definition of Australian ethnic relations.
It was not even considered that migrants would seek to maintain their language and cultures, at least not in the second generation:
In any case it was believed that even if migrants did not learn English, the school system, being monolingual and monocultural, would ensure that their children 'fitted in'. (Victorian Country
Education Project: 4).
One effect of the perpetuation of a monolingual education system was that English was informally given the status of the official language and, by definition, the migrant child's parents' language was inferior. It was also suggested at the time that not to assimilate was a sign of
'ingratitude on the part of migrants who had been 'allowed' to come and share Australia's wealth' (Victorian Country Education Project: 5).
These assimilationist assumptions defined Australian ethnic relations up until the mid 1960s (Victorian Country Education Project; Martin, 1978).
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Assimilationist ideas 'are expressed' in policy statements mainly by omission and inaction rather than positive legislation, i.e., by doing nothing to promote ethnic cultural characteristics or migrant participation
in Australian institutions. However, assimilation, in this period, was put into practice, both directly and indirectly. Directly, for instance, in the legislation passed in 1945 which stipulated that 25 per cent of the content of ethnic newspapers had to be in English. This Act was interpreted by some members of ethnic groups as an attempt by the government to actively discourage, if not eradicate, non-Anglo-Saxon cultures. For example, in
response to this legislation many Greek ethnic schools in Sydney changed their name to 'religious schools', on the assumption that the government would be more reluctant to close down institutions with such a title.
Indirect influences included the refusal by employers to recognise overseas qualifications of migrants and legislation forcing these migrants to work in manual occupations selected for them (Western, 1977). One effect of this
response to migrants was to keep them out of positions of influence where they could possibly push for ethnic rights.
However, it would be incorrect to infer that there was no opposition to Calwell's immigration programme of 1945. Some trade union leaders, for instance, were opposed to the entry of migrants who, for various reasons,
'would be hostile to the Soviet Union' (Greenwood, 1955:407). But the opposition was minimal and certainly nothing like the anti-migrant fervour for example, which accompanied the importation of Kanakas and Italians to the Queensland cane fields. Greenwood (1955:408-409) accounts for this mild reaction in the following fashion:
No doubt, trade union opposition was blunted partly because in the economic conditions that followed the war the danger of unemployment seemed extremely remote, partly because a labour government was in office which was pledged to a policy of full employment, and was not likely to permit trade union rights and practices to be affected by the entry of thousands of European workers. It is significant that shortly after the change of government, the trade union movements, and even the extra-parliamentary organs of the Labour party, reverted to type and began to call for the slowing down and or even the cessation of migration programme.
One major economic concern of this migration programme expressed by some, was that such a large-scale influx of migrants settling in the cities would
further develop the imbalance between the manufacturing and agricultural
industries. Indeed 'only 5 per cent of the employed migrants who had come into the country by the beginning of 1952 had found employment in agriculture'
(Greenwood, 1955:408).
Between 1947 and 1960, 408,000 British migrants entered the country, 59,000 Dutch, 62,000 Germans, 15,000 Austrians, 200,000 displaced persons from Eastern Europe, 42,000 Italians and various others comprising Greeks, Spaniards, Yugoslavs, Hungarians, Swiss, Swedes, Norwegians, Finns and French. 'All told 853,953 received assisted passages between 1947 and I960' (Clark, 1963:232). The decline in the number of British migrants as a proportion of all migrants is noticeable and this trend has continued. From 1947 to 1970 Australia received 2,288,462 migrants.
Of these 43 per cent were British, 23 per cent Southern European, 13 per cent Eastern European, 12.7 per cent Northern European, 4.5 per cent Asian and 3.8 per cent others (Collins, 1975:109).
Why this gradual but significant change in the proportions of British and Southern European migrants? Some writers have suggested that this
cosmopolitan trend reflected a general feeling in Australia, following the redistribution of power in the world after the war, that British
institutions and culture were not supreme (Greenwood, 1955:409). Possibly a more plausible explanation is that the Australian government
preferred
British migrants but the supply was drying up. The 1950s was a period of European recovery, with the formation of the EEC, which had the effect that British workers were tending to stay in England or migrate to the continent. It was also at this time that refugee migration declined. The net migration of Southern Europeans (mainly Italians, Greeks and Yugoslavs) between 1951 and 1961 exceeded net British migration (Collins, 1975:110). The importance of the EEC for Australia's future immigration policies is relevant in light150
of the fact that Greece and Italy, two of the largest traditional suppliers of Australia's immigrants, have recently joined the EEC. It was due to the competition from the EEC in the 1950s that the demographic nature of
Australian immigration changed (as one example of this demographic change the Northern European intake was 26.3 per cent of the net intake between 1951 and 1961. This figure had declined to .8 per cent for the period 1961 to 1966). The inability to fill the immigrant quotas with British and Northern European migrants, forced the government to relax the immigrant restrictions. This relaxation of restrictions included the acceptance of Lebanese migrants and highly skilled Asians (Collins, 1975:110-111).
The high migrant intake figures were maintained throughout the 1960s (in 1966, 145,000 immigrants entered the country). It was increasingly the Southern Europeans, largely unskilled, which provided the labour for manufacturing industry and projects such as the Snowy Mountains scheme
(Collins, 1975:110). From 1961 to 1966, migrant labour accounted for 122 per cent of the increase in the manufacturing workforce (Collins, 1975:113). But there is a clear division in the work performed by migrants. Collins
(1975:114) has pointed this out:
... for migrants from Northern Europe, Britain, Canada, the U.S.A. and New Zealand tend to come from a professional, skilled or at least semi-skilled background. In general they are educated (and) have few language difficulties .... On the other hand, two-thirds of the
immigrants from Malta, Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia have been unskilled or semi-skilled on arrival. These migrants flow into the low paid, low status manual jobs in manufacturing, building and construction with little chance of advancement.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s it was becoming increasingly obvious that ethnic groups were not going to assimilate. Government officials and many Australians began Lo question whether assimilation was an inevitable process. Many events were occurring to challenge the validity of
assimilationist assumptions. These included:
. The perpetuation of ethnic institutions, e.g., newspapers, by
the group themselves.
Ethnic groups continuing to display high levels of endogamy, e.g.,