CHAPTER 19 | 1946–1949 – Return to Normality
and ‘naturalised aliens of enemy origin’. Regulations included movement restrictions and forbade the possession and use of firearms and censored or banned letters to overseas addresses. The National Security Act also affected how all Australians conducted themselves during the war. For instance, it was an offence for a person to attempt to influence public opinion in a manner likely to be ‘prejudicial to the defence of the Commonwealth, or the efficient prosecution of the war’. But the government was mostly concerned with subversive activities that could be organised by sympathisers or politically divisive individuals. Quotas and interstate sales restrictions were also introduced to curtail alcohol consumption during the war. Although Vittorio De Bortoli was not interned, he was fined £350 and imprisoned for three months for ‘selling wine above the maximum price and having failed to keep proper books’. He was also instructed to refund £381 to hotel keepers and a wine saloon licensee because of ‘overcharging’. But newspaper reports also suggest that it was an agent, Leo Branca, who had arranged the scheme. The incident has become a part of family folklore but also highlights the strict rules and regulations of the time. Among Australia’s so-called enemy aliens was a young textile merchant, Claudio Alcorso, a former Italian immigrant who had attempted to enlist in the RAAF but found himself interned instead. In 1947, after his
release, he transferred his textile factory to Tasmania. At its peak, the silk and textiles factory, which produced silk and cotton fabrics, employed 1,400 workers. Alcorso’s Sheridan brand, with designs by such leading Australian artists of the time as Margaret Preston, William Dobell, and Russell Drysdale, enjoyed great commercial success.
Cat in the hat of Vittorio De Bortoli, 1940s, who had an affinity with animals. [De Bortoli collection]
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