Situation Vacant

Page after page of the Sydney Morning Herald spelled out the No. 1 problem of Australia: the labor shortage. In one day last week the paper carried 68 columns of finely printed "situations vacant" ads. Government rolls listed 47,000 unfilled jobs, and thousands more were not listed at all. A few years ago the well-protected Australian worker would have rent the air with redundant obscenities if an Englishman or Scot competed with him for a job. Now even a Sydney wharfie knows that foreign workers are needed.

To lure them Down Under is the job of tall (6 ft.), irascible Arthur August Calwell, Australia's first Minister for Immigration. His Government's long-range goal is a population of 20 million (present population: 7 1/2 million). Calwell's job has not been made any easier by the fact that Australians still have definite ideas of what kind of immigrants they want: ten Britons to one from other lands, very few "reffos" (Aussie for European refugees), few southern Europeans, and, in the long-established Australian tradition, no Asiatics. Last week Calwell flew to London to pound tables and find out why only 6,000 of 186,000 Britons who have applied for immigration to Australia can get berths on Australia-bound ships this year.

Australia seems to be feeling more tolerant toward the uninhibited Yanks (who were never a patch on uninhibited Australians). A Melbourne barmaid overheard two Yankee voices last week. "Coo," she sighed, "It's Americans you are! My, I wish we had you back." To get them back, Calwell offered U.S. veterans special bonuses and aids. His immigration propagagandists turned on the heat. A brochure printed for distribution from Australian consulates in the U.S. called up memories of "those high, clear skies, the rollers at Bondi's [Beach] and the surfers' paradise, the hurly-burly of King's Cross. . . . Maybe you're married or maybe you want to marry an Australian girl--perhaps the one you met over there or one of those you've heard so much about."

But so far, the tide was still running against Australia. Last year (not counting platypuses), 15,148 more left Australia than came in.

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