The New Holy Roman Empire was a major importer and consumer of cotton, importing five to six million Divine Shields' worth of cotton from abroad every year.
Even so, it still could not meet the needs of domestic industry and commerce. Austria was also a major importer of cotton cloth.
Of course, this was also related to the Vienna Government's economic development policies. The cotton textile industry had not been listed as a priority sector for development.
In order to preserve its position as Europe's largest grain exporter, the government did not encourage cotton cultivation in the homeland. A lack of raw materials had become a major factor constraining the development of Austria's cotton textile industry.
Against this backdrop, promoting cotton cultivation in the colonies would not only save a great deal of foreign exchange, but also win over the domestic textile capitalists.
For example, Bavaria had traditionally been the center of the cotton textile industry in Germany. Many capitalists, lacking raw materials, had personally gone to West Africa to establish plantations.
Everyone could do the math on both the political and economic accounts.
After running through the calculations, Prime Minister Felix said, "Your Majesty, the biggest problem with growing cotton is that harvesting requires a massive amount of labor. The colonies are not like the homeland; it is far too difficult to hire large numbers of workers on short notice.
"Unless we follow the Americans' example and train a batch of cheap black slave laborers, there is no way to solve this problem.
"But making extensive use of indigenous labor would run counter to our long-term strategy and would not be conducive to lasting peace and stability."
This was the most practical issue. Otherwise, Franz would not have gone off to plant rubber trees. The main reason the imperial