Chapter 116: Chapter One Hundred and Sixteen: Arms Procurement (Subscribe!)

From late April to early May, spanning over a course of about ten days, Arthur had nearly journeyed across the entire North Island of New Zealand, inspecting more than half of the colony’s infrastructure. In the process, he had also expended more than half of the funds he had personally donated to the New Zealand government.

While colonial officials were growing increasingly anxious seeing the funds get depleted, for New Zealand this was resulting in considerable accomplishments.

Under Arthur’s orders, not only was a maintenance and revival program initiated for all railroads on the North Island of New Zealand, but also significant roads, public facilities, and crucial infrastructure developments across the length and breadth of New Zealand were directed to be renovated.

At the same time, the New Zealand colonial government also committed to providing funding for education and healthcare up to 200,000 pounds.

Part of this fund will be allocated to upgrade existing schools and hospitals in New Zealand, and the remaining funds will be divided into two parts.

One half will be used to attract professionals in the field of education and healthcare from Europe to New Zealand, while the other half will be put into subsidizing policies for education and healthcare in order to alleviate the financial burdens in these areas for New Zealanders.

These plans in total drained the government’s coffers of more than a million pounds, amounting to a sizable half of all liquid assets.

Although the outcomes are not immediately visible, the implementation of these plans, in the span of one or two years, will bring most developments to completion. By then, the positive effects of these projects will start showing up.

This coincides perfectly with the two-year development plan Arthur has made for the Alliance Party. After two years, with all large-scale infrastructural developments completed, the New Zealanders can also genuinely appreciate the benefits brought by these plans.

At the same time, accompanying the evolution of the alliance party, there will be increasingly more New Zealanders supporting the alignment or even merging with Australia.

Having sorted out the affairs of the colonial government, Arthur had a final conversation and gave his instructions to Mayor Grant. This was to ensure the smooth progression of all his plans and preparations in New Zealand after his departure.

To secure the coordination after Arthur’s return to Australia, Joshua Brock, the New Zealand representative of the Royal Relief Committee, will act as a bridge between Mayor Grant and Arthur, facilitating communication.

As the representative of the Royal Relief Committee in New Zealand, Joshua Brock’s frequent travels between Australia and New Zealand ensure that he is fittingly suited for the role of being the messenger.

Joshua Brock willingly accepted this daunting task, as he was pleased to contribute something to Arthur’s mission.

After giving all his instructions, Arthur set of for his final stop in New Zealand, this was the headquarters of the New Zealand garrison located on the South Island of New Zealand.

Be it as it may that the New Zealand garrison had a strength of around 3000 personnel, translated it just to the strength of a little less than an entire troop.

In actuality, of these 3000 personnel, apart from more than a thousand who are located at the headquarters, the rest of the soldiers have been dispersed and deployed all over New Zealand, charged with the duty of preserving the order throughout the entire New Zealand.

Particularly Wellington, the capital of the New Zealand, not just does General Pierce, the commander of the New Zealand garrison, maintain a permanent residence here, but the New Zealand garrison also had more than five hundred troops stationed there.

Having docked at a South Island port in New Zealand and travelling for several hours by horse carriage, only then did Arthur finally arrive at the garrison headquarters in the South Island Mountain Region of New Zealand.

Despite the New Zealand garrison being classified as a colony subject to the rule of the British Empire, in reality, a majority of their logistical support is provided by local colonial sources.

The remote New Zealand naturally couldn’t expect to receive too much support. While the gear of the New Zealand garrison looked neat and tidy, in reality, there was a lack of ammunition supply and the soldiers fell short in terms of training as well.

The initial impression that the New Zealand garrison left on Arthur was commendable. If not for their performance on shooting practice giving them away, Arthur might have been led to believe that it indeed was a robust troop.

Although, European nations, in general, don’t demand high accuracy rates. Even during the horrendous experience of World War I, on average, it took about ten thousand bullets to eliminate a single soldier.

But this does not imply that the daily target practice of soldiers would be this weak. The New Zealand garrison’s target practice couldn’t even guarantee a hit on the target per ten shots.

Arthur’s question was answered shortly.

While talking to General Pierce, the General shared with Arthur a persistent problem that the New Zealand Garrison was grappling with. Namely, that there was an issue with insufficient weaponry equipment and lack of ammunition supplies.

Bringing in weapons and ammunition from the British Empire was almost unthinkable given the cost and time involved in shipping such goods to New Zealand. This incurred expenses even higher than the actual cost of the goods themselves.

In the past, when New Zealand’s major factories were booming, they could produce some weapons for the New Zealand garrison.

But ever since New Zealand’s economy started spiralling downwards, most major factories gave up their military production, due to low market demand, and transitioned towards civilian production or even made mass layoffs of workers.

This led to a situation where if the New Zealand garrison needs weapons and ammunition supplies, besides purchasing from relatively closer Australia, the only option left is to buy them from the more distant India and the British Southeast Asia colonies.

But the current Australian military factories are not even fulfilling the needs of the Australian military, let alone supplying weapons and ammunition to New Zealand.

Even though India and British Southeast Asia could provide the New Zealand garrison with the necessary weapons and equipment, owing to the expensive transport costs due to the distance, being an entity that was a stickler about expenditure, these could only provide for momentary requirements of the New Zealand garrison and could not address the root of the logistical difficulties.

In the eyes of General Pierce, Arthur’s visit to New Zealand offers an opportunity, an opportunity to seek logistical support from Australia.

Although the Australian military is also expanding, and their need for weapons and equipment is much greater than that of New Zealand.

However, many factories including military factories in Australia are also expanding and their production volume would eventually increase.

For New Zealand, Australia is the best choice for buying weapons and ammunition as it’s the closest. The difference in transportation costs alone was enough for New Zealand to buy more weapons and equipment.

After hearing General Pierce’s request to purchase a batch of weapons and ammunition from Australia, Arthur agreed without a second thought.

From what it looked like, the combat power of the New Zealand garrison really was at a low ebb, and even the previous Australian garrison surpassed them in that.

New Zealand was destined to be annexed, and whenever it becomes absorbed into Australia, these garrison forces will transform into the Australian Army.

Rather than waiting for that time to train these soldiers, it would be better to provide them with a few weapons and equipment now and let them begin the training in advance.

Regardless, Australia still had a batch of old equipment, which could very well be used by these soldiers from New Zealand.

As for Australian soldiers, of course, they would be equipped with brand-new weapons produced from the military factories.