Changes in the human heart were the hardest to fathom. Franz naturally knew nothing of the little incident that had occurred in Pest. As an emperor, all he needed was peace under heaven; the thoughts of a few individuals lay outside his considerations.
By now, the Austrian Government's bureaucrats had grown accustomed to the three major evaluation criteria: enlightenment, stability, and the economy.
The easiest to achieve was social stability. The government was sufficiently strong, the local powerholders kept themselves in line, and it was enough to deal with the few bad elements who disrupted social order.
Next came "enlightenment." The rules and regulations were already in place; they merely had to cooperate with the Ministry of Education's plans and advance step by step.
Of course, anyone who wished to achieve results in this area had to adapt measures to local conditions and put in a great deal of effort.
The most troublesome matter remained economic development. Prosperous major cities were manageable; the domestic economy was now developing rapidly, and the major cities were the main force behind economic growth. All that was needed was to formulate suitable local policies.
Economic development in remote areas was much slower. In some places, it had simply ground to a halt. Even if the bureaucrats wanted to work hard, they did not know where to begin.
Uneven regional economic development had already become a difficult problem plaguing the Austrian Government—and one with no solution.
Franz was equally helpless in this regard. Not just now; even a hundred or two hundred years later, these problems would still plague countries around the world.
Many factors constrained regional economic development, including transportation, resources, climate, geographical conditions, population...
By comparison, transportation was actually the easiest problem to solve. At worst, they could build roads; as long as