White Gold
Perhaps it was due to my brilliant presentation, or perhaps it was the insatiable ambition for expansion, but the White House’s decision was unusually swift.
The economic agreement with Britain to pioneer the Asian cotton textile market was officially confirmed.
“Here, take this. It’s your appointment letter as the Representative of Southern Agriculture and Special Private Advisor.”
“Mr. President, as I have said time and again, I have no intention of dipping my toes into politics. I’m just a merchant content with selling cotton and scraping by, isn’t that enough?”
“That makes it even better, doesn’t it? An economic advisor without political color—it looks highly professional to the outside world and sounds quite plausible, wouldn’t you say?”
Ever since he became president, his way of speaking has become as slippery as an eel.
Unable to find a retort, I awkwardly accepted the appointment letter Lincoln handed me. Well, it was an honorary position anyway; I could just keep my name attached to it and continue pulling strings from the shadows, just as I had done in London.
However, even though everything was proceeding exactly as desired, Lincoln’s expression remained troubled.
“Your plan is excellent. Seward and Chase are so excited that I haven’t seen smiles leave their faces in a long time.”
“Is that so? But your expression, Mr. President, doesn’t seem to reflect that.”
“Indeed. If cotton exports explode, the shipping, finance, and insurance industries will dance along with them. The headache of maintaining naval power will also be resolved.”
“Then isn’t that all good?”
“Not quite. Even if the North gains some benefits, this whole picture looks like we are giving full-scale support to the South.”
Lincoln stroked his chin and muttered as if in a bind.
“The Republican Party cannot ignore Northern public opinion. Complaints will surely erupt, asking why we are filling the pockets of the defeated Southerners after we shed blood to win the war.”
“But we are only saving the South because they are truly destitute. It would be difficult to view this as preferential treatment.”
“Does public opinion ever operate purely on reason? It is human instinct to endure hunger, but one cannot endure the sight of another’s success.”
To be precise, it wouldn’t be the South, but *I* who would be sitting on a mountain of gold, but that fact was the biggest red pill of all, and there was no way to correct him on that.
I agreed that for the sake of North-South integration, economic reconstruction of the South was important, but that a bigger carrot was needed to soothe the sense of deprivation felt by the victorious North.
“The textile market will grow explosively for the time being, won’t it? In that case, couldn’t our Northern textile mills ride this current and grow in size as well?”
“That is…”
Grow the Northern mills? It sounds good in theory.
But to be cold and objective, the manufacturing competitiveness of the North currently doesn’t even reach the tip of the toes of Manchester, England. It would take more time for American manufacturing to become the world’s best, and the center of global manufacturing was, without a doubt, Europe.
And to compete with Britain, which was becoming the sole god of textiles? Even throwing an egg at a rock would be a more impressive sight than that.
“Mr. President, realistically, it is difficult. Britain is currently perfectly realizing economies of scale.”
They weren’t the Britain of the past, the one that sold opium because they were pushed out by the cottage industries of the Qing Dynasty. They had achieved monstrous evolution, lowering production costs to a third of what they were twenty years ago while simultaneously raising quality.
The speed at which they spun thread using the latest automated processes, having moved past semi-automatic methods, was a realm that American factories, which had only just taken their first steps, could not dare to imitate.
“If our factories had been competitive in the first place, there would have been no reason to export Southern cotton to Britain. We would have produced it and sold it ourselves.”
“I know that well. That is the dilemma.”
Lincoln wasn’t a fool; he knew that fact.
“But didn’t our Northern factories churn out massive quantities during the war? Military uniforms, tents—we cannot just leave that enormous production capacity idle. There must be some way, mustn’t there?”
The President sighed deeply, lost in thought. It was certainly a headache. Inventory was piling up, factories were on the verge of stopping, and the massive wall that was Britain stood firm. Truly, the seat of the presidency is one where one’s head is bound to explode. I must never look at it.
Just as I was clicking my tongue inwardly and calculating the timing to slip away, Lincoln’s gaze locked onto me.
“But now I am relieved. Because you will be worrying about it with me.”
“...Excuse me? Me?”
“Aren’t you the special advisor for this agreement? Naturally, you must use your head.”
“No, I only taught you how to sell cotton, not how to run factories…”
“Find a way for everyone to coexist. A clever plan that the Northern mill owners can accept and the Southern planters can smile at.”
Look at this man. Since I’m going to make astronomical amounts of money from this, he’s telling me not to eat it all alone but to bring back a way to share the scraps with the North. It was such a plausible argument that there was no room for rebuttal.
“If the perception that only the South is having fun grows stronger in the North, it won’t be very fun for you either, will it? As you said in your presentation—please, exert yourself for true North-South integration.”
“...I will rack my brain as hard as I can.”
I wanted to keep my distance from politics and just suck the honey, but have I been roped in? As Lincoln said, since my wealth could multiply dozens of times depending on how this plays out, his request wasn’t morally wrong. I returned to my hotel, realizing that the reputation of being the best president in American history was not in vain.
While the delegations of both countries were busy putting their heads together to discuss how to lead both the U.S. and Britain toward a path of happiness, a meeting of the giants who moved the industries of both nations was underway in a suite at the National Hotel in Washington, a few blocks away.
“Mr. Seuret, let’s be honest. Is there any reason we must embrace these American rags?”
Edmund Potter, chairman of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and a titan of the British textile industry, asked crookedly as he puffed out a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“Our Lancashire machines do not stop for 24 hours. Quality? Output? Price? Is there anything we fall behind in? I have no desire to share the market with the gentlemen of the North. This is not a charity.”
“Listen here! That is going too far!”
Amos Lawrence, representative of the New England Textile Association sitting across from him, slammed his desk with a face flushed bright red.
“Because of the war boom, we increased our facilities threefold! We brought in the latest steam engines! You ignore our technical prowess, but if we set our minds to it, we have the confidence not to be pushed out in price competition!”
“Ha! I don’t know where that confidence comes from, but let’s see you try. That is, if you have the confidence to beat London’s financial power and Manchester’s production capacity.”
It seems truly awkward for Britain to treat American technology as foolish and look down on it, but that was the reality of the mid-19th century. The United States had yet to escape the status of a second-rate power.
However, the atmosphere was hair-trigger because the North was desperate this time. Britain was aiming for market monopoly with its overwhelming technological edge, while the U.S. was in a position where it had to dispose of the facilities and inventory that had increased due to the war. If left like this, it wouldn’t be an agreement; they would end up destroying each other through price-cutting competition the moment they entered the Asian market.
‘As expected, mediation is necessary.’
The reason Lincoln appointed me as an advisor must be to mediate the interests of both sides from the middle. After all, I was the ‘super-A’ supplying raw materials to both.
“Both of you, please calm down. I didn’t gather you here to fight.”
“But Mr. Seuret, they are making absurd demands!”
“Chairman Lawrence, let’s speak coldly. Can American factories produce high-quality cotton thread as cheaply as British factories?”
“Th-that is…”
Lawrence was speechless. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was the truth.
“Conversely, Chairman Potter. While America may lack in other areas, we are not far behind Britain in producing the low-grade goods that the low-income population of China will wear. You must be aware of that point.”
“...Well, that is true.”
This was no lie. For the sake of the Civil War, New England’s textile mills had massively increased their facilities, and most of what they churned out were low-cost textile goods suitable for soldiers. At least for this specific item, American products could hold their own against British ones.
“But there is no need to unnecessarily oppose each other and waste strength. We must look further ahead.”
I spread the map I had prepared on the table.
“What we must do is crush the cottage industries of the Qing Dynasty and monopolize the market. Isn’t that right?”
“Hmm, that is true.”
“The competitiveness of Asia is already no match for us. So, we shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves, but calculating how to subordinate that massive market under us.”
To Britain, honor and profit; to America, survival and a path to dispose of inventory. These two values were by no means mutually exclusive. Considering the enormous profit Britain would take, there was no reason to be stingy about ceding a portion of the low-end market to the North.
Seeing the two men look intrigued, I drove the wedge in.
“Then let’s discuss productive policies. As I said, the important thing is not just seizing the market. Before that, it is most important to collapse the Qing textile market.”
There was no need for infinite price-cutting competition in the name of rivalry. In this era, collusion and the formation of cartels by oligopolistic companies were not illegal—they were merely gentlemen’s agreements among wise businessmen. This was the free-market economy that Britain and America loved and cherished.
“We can just sell at the same price agreed upon by both sides. The Qing Dynasty has no means to oppose us anyway.”
“Good. I will agree to that much. But will the Qing imperial court just sit by? What if they raise tariffs or block imports because their people’s livelihood is being cut off?”
“Couldn’t we just fire a few cannons and force them to open the ports? Like last time.”
Yes, I heard that ignorant and radical British-style solution loud and clear.
“Hmm, it is a refreshing solution worthy of the British Empire, but… forceful methods only invite backlash and cost a lot of money. There is a more elegant and certain way.”
“An elegant way?”
“Giving the Chinese bureaucrats a pretext. A very plausible pretext of modernization and self-strengthening.”
Since the pretext is plausible enough, if you just grease their palms with a little *guanxi*, you can pass any policy we want with 100% probability. That was the Qing Dynasty of today.
“We will build ‘model textile factories’ in major Chinese port cities. Capital will be Anglo-American joint venture, technology will be British, and raw materials will be American cotton.”
“Excuse me? Are you telling us to hand over our technology to them?”
“No. The factory is just a pretext; the actual goal is to absorb all the remaining cottage industry workers of the Qing.”
The Qing textile market had only been dealt a fatal blow by the Taiping Rebellion; its breath hadn’t been completely cut off. Since there was a non-zero chance of an unexpected variable reviving it later, shouldn’t I completely eliminate the variable since I’ve decided to do this?
“You can just tell the Qing officials this: ‘Aren’t cottage industry workers a headache who don’t even pay taxes properly? If you gather them in factories and make them laborers, wouldn’t it be much easier to collect taxes?’”
Naturally, a portion of those taxes would end up in the pockets of our corrupt officials. By the hands of the Qing bureaucrats themselves, not anyone else, the foundation of China’s traditional cotton industry would be pulled out by the roots.
“Kuh, perfect.”
“As an entrepreneur of the British Empire, I guarantee it. Mr. Seuret, you are truly a born businessman! Do you have any intention of coming to Britain and studying properly?”
“Um… no. How could I ever follow the entrepreneurs of the British Empire?”
“No, no, I, as the representative of the British Textile Association, guarantee it. You are the best entrepreneur. Take pride in yourself!”
“Uh… um, yes.”
It wasn’t at all joyful to be guaranteed by a person of the British Empire, but our Anglo-Saxon textile mill owners couldn’t stop their mouths from stretching from ear to ear.
“Hehehe, very good. Now the Qing Dynasty is ours. A very good idea has occurred to me, so leave moving the parliament to me.”
As expected, the British Empire is the best at causing chaos in other countries. Since I had taught them the method, I just had to stand back and watch. The South was happy because they could sell massive amounts of cotton, and the Northern textile mills were happy because they could enter the Asian low-end textile market in the long term through collusion. This was true North-South integration! Mr. Lincoln, I have fulfilled your wish.