Britain, Australia saying sorry to child migrants

When I read pieces like the above article, I like to link the past to current practice, hoping I can see how history either repeats itself, or teaches new trends to another generation of people.  

The British government has estimated that a total of 150,000 British children may have been shipped abroad under a variety of programs that operated between the early 19th century and 1967.

 
Me thinketh the above information leads readers down the wrong misleading road associated with the history of child placement.  According to my own collected finds, child migration, (aka sending poor children - without their parents knowledge or consent - away to a far-away land), began in the early 1600's, not the 1800's.  

The organised emigration of poor children dates back to a least 1619, when the London Common Council despatched 100 vagrant children to join the first permanent English settlement in North America, Jamestown in Virginia. A further party was sent in 1620, and more followed in 1622 to join the reinforcements sent following the Indian Massacre of the settlers in Virginia. From the mid-1600s, the demand for labour in Britain's colonies led to the illegal emigration of hundreds of children through their "spiriting", or kidnapping, a practice particularly associated with Scotland. This ended in 1757 after a number of Aberdeen businessmen and magistrates were exposed for their involvement in the trade.   [From: Pauper Emigration under the new Poor Law ]

Poor vagrant children were sent away to work and live because there were several benefits to be found.

1. The government did not have to pay for care.
2. Although unwanted in the motherland,  "selected" white British stock was wanted and needed in soon-to-be-developed regions populated by people of a different culture and color.
3. Those who thrived in the new land were expected to send a little something back to the ruling government, in the form of revenue.

Interestingly enough, with economic expansion, there came a desire to remove.... especially the worthless rif-raf that was not contributing to high-society.

Child migration peaked from the 1870s until the start of World War I. The 1920s emigration to Canada and Australia was small-scale by comparison, and the post-World War II child migration to Australia was minuscule. Some 80 000 children were emigrated to Canada before 1914; and only some 3,500–4,000 child migrants were sent to Australia after 1945.[15] Moreover, throughout the whole period – almost 100 years – the numbers of children emigrated were only a small fraction of the numbers of children in care throughout the United Kingdom.
The large increase in child migration after 1870 was triggered by desperate economic conditions over the previous few years: the social havoc caused by the 1866 cholera epidemic, the bad harvest of 1867 and widespread unemployment during a cyclic downturn in the economy. It was during this period that Annie Macpherson, Thomas Barnardo and William Booth commenced their work among the poorest and most destitute in the East End of London. To all of them, and many other religious workers, emigration seemed the one certain way for the desperately poor to better themselves.[16]
However, as well as the specific factors which led these people, and others such as William Quarrier (Orphan Homes of Scotland, Bridge of Weir, Glasgow), Robert Rudolf (Church of England ‘Waifs and Strays Society’) and Father Richard Seddon of the Catholic ‘Crusade of Rescue’, to favour emigration for their charges, there was a general climate of ideas which encouraged the sending of the children. The British Empire was reaching the peak of its expansion. This and industrial supremacy was exhilarating for some. On the other hand, amidst the rapid industrial expansion, there was for others a romantic longing for the simpler verities of rural life; a horror of the festering slums of the great cities; and a conviction that children of the lowest social class were better separated from their unworthy parents.
At higher levels of government and among some humanitarians was the realisation that emigration was a ‘safety-valve’ to tide over economic desperation in the British Isles, and to stave off revolution. Respectable middle-class society seemed threatened. Father Waugh wrote of ‘the verminous ill-fed hordes pressing closer’, while Samuel Smith, MP for Liverpool , believed that ‘the seething mass of human misery will shake the social fabric’ unless something was done to ease social tensions. Smith supported Barnardo’s Homes generously, but revolution was on his mind, not religion.  [From:  Child Migration: An Overview and Timeline ]

While many of the founding fathers of children's charities and foundling finders for paying partners have closed shop and faded away, Barnardo's charity is still going strong, in spite of the type of care given to children put in-care.  In fact, according to published reports, Barnardo's chief Martin Narey is quoted as saying, 'If you can take a baby very young and get them quickly into a permanent adoptive home, then we know that is where we have success.'.  Success for whom?  Those making money through child placement schemes and those saving money by not having to care for the poor? 

An apology is good only if the offending mistake does not go repeated.  Beginning in the 1600's, the UK government sent domestic born children out and away from their mother-land because poor children were littering the streets.  Decent care was not given to those children, causing all sorts of social problems.  Why was decent care not given?  Decent care is expensive, it requires an element of sacrifice and to give without great return would prove to be a costly mistake, not to mention feel like an enormous psychological burden. The UK government not only took and sent children away, but the UK government sent those poor children to places where they were used and abused.  After reading articles like, Two in three serious child abuse victims 'known to authorities',  Make greater use of charities for adoptions, councils urged , and 'Stop trying to fix families we can't fix': Barnardo's head's 'heretic' call for bad parents to lose their children , how much has changed, and how much has remained the same in the UK?

On a more global scale, how many sending countries are willing to offer a formal apology to those they sent away, because proper care would not be provided by the ruling government?  Will apologies be coming from China, Vietnam, Korea, and Guatemala?  <crickets chirping in the distance>.... Does a cold day in hell mean anything to anybody?