\The right stamp of migrant\" : assisted migration from Britain to Tasmania in the 1920's and 1930's"

During the 1920's and 1930's in Tasmania as in the other Australian states the \Right Stamp of Migrant\" was unquestionably British. The idea of imperial migration had a strong appeal to many in the post Great War period. Sir Joseph Cook High Commissioner for Australia stated that 'The Empirewas greatly under-populated and a scientific readjustment of the population of the Empire opened up vistas of happiness and prosperity for millions of still unborn men as well as for-those now struggling against adversity and unemployment in Great Britain.\" Others saw it differently and suggested that Britain was using migration to solve the problems that the post Great War depression had created. The following extract from the editorial of a Tasmanian Labor Party newspaper typified this view. \"Australian Labor. . . does not want to see misery in any part of the globe if there is a way to prevent it. But Australian Labor does not want merely to transfer the unemployed problem of England out here and that is what the migration schemes of Nationalism mean.\" The Assisted Migration Scheme which was designed to attract people to come from Britain and settle in Australia by subsidising the cost of their passage was embodied in the Empire Settlement Act of 1922. There was an initial influx of migrants in 1921 and 1922 when British ex-servicemen received free passages. Migration continued steadily throughout the 1920's and then faded to a trickle in the 1930's. There were two types of migrants - nominated and selected. In Tasmania the majority who came were \"nominated\"; that is somebody in Tasmania agreed to take responsibility for the new-corner by meeting them and having accommodation and employment pre-arranged. \"Selected\" migrants were chosen in Britain by representatives of the Australian Government on the basis of requisitions by the various states. Schemes such as the \"Farm Boy Learners\" and the \"Girl Domestics\" were designed to cater for perceived demand in those specific areas of employment. This essay emphasises the early 1920's and will involve an examination of the patterns of experience of migrants rather than the development of policy. It is a story of who came why they came and what happened after they came. Underpinning this simplicity is a complex interplay involving political social and economic factors some of which are difficult to define or measure and the complete spectrum of human characteristics. We see despair but also determination small mindedness but also magnanimity tragedy but also occasional triumph. This is a story of struggle but it contains all that is quintessentially human."