The Rise Of Australasia

Chapter 856 - 640: Population and Development

"How are our rubber plantations in the Royal Territory and Other Regions doing?" Arthur looked toward Prime Minister Roger and inquired.

After occupying the Royal Territory, New Guinea, and other regions, Australasia had started constructing its own rubber plantations.

However, building rubber plantations is not that simple. Firstly, plantations cannot be established just anywhere.

Rubber cultivation has very strict requirements regarding geographical location, climate temperature, sunlight humidity, rainfall, and even soil.

Rubber thrives in high-temperature, high-humidity, calm wind environments, and needs fertile soil. It requires an average annual temperature of 26~27 degrees Celsius and is not cold-tolerant, with the risk of dying if temperatures drop.

The rainfall requirements are even more stringent—annual average precipitation must be between 1150~2500 millimeters, but low, wet areas are unsuitable for planting. It grows best in deep, fertile, moist, well-drained acidic sandy loam. Being shallow-rooted with brittle branches, it has poor wind adaptability, easily suffers from cold winds, and produces less rubber.

With such a long list of requirements, even Southeast Asia, which is very suitable for rubber planting, has much of its potential plantation area limited.

Luckily, Australasia had nearly swallowed the complete Dutch East Indies, even using the land of the Sultanate of Kalimantan for rubber cultivation, so naturally, there was no shortage of land to build rubber plantations.

"Your Majesty, the very first batch of rubber plantations can begin harvesting. Many more have a long growth period left and are estimated to be ready for formal harvesting in two to three years," replied Prime Minister Roger.

These rubber plantations were official industries established by the government of Australasia, and Prime Minister Roger naturally had the clearest understanding of their current status.

Rubber trees are naturally planted in these plantations, and when mature for harvesting, a small knife can be used to scrape off a bit of the tree bark, allowing the sap to flow out along the grooves—this is also the raw material for making rubber.

The longest waiting time involved is for the rubber trees to grow to their full size for harvesting.

Generally speaking, even after a rubber plantation is constructed, it still takes two to three years before harvesting is possible, which is why the expansion of rubber production takes a long time.

"Currently, how large is our banana plantation?" Arthur nodded and continued to inquire.

"Currently, the scale of rubber plantations we’ve built in the Royal Territory, Sulawesi Island, and New Guinea has exceeded 50,000 hectares, with an estimated maximum rubber production capacity of 35,000 tons. If we can acquire some of the existing rubber plantations on Sumatra Island and Java Island, our rubber output could easily surpass 50,000 tons," Prime Minister Roger said with a smile.

The annual demand for rubber in Australasia is around 60,000 tons, which implies that just the rubber plantations controlled by Australasia can nearly meet the rubber demand of Australasia.

Of course, compared to Australasia, countries with larger populations and more developed economies like Europe and the Americas are the major consumers of rubber.@@@@

The Dutch, profiting annually from exporting rubber to Europe and the Americas, maintained an army of over 200,000 and a fleet, keeping the domestic economy of the Netherlands quite robust—all thanks primarily to rubber.

Had it not been for the rubber plantations in the Dutch East Indies, the Dutch could not have maintained their previous military size; without colonial profits, the Netherlands, like Belgium, would at best be a third-rate European nation.

After all, they had just arrived in Australasia without any ties, so where they settled wasn’t significantly impactful.

If the conditions offered on Sumatra Island and Java Island were favorable enough, it’s believable that a portion of immigrants would choose to move to these two areas voluntarily.

Keep in mind that even Java Island, with its not so large land area, can easily accommodate a population of over 20 million without any struggle.

At present, the recognized population of Java Island is only 170,000, and to fully develop Java Island with this number is nothing but an empty discussion.

In Arthur’s mind, Sumatra Island and Java Island had to be developed just like the native land, with the ultimate outcome being their complete colonial domestication, fully becoming Australasia’s native land.

To thoroughly develop these two regions without a population of over 5 million would be impossible, meaning that preemptive immigration to these areas was necessary.

Ultimately, the most pressing issue for Australasia was the population. Not to mention Australia and New Zealand, the two most important native lands, but what about New Guinea, Java Island, Sumatra Island, Sulawesi Island? Which one isn’t an island vast enough to accommodate tens of millions of people?

If any of these islands were well developed, they could bring enormous benefits to Australasia.

However, the problem is, with the total population of Australasia barely reaching 30 million, properly developing these areas would be impossible without decades of effort.

"I understand, Your Majesty," Prime Minister Roger nodded, saying, "Nearly 150,000 immigrants in January, with over 100,000 people moving to other administrative regions and only about 40,000 choosing to stay in Sydney or Melbourne.

I will encourage more people to move to other administrative regions as much as possible and temporarily restrict the population in Sydney and Melbourne."

The draw of big cities is undeniable, and this is also true for these immigrant populations.

Since they have all chosen to move to a new country to live, naturally, they would prefer to reside in internationally recognized metropolises like Sydney and Melbourne, enjoying a more advanced and developed urban life.

This has led to the populations of Sydney and Melbourne to steadily soar, especially during the period when Sydney was the capital, drawing over one-fifth of the total number of immigrants each year, severely hindering the development of other regions in Australasia.

Currently, the populations of Sydney and Melbourne combined are close to 6 million, while the total population of Tasmania State, the Capital Region, Northern Australia, and North New Zealand State hasn’t even reached 6 million.

Relocating the capital was not only about better developing the Murray River Basin but also about reducing the attraction of Sydney and Melbourne to immigrants, allowing other less populated areas to receive more immigrants.

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If Sydney remained the capital of Australasia, other areas would continue to miss out on more immigrants, and the gap between Sydney and other states would grow wider over time.

While Sydney’s increasingly better development is good news, if it comes at the expense of the entire country’s progress, just to create a city with a population exceeding 5 million, or even 10 million, it would be a pyrrhic victory.