Since the end of the Second World War, AUSTRALIA welcomed around a million immigrants per decade, on the aftermath of WWII the Country established the Federal Department of Immigration in order to sustain the urgent need of a larger population for the purposes of development and also defence. The immigration boom lasted until the mid seventies, ships like the GALILEO GALILEI and "GUGLIELMO MARCONI" were by the mid 70's travelling far from full passenger capacity, a significant percentage of their passengers were tourists taken opportunity of this billed "Voyages Around the World", I remember meeting a very wealthy passenger on MARCONI that had been on both ships for over a year, travelling around the World on GALILEO and than in mid 1976 this remarkable gentleman was on board MARCONI travelling to Brasil and Argentina. "GUGLIELMO MARCONI" was eventually withdrawn from service in 1975 and "GALILEO GALILEI" in 1977.
A major aspect in the decline of the migrant trades was also the fact that the Australian Department of Immigration started favouring bringing immigrants in via air rather than sea. If you don't already have it, there is a rather good book by Peter Plowman called AUSTRALIAN MIGRANT SHIPS 1946-1977 that has information on the subject (it does concentrate mostly on the individual ships however).
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Kalle, yes unfortunately travelling by air doomed all these regular services by liners like the MARCONI. I have not heard of that book, one to look for no doubt. Thanks for your contributions
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Vitor