On Monday morning, quite a few people spontaneously gathered outside the Capitol Building to march and protest.
Congress announced that it would build roughly another seven thousand kilometers of railway within the Federation, provoking public opposition.
It was not because their homes would be demolished to build the railways that they had come forward to defend their rights. They were simply opposing it vehemently from the taxpayers' perspective, on the grounds that the Federal Government was "wasting money."
These people believed that the Federation's current transport capacity was still far from saturated. Moreover, with the advent of air freight, the pressure on land transport had only decreased.
Shipping, trains, and transport aircraft were enough to handle the Federation's current logistics needs. There was absolutely no need to build such a long stretch of railway! Based on the current construction costs of federal railways, each kilometer cost roughly forty-five to fifty-five thousand dollars.
The fluctuations in cost mainly came from labor wages and benefits. For example, hiring large numbers of immigrants would reduce labor costs.
But if more native Federation workers were hired, labor costs would increase.
Moreover, changes in labor costs were not limited to wages. Native Federation workers also made extremely demanding requests regarding benefits. For example, they required meat and eggs with their lunches.
Immigrant workers, on the other hand, only needed to be guaranteed enough food to fill their stomachs. Even if someone grabbed a handful of grass from the roadside, boiled it with wheat kernels, and served it to them, they could still eat it.
Native Federation workers also demanded a one-hour lunch break, while immigrant workers needed only thirty minutes. Sometimes, they were willing to accept fifteen minutes.
Thus, hiring immigrants was cheaper, but the protests from native Federation workers would grow stronger. That was