Sensation and Action

It was worth mentioning that the plan announced by the Australasian Government had caused far less of a stir domestically than it had abroad.

After all, the lives of the Australasians had not been affected too greatly. Apart from thanking the government and Arthur, there seemed to be little else they could do about the constantly increasing number of jobs.

But to Europe and America, which had been ravaged by the economic crisis, what did the sudden creation of two million jobs represent?

If Australasia's unemployment figures had merely attracted the world's attention before, then the current infrastructure plan was, without a doubt, snatching the world's unemployed population away.

The question was, would the unemployed people of Europe and America be moved by Australasia's infrastructure plan?

The answer was, of course, yes.

Under normal circumstances, infrastructure construction so far away would never have attracted Europeans and Americans, unless they had already been planning to emigrate.

But now, let alone a formal plan organized by a country of such enormous scale—even if it could simply provide them with jobs and ensure that their families would not starve to death for lack of food, the overwhelming majority of the unemployed would not refuse work thousands of miles away.

As for the investment of as much as five hundred million Australian pounds publicly declared by Australasia, it also secretly astonished these unemployed people and the governments of other countries.

It had to be known that the value of the pound sterling and the Australian pound was still relatively firm. Just how much was five hundred million Australian pounds?

Even according to the prewar exchange rate, it amounted to roughly 1.25 billion US dollars, or 6.25 billion francs.

And now, with the exchange rates between the Australian pound, the US dollar, and the franc