After becoming the King of Italy, Carlo still did not get rid of the fate of having to go to school. Not only that, the number of classes he needed to attend increased. This made Carlo, who wanted to achieve great success, only immerse himself in numerous homework assignments.
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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 won’t know until you look at it, but you will be shocked at first glance. 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 UK, which is mainly industrial and financial, Italy has more of its population involved in agriculture, and as we all know, the output value of agriculture is the lowest. The proportion of Italian agriculture has always been greater than 50%, which is the highest proportion in Europe.
It is also among the best. One can imagine how much the Italian economy relies on agriculture.
(One more thing, it was not until 1900 that Italy's domestic agricultural proportion 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. The domestic terrain in Italy is mainly mountainous and hilly, with small 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 the emotional antagonism between the people in the two places. Of course, economic reasons alone cannot cause such a big antagonism. In addition, religion, language, culture, customs, etc. are also mixed in. These are all factors that have a negative impact on Italy.
government and his serious test.
Of course, this is also because Italy has been divided for too long. Although its national thinking is recognized by the people, years of habits are hard to change.
Of course, it would be great if Italy's problems were really that simple. In fact, Italy's problems are much more serious. First of all, even though Italy's unification 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 taxes. 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 francs (1 franc 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 via Milan, etc. Of course, these railways are also gold-swallowing beasts, and for Italy with low fiscal revenue
It is extremely difficult. The Italian fiscal data that Carlo has seen currently 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 by a quarter of the fiscal revenue every year, will make Italy bear an excessive debt burden, and it may 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.
It's just that unlike his father, the regent doesn't worry about the kingdom as much as his father does. He spends less time dealing with government affairs than going to the ball. This makes Carlo very distressed, but he
But there is no way. 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 is also closely related to the large number of unemployed people in the country. According to government statistics, the current unemployed population in Italy is around 6%, but Carlo believes that this figure
This is wrong, because every year more than 100,000 people immigrate to Italy.
Currently, Italy is the second largest country of immigrants 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 people who want to immigrate if they can’t survive. It needs to be pointed out here that Italy has always been famous for its immigrants.
Germany, the country of origin, is seeing a rapid decrease in the number of immigrants. Its annual emigration has dropped from two to three hundred thousand to about 100,000 now. Its number of immigrants has plummeted. And it can be clearly seen that Germany's immigration will tighten.
, 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 completely inferior to that of countries such as Britain, France, and Germany. Not to mention that there are very few large companies employing more than 500 people. Guess what these situations made Carlo think of?
Yes, it was the Celestial Empire in the Far East. Carlo's first reaction was that Italy and the Celestial Empire were really similar. They were both agricultural countries, both were overcrowded (shameful Italy), their domestic finances were insufficient for spending, and their industrial scale was 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 the geothermal resources are abundant, so that people can soak in hot springs and become rich?
It can be said that the more Carlo looked at it, 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 is so advanced, is still a country lacking in 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 had to catch up with the second industrial revolution.
For this reason, he planned to talk to his uncle and the Prime Minister.
