I am going to repeat what I've written in the past
on this topic:

One could try and argue that the indentured contract scheme
(for Post World War II migrants) was
equally beneficial to Australia and to the migrants.
One could say, for example, that Australia benefited
because the migrants solved its acute labour shortages
in key areas, while the migrants benefited, too, by
being assured of jobs and having an opportunity to
settle in a new country.

This argument is difficult to sustain.

Australia was the last country to enter the International
Refugee Organisation's re-settlement scheme and,
political rhetoci aside, "economic expedience was by far
the stronger motivation." The Australian Government
contributed only ten pounds ($20) towards each migrant's
fare. The rest of the passage was paid by various
non-Australian welfare agencies.

On arrival in Australia, all migrants were classified in
only two occupations: "labourers" which denoted all
males, and "domestics" which meant all females. Although
the Australian employment officials had full details of each
immigrant's skills and qualifications, no effort was
made to match these with the jobs offering. The Australian
authorities enforced labour contracts strictly.

The early conditions for migrant settlement were inadequate.
There was no family accommodation in many places to which
contract workers were sent. Men had to live in tents or
tin huts, in most primitive conditions. Their wives and
children remained in holding camps for long periods and
often a long distance away from their husbands' and fathers'
work places. Marriages suffered, and the psychological
scars of forced separations have for some remained for
life.

There is so much literature on this subject that people
can access for themselves. Books such as - J. Jupp
(2002) "From White Australia to Woomera: The Story of
Australian Immigration," E. Kunz, (1975)
"The Intruders: Refugee doctors in Australia,"
and C. Panich (1988) "Sanctuary? Remembering Post-War
Immigration," to name just a few.

Today, building a fairer Australia remains a work in
progress.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

The early months after arrival in a new country call
for the greatest adjustment not only for the migrants,
but also for the local people who interact with the
migrants. Since Culotta's humorous exposure of the
problem (1957 - in his book, "They're a Weird Mob"),
the literature on this topic has been growing rapidly,
E. Boas (1999)"Leading dual lives," I. Gelsen (1983),
"Fares, please!" C. Panich (1988), "Sanctuary? Remembering
Post-War Immigration," and R. Tarvydas (1997) "From
Amber Coast to Apple Isle," are but a few examples.

Thank You for putting this discussion up on this
Forum. As I've stated to you in the past - You have
a good heart.

See you on another thread.

Take care.

Thanks Foxy, right back atya :)

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but there was an element of discrimination in how ten-pound migrants were treated: Anglos could move to any city they liked, but non-Anglos had to do a stint of two years in the bush, on the railways or farms before they could be 'released' to work in the cities.

When I started working in factories in 1965, I came across very few Australian-born workers, usually the tradesmen, and my work-mates were usually Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, Maltese, the odd Turk or Lebanese. Our leading hands and foremen and supervisors tended to be Australians. I don't think the union movement ever caught up with that fact. Australians had moved into the trades and middle-class professional jobs by then. Fifty years ago.

Let's face it, since the War, migrants have built this country. Australians have done well out of that arrangement, moving up in the social world partly, if unintentionally, on their backs. But they weren't stupid, they usually tried to make sure their kids didn't follow them into the factories and become a permanent non-Anglo work-force. In their turn, those kids battled their way into the middle-class. Over the years, they have been followed in this strategy by Vietnamese and South Americans and other groups. And now it's other people's turn.

And we are all constantly re-making Australia, on the basis of the rule of law, equality of rights and a fair go, more or less. This is not to say there isn't friction, and difficulties, or that there won't be in the future, but I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Cheers,

Joe

Foxy,

The misleading impression you spread stems from giving only half the story. You cherry-pick and misrepresent. -As has been pointed out to you in previous threads where you did you usual thing of sicking the boot into Australians for what you allege to be 'unfair' treatment post-WW2 refugees and displaced persons from Europe.

You are long on the poor infrastructure and opportunities available in Australia and you opine that people such as the Lituanians who fled the German Displaced Persons (DP) camps and shambles that was post-war Europe should have been given lodging, work and recreation commensurate with what they might have expected in good times in pre-WW2 Europe.

What you consistently fail to mention or even recognise is that the fledgling Australian industries were devastated by WW2. The whole country had been restructured to provide the food and raw materials for Europe's war. Every available man was either in an industry essential to the war effort or was overseas fighting for the freedom of others, including your relatives. Women were the factory workers -engaged solely in war production- and women ran the farms - again, oriented to war production. Post war it collapsed in on itself as war production was not required.

TBC

contd..

As for housing for the thousands who were welcomed after the war (you refuse to even grant Australians their generosity), of course there was a shortage of housing after the war. In fact in the country and on the outskirts of towns, many a returned Digger built temporary housing for his family out of secondhand iron, with dirt floors. Inside, the pot of dripping to be spread on bread for lunch sat on a wood fired stove or open fireplace. Bags were often entrance doors. They would have been happy to have been allocated free lodging in the relatively new army barracks and huts. But so what if the men lived in tents. So did Australian workers in the country.

You failed to mention that the great majority of Lithuanian arrivals were single men and women. In fact you imply that all were families, split apart by awful, insensitive Australian authorities.

I will leave it at those quick remarks, knowing that you have had it all explained for you in detail many times before and links provided, which you so obviously have ignored. Your prejudice against you fellow Australians is that important to you it appears that you cannot see another side.

Foxy, that was then and this is now.

Back then, we could afford to take a few thousand Lithuanians (who are our ethnic cousins).

There was firstly, a legitimate urgent reason for their migration.

Secondly, we had a stable, homogenous nation that could cope with a *little* stretching.

Thirdly, there were jobs.
We had a manufacturing industry, and projects like Snowy River, where people with few skills and poor English could get a job.

There was also virtually no welfare system like today's. If they didn't manage their own affairs, tough luck.

I didn't "construct" our national identity.
It constructed itself.
People like you just want to dismantle it.

It is you who seeks a Utopia, an impossible fairyland where any and all types of people coexist, as long as they do the worst jobs and stay in their cutely quaint ethnic pigeonhole, entertaining you with their strange dances in embroidered skirts.

You are proof assimilation works.
Are you writing here in Lithuanian? Or English?

The world is full of diversity? Duh!
That's not the issue. The demographics of *Australia* is the issue.
We don't have to replicate the world in our own streets.

Look at the trouble that diversity has caused.

Almost everywhere where one group butts borders with another group, there's been conflict (Muslims/Hindus, Greeks/Turks).

Almost everywhere there are significant regional minorities, there's been conflict (Sri Lanka, Chechnya).

Do you really want to replicate that in Australia?
Give me homogeneity any day.

We don't have to "be" the world.
We can just be us, what history made us.

The people who would become "Australians" were White in 1788, White in 1888 and White in 1988.
They will still be White in 2088.
Anyone else is a guest in our home. Increasingly, unwanted guests.

Japan can be Japanese (with a native minority, the Ainu).
France can be French (with a native minority, the Bretons).
And Australia can be Australian, and that means White (with a native minority, the Aborigines).