The Frenchmen's Tricks

The French Council of State has indeed introduced relevant bills, and more than one. The first bill requires the France government to publicly condemn the Britain government's atrocities.

Nobody really cares about this bill. It's become the norm for the France government to condemn France Britain government, or Britain, over the years. Basically, every so often, the France government condemns the Britain government for undermining free trade; similarly, every so often, the Britain government condemns the France government for blatant interference in its internal affairs. So, condemnations are just that—condemnations. After all, according to convention, once the condemnations are over, everyone still has to continue doing business together.

However, the situation seems to have changed this time, as the French Council of State has proposed a bill requiring the government to establish a "Human Rights Review Committee" to review the human rights situation in other countries around the world annually and publish relevant white papers regularly. The France government could then take appropriate action against these countries based on these white papers.

Although the bill still left much room for ambiguity and did not require the government to take any immediate action, it provided a pretext for the France government to investigate various Britain goods at any time and impose temporary punitive taxes. Of course, according to this decree, these temporary tariffs should be used to help those "persecuted by tyranny."

In theory, whether or not this tax will be levied is uncertain. If the France government deems it unnecessary, it may choose not to. Perhaps every year when the human rights white paper is published, the France government will bring up this special tariff to scare the Britain into making concessions in ways that benefit France, and then do nothing at all.

This time, however, the France seem to be serious. The Council of State had just passed the bill when Napoleon immediately announced that a special tariff of 15 percent would be levied on Britain textiles entering France to help the persecuted "Britain textile workers."

Napoleon declared that any Britain textile worker could go to the France embassy or consulate in Britain, and after passing a "basic French exam," they could obtain a sum of money from the France embassy or consulate to pay for their ship ticket from Britain to continental Europe. (This money was, of course, paid for with the increased tariffs on Britain textiles, or more precisely, with Britain money.) Upon arrival in Europe, they could then obtain a loan from the Louisiana Development Bank at a relatively favorable interest rate to pay for their ship ticket to Louisiana and the cost of settling Louisiana. (This loan was reportedly actually shared by the warring Spain and Mexican Republic.)

Following this, the Paris municipal authorities announced that they would rename the street where the British Embassy in France was located "Textile Workers Street), the small square in front of Britain embassy " Kolya Square," and erect a statue of Mr. Kolya, the president of the " Textile Workers' Union," along with other victims, directly opposite the Britain entrance. It is said that the renowned Italy sculptor Antonio Canova had accepted the commission and had already left Rome for Paris.

In fact, when the Paris City Hall made this decision, the reaction across Europe was quite strange.

The Britain government, of course, protested loudly and threatened to rename the street where Britain France embassy was located "Louis XVI Avenue." The Paris City Hall responded, "What happens in London is none of my business." Napoleon, however, stated, "We do not interfere in Britain internal affairs."

As for the other Europe countries, the republics of the Confederation of the Rhine and the Dutch Republic naturally cheered loudly—they had long disliked Britain textiles. Austria, Prussia, Spain, and Russia, however, remained silent, because fundamentally, they did not want such troublesome things as labor unions to appear in their countries.

However, for most Europe cultural figures, France's actions truly moved them. The renowned Germany playwright John Chris Friedrich von Schiller published a statement in the newspaper praising France for upholding the purest ideals of the French Revolution in this matter, deeming it a beacon of hope for all of Europe and even the world. He also stated that he was prepared to write a play for Britain textile workers to commemorate their great struggle.

Following this, the renowned musician Beethoven also expressed his hope that if Schiller completed this work, he would adapt it into an opera.

Of course, Beethoven was very busy at this time, because he had just accepted a commission from France to compose a suite for the Olympic Games, which had been interrupted for a thousand years.

Besides these people, many more artistic youths, including those from Britain, resolutely sided with France.

This tactic by the France, however, caused the Britain considerable headaches. Firstly, although the entire "Textile Workers' Union" had been, at least ostensibly, dismantled, both the police and the textile guild members knew that things were far more complex. For one thing, apart from the United Trade Union president, Kolya, none of the other representatives had been apprehended. Intelligence indicated that some representatives had taken refuge in the France embassy or consulate. However, under these circumstances, the Britain were unlikely to directly raid the French Embassy to arrest them—doing so would mean war. And if the issue with France could be resolved through war, why go through all this trouble?

However, this also gave the Britain an opportunity for domestic propaganda, namely to portray those labor leaders as "traitors." In any case, although the France continued to protest, the Britain, through control of the press, at least superficially maintained control of the situation.

But then, something Britain happened: leaflets bearing the name "Textile Workers' Union" began appearing in the streets and alleys of London.

"Any results from the analysis of the leaflets?" Sir Hugh asked. These suddenly appearing leaflets had been putting him under considerable pressure lately. The Textile Workers' Union was still active, using these leaflets to assert its presence throughout London and even England. And these days, they were still secretly leading the workers; the textile workers' strike was still ongoing. While they were maintaining production by bringing in new workers and arresting the unemployed and renting them out as convicts to factories, factory productivity had indeed declined significantly.

This is quite normal, because convicts are less efficient than free workers. They have no hope, so they will use all means to slack off. More importantly, although they have whips lashing their heads, as government slaves, they still have food to eat. In addition, they will use every possible method to sabotage the machines, because that way they can rest.

Therefore, whenever possible, factory owners preferred to use free workers rather than government slaves.

Generally, in stalemates between workers and business owners, the workers are at a disadvantage. Especially after the trade fair in Pakistan and large orders have been secured, factory owners can hold out for far longer than the workers. This is because even if factory owners lose a few days, the losses are limited, and they might be able to make up for it by increasing the intensity of labor. However, workers will go hungry if they don't work for even a day. This unequal situation is one of the reasons why they dared to push the police to take action against the "Textile Workers' Union."

However, the situation has changed somewhat. First, these flyers are being distributed everywhere, successfully attracting the attention of some so-called "charitable organizations." As a result, these "charitable organizations" have actually gone to places like Petticoat Lane and set up soup kitchens.

These charitable organizations included some run by France people who had been brainwashed by the Britain, and even more problematic, those run by the France themselves. It's rumored that these France charities were backed by France and Netherlands merchants. These merchants knew that the Britain had a large number of unfulfilled orders, which was certainly a good thing. However, if the strikes continued, the liability for unfulfilled orders would be devastating for the entire England textile industry. And if this happened, it would be a huge victory for Netherlands and France textile merchants.

So, although these fellow capitalists, out of their own self-interest, naturally sympathized more with the Britain capitalists on this issue, they still spent money to cause trouble for the Britain, considering how important it was to Britain without them.

Of course, to ensure the success of the disruption, or to put it more bluntly, to ensure that the Britain would not dare to use violence to break the deadlock or overturn the table, they even found a very influential figure throughout Europe who had plenty of free time and loved to meddle in other people's business to personally oversee the matter.

This important figure was none other than Pauline Bonaparte, who left a deep impression on many Britain.

In Petticoat Lane, accompanied by Jacques Gallen and a group of others, Pauline Bonaparte, the sister of the First Consul of France and President of the French Academy of Sciences, France's most famous female writer, and the mother of science fiction, was dressed in a typical France worker's outfit—a woven hard hat, a blue canvas denim jacket, and blue canvas denim trousers—personally serving oatmeal and potato porridge to the workers.

In this era, Pauline's outfit was truly shocking, with many even calling it "indecent." But that wasn't all. Because Pauline, feeling too hot, unbuttoned her top, revealing a white shirt underneath. On the white shirt was drawn Fagin's portrait, along with the phrase: "Hold on until victory!"

Initially, the London Police Department did have a contingency plan to violently overturn the table. However, when Pauline, this walking troublemaker, appeared, the Prime Minister immediately sent someone to inform the police department not to take any rash actions.

Pauline's appearance and her public activities naturally aroused the hatred of conservatives. However, her shocking actions and her initiative to serve the poorest and most distressed people earned her the title of "Saint of the Poor" or "Saint of the People," in addition to her status as the Toulon Saintess.

Under her illustrious influence, the status of women in France was significantly improved. As a result, in later generations, the standard-bearers of the women's liberation movement often regarded Pauline as the founder of this movement.

Since they couldn't get anything out of the France charity event, the London police could only target the underground flyer printing operation. Generally, printing so many flyers would require a considerable number of machines, which take up a lot of space and produce noise that's difficult to conceal. So, in theory, these machines should be easy to find. However, to this day, the police department still hasn't been able to locate the printing plant hidden in the slums.

"Your Excellency, after analyzing the leaflets, we have made a discovery—we suspect that these leaflets may not have been printed using a printing press as we imagined, but rather produced using some technology that we are not yet familiar with," a technical official said.

"Royde, what did you find?"

"Chief, do you remember the typewriters we imported from France? These leaflets were all typed from one of those typewriters. You see, the letter 'f' is missing a piece here. In all their leaflets, every single 'f' is missing a piece in this exact spot. This is a typical characteristic of typewriters; it would be absolutely impossible for this to happen in typesetting and printing," Royde replied.

"Did they really use just one typewriter to print out so many leaflets?" Chief Hugh retorted.

"That's certainly impossible," Royde replied, "But I'm afraid our previous assumptions about the presence of a factory and significant noise may be completely wrong."

In a safe house that Jacob Gallen had prepared for his former comrades, Buck watched as Oliver removed a stencil from the typewriter. He took the stencil, walked to the other side of the room, where a small hand-cranked machine stood. He carefully loaded the stencil onto the machine's drum, added ink, and began cranking the handle. Each turn of the handle produced a printed leaflet. Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, the Butcher —no, the former Butcher, now Fagin —was cranking another mimeograph machine. Fagin is immortal; Fagin lives on forever.