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2.3 Discussion
It can be learned from the above analysis that almost a quarter of migrants who emigrated to Australia after 1950 as ‘10 Poms’ returned to Britain, which might cause by the following reasons: policy reasons, adaptation problems, career issues, suffering unfair treatment, national identity and so on. However, it is worth noting that these reasons have deep-seated reasons, the following contents will be from three perspectives: the Australian public, British migrants, Australian migration policy to discuss the causes.
2.3.1 Australian public and local awareness
At the beginning of the war, both the British and the Australians regarded themselves as a member of the British Commonwealth. However, gradually, Australians began to think that they and the British should not have a common destiny, establishment of an independent and non-British consciousness began to form. As Hassam (2005, cited in Sydney Morning Herald, 2013, p.97) figured that native Australians were very sensitive to the British official, visitors’ and settlers’ comments and criticisms. Two weeks after the first settlers arrived in Sydney, Australians began to hear about their complaints about life and working conditions because what the migrants experienced was totally different from what the Australian authorities promised. "Daily Mirror" interviewed a migrant, he said, conditions of the barracks were too bad. The environment they lived was not as good as those during the war. The ‘10 Poms’ British migrants also protested the environment of barracks. According to Hassam (2005, cited in Sydney Morning Herald, 2007, p.81), most of the migrants living in the barracks were the ‘10 Poms’ British immigrants who accepted the Australian aid migration program. In 1962, a man who returned from Australia to Britain wrote to a local newspaper to warn readers that the Australian government's migration propaganda ignored its sharp problems of shortage of housing, widespread unemployment caused by economic landslides, and unsound societies security system (Hammerton and Thomson, 2005). While the mainstream media in Australia condemned British migrants as "Whingeing Pom", they criticized that British migrants enjoyed more favorable treatment than non-British migrants, but they had more complaints. Many Australians believed that it was fortunate for the British migrants to be able to get the Australian government’s migration policy support to move to Australia. Because they could escape from the post-war British poverty, they should thank Australia. Australians believed that British migrants were lucky than those European migrants who were facing great difficulties, they did not know why the British migrants complained so much (Hammerton and Thomson, 2005).
The emergence of the term "Whingeing Pom" showed the change of the Australian public's attitude and concept to the British migration. During the short period of time after World War II, the British were admired for their courage in the war. But as time went on, the Australian people found that compared to British migrants, migrants from continental European countries seldom complained. They had no government assistance, no barracks to live, but they worked hard and kept their homes clean and tidy, and these people would be better Australians (Jones, 2006; Hammerton and Thomson, 2005).
From the above analysis, it could be seen that Australia's rising local consciousness and some of the public's unfriendly attitude towards British migrants caused some British migrants’ suffering unfair treatment and problems in adapting to the new environment. The Australian government should take measures to guide the public to be more tolerant with the migrants, by taking certain measures to protect the legitimate rights of the migrants.
2.3.2 Adaptability of British migrants
British migrants have their own unique characteristics. First, they came from a country in which the original economy was more developed, although they suffered war damage and there was a significant decline in their living standards, their requirements for living standards were not low (Hammerton and Thomson, 2005). Second, in the mindset, as citizens of a colonial country, British migrants had a certain sense of superiority, they were happy to accept Australia's special preferential treatment for them. However, after arriving in Australia, they found that there was a big gap between the actual situation in Australia and the situation they envisioned, which made the British migrants with poor ability to adapt to the new environment fail to live in Australia. For example, when the British migrants arrived in Australia to live in the barracks, which were used to resettle the refugees, the environment and health conditions were worse. The ‘10 Poms’ British migrants were not homeless refugees, they all came from the British decent families, so they were very dissatisfied with that (Hammerton and Thomson, 2005). What the ‘10 Poms’ migrants encountered in the Australian society made some British migrants very puzzled, the situation they encountered in Australia was totally different from that the Australian government mentioned in the pamphlets, if the Australians did not like them, why the government encouraged their migration (Hammerton and Thomson, 2005). In 1972, the Australian government cut the scale of aid to migration. At the same time, the government abolished the difference between British migrants and non-British immigrants, all migrants in Australia after three years of migration could get the Australian citizenship. Since then, in the hearts of Australians, British migrants were no longer "hero", but the same "outsiders" as migrants from other countries (Appleyard, 1962; Jones, 2006), this gap also caused a blow on the British migrants’ psychological sense of superiority.
‘10 Poms’ British migrants’ failing to adapt to the Australian society and their not smooth development of career were related to they failed to understand the Australian society and their too good expectations for the country. The government should help the British migrants to have a correct understanding of the real situation in Australia and help them to better adapt to the local society.
2.3.3 Migration policy of the Australian government
The original intension of the Australia's ‘10 Poms’ migration policy was good, they hoped to attract British talents to make up for the domestic demand for labor, from a realistic point of view, this policy to a considerable extent achieved this goal, the British migrants contributed a lot to the development of Australia. However, there are several major shortcomings in this policy that led to that some of the ‘10 Poms’ migrants finally returned to Britain. First, this policy aimed at British migrants, providing a larger concession for British migrants, which attracted a part of the British migrants who were not very competitive or were not very fond of Australia to come to Australia, as this part of people failed to adapt to the environment in Australia or they did not achieve the desired purpose in their career, and finally they returned to the UK (Hammerton and Thomson, 2005; Jones, 2006). Second, Australia's huge concession for the ‘10 Poms’ migrants had sparked dissatisfaction from some of the Australian people for the British migrants, they believed that the British migrants enjoyed Australia's concession and complained about Australia (Hammerton and Thomson, 2005; Appleyard, Ray and Segal, 1988). Finally, the Australian government overestimated the ability of British migrants to adapt to Australia and they did not take more measures to help the migrants to better adapt to the local society. For example, the Australian government should provide real publicity of the situation in Australia rather than exaggerate propaganda to attract migrants (Hammerton and Thomson, 2005; Jupp, 2004).
The Australian government should improve the emphasis only on the introduction of British migrants and ignore the policy of helping the British migrants to integrate into local communities. Then, the Australian government should consider guiding the local public to hold a more inclusive attitude towards British migrants to avoid unfair treatment towards British migrants.
3.0 Conclusion
Almost a quarter of migrants who emigrated to Australia after 1950 as ‘10 Poms’ returned to Britain, the reasons might lie in the following aspects: policy reasons, adaptation issues, career issues, unfair treatment, national identity issues, etc. Causes of these problems relate to both Australian migration policies and Australian public, there are also problems of British migrants themselves. To solve the problem of excessive migrants’ returning to Britain requires the government to improve immigration policy, to guide the local public to hold a more inclusive attitude towards migrants to help the British migrants to better adapt to the local society.
References
Appleyard, R. T., Ray, A. and Segal, A. (1988). The Ten Pound Immigrants. London: Boxtree.
Appleyard, R. T. (1962). The Return Movement of United Kingdom Migrants from Australia. Population Studies, 15(3), 214-225.
Burnley, I. H. (1978). British Immigration and Settlement in Australian Cities, 1947-1971, International Migration Review, 12(3), 341-358.
Hammerton, A. J. and Thomson, A. (2005). Ten Pound Poms: Australia’s Invisible Migrants. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 145-289.
Jones, R. (2006). Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants. Journal of Historical Geography, 32(1), 237-238.
Jupp, J. (2004). The English in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 142. |
