[Newspaper clipping attached to a blank page, which has been stamped 'ARGUS', '22 APR 1949'.]

[Headline:] "20 million needed to hold Australia"

[Large text:] Australia had a maximum of 25 years and a minimum of 10 years in which to prepare for another war, Mr Calwell, Minister for Immigration, told the Royal Empire Society yesterday.

He said he had pessimistically forecast a war within 25 years, but Mr Menzies, on his return from abroad, had said 10 years.

Just how long no one knew, but the possibilities of such a conflict were almost too terrible to contemplate. It seemed that if war did break out, America would use Britain and Japan as aircraft carriers.

By then Japan would be rearmed and reindustrialised. Australia’s problem at the end would be who was to disarm the Japanese. Japan would become a formidable adversary, and probably set out on another Asiatic conquest.

No nation needed to grow more than Australia, because the continent was in a part of the world which geographically belonged to Asia. If Australia was to hold the country a population of at least 20 million was needed.

The immigration policy, therefore, was vital to every Australian, because this land would not continue to be the Australia founded by the early pioneers unless efforts were made to occupy its vast area fully.

Without an immigration plan the future of Australia would be extremely dark. Without it Australians could almost see in their lifetime the end of a nation which was only 160 years old.