The British Immigrant Children Scheme

One peculiarly Australian version of these schemes was the ‘Post-war Mass Migration Scheme’ first proposed by the Australian Government in 1941, just before the United States entered World War II.

At the onset of World War II Australia had a population of only 7 million people, but we had dutifully sent the greatest part of our army to help ‘the mother country’, our soldiers being stationed in Europe, Africa and Malaysia/Singapore.

Once it was clear Singapore would fall to the Japanese, we found ourselves under threat of invasion, without the troops or infrastructure to defend ourselves. This prompted the Government to consider our future, deciding that we must ‘Populate (Australia) or Perish’. 
Because the White Australia Policy had been a spectacular success, 99% of Australians were white, and we wanted to keep it that way.

It was assumed that following the enormous displacements of WWII there would be an infinite pool of ‘war babies’ available in Europe for the taking. Arthur Calwell, Minister for Immigration from 1945 felt we could take 17,000 children in the first year, building up to a rate of 50,000 per year.