal revenue is considered, the fiscal revenue of the Australasian Kingdom Government has been steadily climbing, and the fiscal deficit has been getting smaller.

This can be seen from the available funds of the government’s finance department. At present, the Ministry of Finance has available funds of up to 230,400,000 Australian dollars, which is a reduction of only 60 million Australian dollars compared to four years ago.

However, in the past four years, the economic development of Australasia has already surpassed this figure, and the total fiscal revenue has even increased by half compared to four years ago.

In addition to the development of the industry, the agriculture sector in Australasia has also seen a considerable amount of development.

Due to the large amount of indigenous investment, the available cultivated land in Australasia has increased by 50% compared to four years ago, and per capita cultivated land area has increased by 30%.

Not to mention the animal husbandry, Australasia has more than 160 million sheep, which equates to each Australasian being allocated twenty-four sheep.

This figure is enough to show how outrageous the animal husbandry industry in Australasia is, and it is by no means an exaggeration to call it a superpower in animal husbandry.

This is not even counting the cows and other animals Australia has. Wool, beef and mutton, and milk are all important agricultural and pastoral exports in Australasia, generating considerable income each year.

Speaking of this, it is impossible not to mention the British Empire. In the beginning, the supply source of the animal husbandry industry for the British Empire was New Zealand, followed by the later developed Australia.

After the establishment of Australasia, it naturally inherited the status of Australia and became the animal husbandry supplier for the British Empire as well as many European countries.

Also, because of the highly developed animal husbandry industry, meat is cheaper than grains in Australasia, and meat is an essential part of the diet for Australasians.