One Stone Stirs Up a Thousand Waves

Restoring relations with the British was certainly something Arthur was willing to see. Putting everything else aside, the hundreds of thousands of immigrants the British provided every year were still very attractive to Arthur.

Without these hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the scale of Australasia's declining annual immigration would be close to one million.

Even so, it was basically impossible for Australasia to restore the close diplomatic front it previously had with the British.

Australasia wanted to contend for hegemony in the Pacific, while the British wanted to foster another competitor in the Pacific, which meant that the interests of the two countries had already diverged.

When interests diverged, the best outcome for the two countries was to drift apart, and the worst outcome was to move toward confrontation.

The talks with the British ended in hypocritical perfunctory pleasantries, but some cooperation was nonetheless achieved.

Whether it was the import of food and meat or the maintenance of stability in the Indian Ocean, the British temporarily could not do without Australasia's help.

Arthur also took the opportunity to re-sign the immigration agreement with the British, meaning that British immigration for the next few years temporarily did not need to be worried about.

Once Australasia's population exceeded forty million, population growth would rely on the birth rate of the domestic population.

By that time, the demand for immigrants would not be that high, and controlling it at around 500,000 per year would already be considered a very good proportion.

Judging from the current rate of population growth, reaching the level of forty million people would take roughly three years or so.

It was to be hoped that no large-scale wars would break out within these three years and that the world would maintain basic peace, which would be beneficial to Australasia.