My Italy

Chapter 8 Bad Situation

After becoming the king of Italy, Carlo still did not get rid of the fate of having to attend classes. Not only that, he also needed to attend more classes. This left Carlo, who wanted to achieve great success, to immerse himself in numerous homework assignments.

But it's not without its benefits, that is, now he can read all kinds of Italian information at will, which also gives him a clear understanding of Italy.

But you don’t know it until you see it, but you will be shocked when you see it. According to the data, the situation in Italy is not good at all, it can even be said to be very bad.

First of all, Italy's domestic population reached 28.21 million. Although this number is not as large as that of Germany and France, it is higher than the 25.7 million in the UK.

However, compared with the United Kingdom, which is mainly industrial and financial, Italy has more of its population involved in agriculture, and it is well known that the output value of agriculture is the lowest. The proportion of Italian agriculture has always been greater than 50%. This proportion is also among the best in Europe. It can be imagined how dependent the Italian economy is on agriculture.

(One more thing, it was not until 1900 that the proportion of domestic agriculture in Italy fell below 50. It can be seen that in these two decades, Italy's domestic industrialization was not promoted at all.)

But the key thing is that Italy relies so heavily on agriculture, but the Italian terrain is not suitable for agricultural production. Italy's domestic terrain is dominated by mountains and hills, with small patches of plains only along the coast.

It is precisely because of this that the Italian economy relies heavily on cities such as Turin, Milan, Genoa, and Venice in the northern plains.

At the same time, the gap between the rich and the poor in the north and south of Italy has also caused conflicting emotions among the people in the two places. Of course, economic reasons alone cannot cause such a big confrontation. In addition, religion, language, culture, customs, etc. are also mixed. These are serious tests for the Italian government and him.

Of course, this is also the reason why Italy has been divided for too long. Although its national thinking is recognized by the people, years of habits are difficult to change.

Of course it would be nice if Italy's problems were really that simple. In fact, Italy's problems are much more serious. First of all, although Italy's reunification gave people a feeling of sudden luck, it also caused a lot of problems.

First of all, Italy is not financially wealthy and relies mainly on agricultural taxation. In fact, Italy does not have much fiscal revenue. Its annual fiscal revenue is only 1.2 billion lire, while France's 2.95 billion franc (1 franc is exchanged for 1 lire) during the same period. From here, you can It can be seen that France’s fiscal revenue is 2.45 times that of Italy.

With more fiscal revenue, you can do more things alone, but with less fiscal revenue, you can naturally do less things.

However, the most urgent thing in Italy now is to connect all parts of the country, so extensive construction and railway construction is a top priority.

Italy has successively built many railway lines over the years, such as the railway from Rome to Milan, the railway from Turin to Venice through Milan, etc. Of course, these railways are also gold-eating beasts, which are extremely difficult for Italy with low fiscal revenue. The Italian fiscal data currently seen by Carlo shows that the current annual fiscal deficit reaches 300 million lire.

Then large-scale borrowing becomes the only option.

Fortunately, Italy's current debt situation is not bad, so Italian government bonds are not yet out of favor in the bond market. If it were as debt-ridden as Spain, the market would probably not accept it unless it offered an interest rate of one or two cents.

However, seeing this situation, Carlo is worried, because the current national debt, which increases one-quarter of fiscal revenue every year, will make Italy's debt burden too heavy, and it may really have to borrow debt to pay interest like Spain.

Although Carlo was worried about this, he had nothing to do now. Although he was the king, it was his uncle Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, who currently exercised the king's power, but now he needs to be called the regent.

But unlike his father, the regent didn't worry as much about the kingdom as his father did. He didn't spend as much time dealing with government affairs as he did going to the ball. This made Carlo feel very miserable, but he had nothing to do. Because according to European practice, it is impossible for him to hold power before he reaches adulthood.

Despite this, I still think of Carlo from the East in my heart, and I still understand the situation in Italy.

There are currently few workers in Italy, and their wages are at a low level in Europe. This also has a lot to do with the excessive number of unemployed people in the country. According to government statistics, the current unemployment rate in Italy is about 6%, but Carlo believes that this number is wrong because more than 100,000 people immigrate to Italy every year.

Italy is currently the second largest emigration country in Europe, second only to the United Kingdom. However, compared with the United Kingdom, which mainly immigrate to its own colonies, Italy's immigrants are more likely to immigrate because they cannot survive. It should be pointed out here that Germany, the country of origin of immigrants that has always been famous for Italy, is now experiencing a rapid decrease in the number of immigrants. Its annual emigration has dropped from 20 to 300,000 to about 100,000 now, and its number of immigrants has plummeted. And it can be clearly seen that Germany’s immigration will be tightened, because the current economic situation in Germany is much better than that in Italy.

When it comes to the economy, Italy really has nothing to say. Compared with other countries currently vigorously developing industrialization, the country is still dominated by handicrafts. The only areas that are better are a few northern areas such as Milan and Turin.

However, its industrial scale is simply not enough compared to countries such as Britain, France, and Germany. Not to mention that there are very few large companies employing more than 500 people. What do you think these situations made Carlo think of?

That's right, it's China in the Far East. Carlo's first reaction was that Italy and China are really similar. They are all agricultural countries, both are overcrowded (Italy is a shame), their domestic finances are not enough to spend, and their industrial scale is not strong. Of course, one thing Italy is better than China is that it knows that industrialization is the only way out.

But compared with China, which has a vast territory and abundant resources, Italy's resources are not suitable for industrialization. How can the famous marble and clay be industrialized and rich in geothermal resources, allowing people to soak in hot springs and become rich?

It can be said that the more Carlo watched, the more he felt that Italy's poor performance in modern times was entirely due to resource constraints. Look at how much help the Ruhr coal mine occupied by Germany added to industrialization.

And Italy, even in later generations when exploration technology was so advanced, was still a country lacking resources.

For this reason, Carlo felt that he was under a lot of pressure. If he wanted Italy's economy and industry to develop, he must catch up with the second industrial revolution.

For this reason, he planned to talk to his uncle and the Prime Minister.

I've been away for three days. I'm sorry.

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