In Hugo Jakobsen’s story around this time last year, we found that the Department of Immigration was publishing two newsletters. The Department credited Hugo with coming up with the idea of the New Australian. Eventually it was merged with another newsletter, the Good Neighbour. A third publication, Tomorrow’s Australians, first appeared on 12 April 1948.
The extract from issue 1 below, headed Balts Engaged on Rural Work, suggests at least part of the target audience. For us now, more than 75 years later, it also gives the Government’s estimates of where it had sent the men, and a very small number of women, from the First Transport.
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| Source: Tomorrow's Australians |
They are not accurate figures, because we just found that it was 26 men sent to the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme. Also, they probably are for a date earlier than 12 or 1 April.
They add up to 491 people, but there were 727 men on the first Transport. Where were the other 236 sent? It looks as if these figures do not include the 187 picking fruit from the end of January, who started to return to the Bonegilla camp only two weeks later. Probably they were not included because they were known to be engaged on season work which would finish up before May.
This still leaves 49 men without explanation, but some of them, like Gunars Berzzarins, would have been employed at the Bonegilla camp at the time of the headcount on which the published figures are based.
Five men and one woman sent to the Zwar Brothers tannery in Beechworth, northern Victoria, are not included. There will be others. I’ll see if we can pick them up as we work through the life stories of those involved.
NOTE Tomorrow's Australians last for 14 monthly issues only, according to its National Library of Australia record.
SOURCE
Tomorrow's Australians (1948) 'Balts Engaged on Rural Work' Canberra, 12 April, p 4 https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2821961769 accessed 16 October 2025.
