27
October 2016
PDF version [367KB]
Dr Nathan
Church
Foreign Affairs, Defence and
Security Section
Contents
Introduction
Attitudes of the Australian Labor
Party
Federal government
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
Western Australia
South Australia
Political impact on the ALP
Attitudes of the Commonwealth Liberal
Party
Attitudes of the Nationalist Party of
Australia
The second conscription plebiscite
Conclusion
Chronology of key dates
Conscription plebiscite results
Introduction
Following the 1914 election, the Federal
Parliament comprised members of the governing Australian Labor Party (ALP), the
Commonwealth Liberal Party (CLP) in Opposition, and one Independent Member of
Parliament (MP). Although both major parties generally supported Australia’s
participation in the First World War, only the CLP came to demonstrate
unanimous advocacy for the conscription of Australian troops for overseas
service.[1]
In contrast, the ALP became heavily divided over conscription and eventually
split, resulting in the creation of the Nationalist Party—made up of breakaway
ALP conscriptionists and the CLP.
This paper provides a narrative history of the major
political parties’ attitudes to conscription. Significant focus is given to the
ALP, due to the major internal division which conscription caused across all
elements of the party. This is also the story of the Nationalist Party and its irrepressible
leader (and avid conscriptionist) William ‘Billy’ Hughes, whose seven and a
half years as Prime Minister commenced with a tumultuous 13 months leading the
ALP, the party he had first joined as an organiser in 1893.[2]
The turbulent Commonwealth-state relations of the period are also addressed in
this paper, as the conscription debates demonstrated the stark differences
across the various states and their local communities, as well as the divergent
views between parliamentarians and their constituents.
Attitudes of the Australian Labor Party
Federal government
The pro-conscription campaign within the ALP was led first
and foremost by its federal parliamentary leader, Billy Hughes. Hughes’
background offers some clues as to his passionate stance; for instance, he had
previously enlisted in a volunteer battalion of the Royal Fusiliers in London
during 1884. Historian Ken Inglis further contended that by 1900, Hughes
certainly ‘saw racial purity as the essential condition for all other policies
of the new nation, and compulsory military training as a necessary means for
keeping Australia white’.[3]
In 1905 Hughes had also helped establish the Australian National Defence
League, which during 1916 urged the federal government to immediately adopt
conscription. Hughes even cited his union background as further evidence for
conscription, stating in 1915 that compulsion should not be viewed as an
ethical challenge for the ALP, as ‘the very foundation of our great movement is
compulsion’.[4]
Yet Hughes’ loyalty to the ALP itself had also proved to
be a somewhat tenuous concept. Prior to the war, Hughes had written a weekly
column in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph in which he championed the ALP’s
values.[5]
However, following the dissolution of parliament in 1914 due to the upcoming
election, Hughes brazenly recommended that the poll be abandoned and a wartime
coalition government be formed, comprising both ALP and CLP members.[6]
Having done little to generate much-needed solidarity within the ALP, Hughes
declared after the first conscription plebiscite in late 1916, ‘do not think
that the referendum is the cause of [the ALP split]—it is only the occasion for
it’.[7]
The ALP Senator for Western Australia, PJ Lynch, was another
early advocate of conscription, declaring on 9 June 1915 that ‘I feel convinced
that if a vote was taken of those men whose names appear on the roll of honour,
they would vote for conscription, and I believe, also, that the soldiers who
are behind the trenches would vote for it’.[8]
However, others such as Frank Anstey regarded the First World War as a cultural
battle between the working class and capitalists, a belief which largely
fuelled his own involvement in the anti-conscription movement.[9]
Despite his declaration on 31 July 1914 to ‘stand behind
[Britain] and defend her to our last man and our last shilling’, Prime Minister
Andrew Fisher was not inclined to publicly entertain notions of conscription.[10]
In fact, he emphasised to a Trades Hall Council delegation on 24 September 1915
that he was ‘irrevocably opposed to conscription’ and was sure his other
colleagues shared this view.[11]
Fisher’s belief was reportedly a purely pragmatic one, based on the
understanding that conscription would be too inherently divisive and too much
trouble to enforce.[12]
Billy Hughes, who succeeded Fisher later in 1915, had also
maintained a public profile of only advocating voluntary military enlistment up
to this point. For example, on 16 July 1915 in the House of Representatives,
Hughes commended the War Census Act to the House by categorically declaring
that ‘the Bill is not for the purpose of conscription for service either in
Australia or abroad. In no circumstances would I agree to send men out of this
country to fight against their will’.[13]
However, the proposed census specifically asked respondents (all males aged
between 18 and 60 years of age) about their health, occupation, military
training and financial resources.[14]
Accordingly, some within the ALP caucus were suspicious of the legislation,
regarding it as merely a government tool to make conscription easier to eventually
implement.[15]
The ALP member for Brisbane, William Finlayson, was particularly dubious and
asked that the House insert a clause into the Census Act Bill to ensure ‘that
no object of the Bill is in the direction of conscription’.[16]
On 8 December 1915, Hughes continued to hedge his language
regarding conscription, telling a group from the Brisbane Trades Hall
Industrial Council:
so far as I know, I believe, and I hope, that no
circumstances will compel the adoption of conscription. However, there are
circumstances, which, I venture to say, if only you were aware of them, would
result in every Britisher in your Council not only approving of it, but
enthusiastically assisting in giving effect to it.[17]
The long-standing ALP stalwart, EJ Holloway, was deeply
critical of Hughes’ ambiguous stance on conscription, lamenting that ‘when
Fisher resigned we lost a man whose word was his bond. When Hughes was elected
we got a man whose word was much more flexible’.[18]
Hughes’ transition to overt support for conscription was
completed in 1916, during his visit to England for official discussions
regarding the war effort. When the British Parliament determined that married
men should be conscripted (following its earlier decree in January 1916 that only
enforced conscription upon unmarried men) Hughes was in London, in the midst of
such political machinations.[19]
Correspondence between Hughes and his Defence Minister (Western Australia senator,
George Pearce) at the time also inferred that a draft scheme to implement
conscription had been created even before the Prime Minister’s return to
Australia in mid-1916.[20]
However, Hughes stopped short of publicly advocating
conscription in the weeks following his return to Australia.[21]
If he had hoped to buy time to garner support from his parliamentary
colleagues, it became quickly apparent that any legislation he proposed to
enact conscription would not make it through the Senate, and was also likely to
trigger resignations from Cabinet. Accordingly, Hughes sought to bypass
parliament and on 30 August heralded ‘a referendum of the people ... upon the
question of whether they approve of compulsory oversea [sic] service to
the extent necessary to keep our expeditionary forces at their full strength’.[22]
Hughes further indicated his assured belief that ‘the people of Australia will
carry this referendum by an overwhelming majority. No effort of mine shall be
spared to bring that about, and, with the assistance of honourable members on
both sides of the House, we shall do it’.[23]
Two days later Hughes again addressed parliament to advocate
for conscription. Quoting his predecessor that Australia is ‘compelled to fight
for her own existence and her liberties “to the last man and the last
shilling”’, Hughes reaffirmed his evolution into becoming ‘an advocate of what
is termed conscription’.[24]
He sought to explain this by stating:
While I have favoured compulsion for home defence, I have
hitherto been against compulsion for oversea service. But now iron circumstance
compels me, as it has compelled others, to disregard this distinction. We are
faced with facts, and we must not turn aside, and so attempt to evade that
which cannot be evaded. What does it matter what we thought yesterday? We have
to consider now what is the best and quickest way of doing the thing that has
to be done ... I am going into this referendum campaign as if it were the only
thing for which I lived.[25]
Despite Hughes’ enthusiastic optimism, the Military Service
Referendum Bill (which served as the legislative foundation for the
conscription plebiscite) failed to attract broad support from Labor MPs.
Nineteen ALP parliamentarians voted against the Bill, and the Member for Yarra,
Frank Tudor, used the occasion to resign from the ministry in protest. Tudor’s
main concern with conscription was his belief that it hampered the cause of
voluntary recruitment, and so he felt compelled to oppose the proposed
plebiscite. However, with unanimous support from the CLP, the Bill passed to
authorise the plebiscite question: ‘Are you in favour of the Government having,
in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to
requiring their military service, for the term of this War, outside the
Commonwealth, as it now has in regard to military service within the
Commonwealth?’[26]
Both the conscriptionist and anti-conscriptionist movements
officially opened their respective campaigns on 18 September 1916. Hughes led
the conscriptionists’ rally at the Sydney Town Hall.[27]
Their anti-conscriptionist opponents gathered in Ballarat, led by Victorian ALP
senator John Barnes, and James Scullin, who was the force behind the
anti-conscriptionist local newspaper, the Evening Echo.[28]
In his remarks, Scullin asked his audience ‘what did Australia go out to fight?
Was it not the cursed military system [the conscriptionists] were now trying to
force on Australia?’[29]
Four days later at the anti-conscriptionists’ campaign launch in New South
Wales (NSW), Frank Anstey posed a similar question, asking ‘what is the good of
victory abroad if it only gives us slavery at home?’[30]
At the beginning of October 1916, the stakes were raised on
both sides. The leading government
anti-conscriptionist Frank Tudor issued a statement declaring that 34 federal
ALP parliamentarians were opposed to conscription.[31]
Undaunted by this, Hughes endorsed a government proclamation that all unmarried
men aged 21–35 should make themselves available for military service within
Australia. In making this announcement (which was an implicit precursor for
implementing conscription) Hughes further demonstrated his unwavering belief
that the upcoming plebiscite would result in a decisive ‘yes’ vote. However,
the historian LL Robson has stated this decision to be ‘not the cleverest of
moves’, as there was arguably little thought as to its broader implications.
Indeed, even the avidly-conscriptionist NSW Labor Premier, William Holman,
believed this pre-emptive initiative to be one of Hughes’ greatest blunders.[32]
While the proclamation establishing compulsory military
service was significant in exposing those called-up to their potential future
under conscription, the political fallout was also substantial.[33]
This stemmed from revelations that on 25 October, at a government executive
council meeting in Melbourne, Prime Minister Hughes had proposed that men who
were eligible for the recent call-up—but had not yet attended the required
camps—would have their plebiscite ballots marked and put aside. Hughes had
reportedly made a veiled reference to this plan two days earlier in a speech at
Albury, NSW, in suggesting that those men who had ignored the call-up, but
intended to vote in the plebiscite, would ‘get the surprise of their lives’.[34]
The Treasurer, William Higgs, Vice-President of the Executive Council, NSW senator
Albert Gardiner, and honorary Cabinet Minister, Edward Russell, all rejected
this proposal, causing Hughes to reconvene the meeting in Sydney two days later.
With a smaller but more conducive quorum of conscriptionists on side, Hughes’
motion requiring compulsory military service was passed and included in the
Government Gazette that night.[35]
This resolution shocked the broader ALP caucus, with Higgs,
Gardiner and Russell all resigning from the ministry after their original
rejection of the motion was deliberately ignored. Despite Hughes’ attempts to
censor news of these resignations prior to the plebiscite (at the suggestion of
the Governor-General, Munro Ferguson), the news had already become public. All
Hughes could do to avoid further embarrassment was withdraw his
resolution—which he subsequently did.[36]
In his analysis of the events, the historian Leslie Jauncey praised the ‘timely
action’ of the three ministerial resignations, which ‘prevented what might well
have been the tinder that would have set the quiet tension into a burst of
disorder at the polls’.[37]
The day before the plebiscite, Hughes and 17 other premiers,
opposition leaders and notable politicians (including other ALP members) issued
a final plea for conscription, declaring:
Fellow Australians, in this tremendous crisis of our history
the courage and sanity of the Australian people must rise superior to the
mendacities with which their ears have been filled. The issue is whether, as a
people, we shall stand in the noble company of brave nations who are fighting
the battle of civilisation, or shall rank for ever as the first to quit in the
fight. You know who are voting ‘no’. The advocates of the ‘no’ vote include
every enemy of Britain open and secret in our midst. They include the violent
and the lawless, the criminals who would wreck society and ruin prosperity.
Will you dishonour Australia by joining their company?
It is absolutely false that Australia is to be denuded of her
manhood by the Government proposals. We are asked to do, in proportion, less
than half of what Britain is doing, and infinitely less than France has done.
Let us be swiftly victorious in this war, and all our young soldiers will
swiftly return to us. Are we to betray our own soldiers, who call upon us for
help? Are we to sentence them to death by refusing them reinforcements in the
dangers they bravely face? That Australia will refuse to stand behind her own
soldiers is unthinkable. Face the test bravely at the poll on Saturday, and
vote ‘yes’.[38]
On the same day, Hughes also wrote to his predecessor,
Andrew Fisher, whom he had unsuccessfully tried to
co–opt into the conscriptionist cause. In this correspondence Hughes lamented:
it is now apparent that there are elements in the Labor
Party with which I have nothing in common, which in fact I hate and distrust ... I
am worn with the storm and stress of a conflict—the most severe, the most
bitter Australia has ever known. But I keep on![39]
In terms of how ALP supporters cast their ballots in the
plebiscite, there was no discernible ALP bloc which voted against conscription.
According to voting analysis, safe Labor constituencies cast fewer votes
against conscription than for ALP candidates in the last federal election. Additionally,
although trade union affiliations and ALP party officials probably solidified
some wavering ALP supporters to vote against conscription, this was far from
universal and was only one of many competing influences.[40]
The plebiscite—which narrowly rejected conscription—was held
on 28 October 1916. Just over a fortnight later on 14 November, the Member for
Kalgoorlie, Hugh Mahon, and the Member for Darwin, King O’Malley, also resigned
from the ministry as a defiant protest against Hughes’ leadership.[41]
Later that day the ALP caucus met, and a vote of no-confidence in Hughes was
moved by William Finlayson, and seconded by his colleague Joseph Hannan, the Member
for Fawkner.[42]
Despite some caucus members’ attempts to move amendments deferring judgement,
Hughes responded to the motion by leaving the meeting, with 13 MPs and 11 senators
following him in support. This exodus included three government ministers: the
Minister for Defence, George Pearce; Minister for Navy, Jens Jensen; and Postmaster–General,
William Webster.[43]
The Western Australian senator Hugh de Largie—an avid conscriptionist—later
recalled that ‘we left the meeting before we were kicked out. The foot was
raised to kick us, and we thought it was about time to move’.[44]
These men came to comprise the new ‘National Labor’ Government, albeit with the
political backing of the CLP.
Following Hughes and his pro-conscriptionist colleagues’
defection, the ALP no longer held a parliamentary majority and was subsequently
reduced to opposition status, with Frank Tudor installed as leader and Senator
Gardiner as his deputy.[45]
Shortly after Hughes and his followers walked out of the caucus meeting, the
ALP released an official statement outlining the numerous grounds of the
no-confidence motion made against the Prime Minister. Among these were
reference to Hughes’ dictatorial leadership style and his bold rhetorical
attacks against the anti-conscription movement.[46]
Yet despite such attempts to reassert itself, the ALP remained ‘demoralised and
bewildered’.[47]
Having suffered an irrevocable split, the plebiscite result of 1916 was by no
means an unmitigated success for the ALP. John Curtin, who would later become a
Labor prime minister in 1941, published a manifesto in November 1916 warning
that conscription could still be enforced despite the recent plebiscite result.[48]
Curtin would ultimately come to support conscription in 1943, but this was when
external forces threatened Australia’s home front.[49]
As a means of taking stock, the ALP held a Special
Commonwealth Conference in Melbourne on 4 December 1916, incorporating six
delegates from each of the states ‘called to deal with matters arising out of
the conscription issue’. Victorian delegate (and future prime minister), James
Scullin, moved that:
as compulsory overseas military service is opposed to the
principles of the Australian Labor Party’s platform, all federal members who
have supported compulsory overseas military service, or have left the
parliamentary Labor party and formed another political party, are hereby
expelled from the Australian Labor movement.
Scullin contended that even if it was not overtly stated
within the party platform, anti-conscription was essentially part of the ALP
spirit. He furthermore asserted that if ALP members had desired to support
conscription for overseas military service, they would have done so during the initial
parliamentary debates regarding the 1903 Defence Act.[50]
Instead, the Defence Act specifically stated that ‘Members
of the Defence Force ... shall not be required, unless they voluntarily agree to
do so, to serve beyond the limits of the Commonwealth’.[51]
This aligned with Scullin’s personal view that while he fully endorsed
conscription to protect Australian soil, he felt that ‘men should not be forced
to go away to foreign frontiers and fight in a war in which they had never been
consulted’.[52]
Scullin’s motion seeking the expulsion of
pro-conscriptionists from the party was received with general agreement, as its
supporters contended that the ALP could not contain divergent views on
conscription, as ‘oil and water do not mix’. Others agreed with the premise but
believed that a Commonwealth ALP conference should not punish members for a
position that the Western Australian ALP executive had condoned.[53]
Ultimately, the motion was carried 29–4, with the entire Western Australian
delegation either voting against, or abstaining. Three of the Western
Australian delegates were subsequently removed from the conference.[54]
In 1917 Hughes’ second (and similarly unsuccessful) conscription
plebiscite further mobilised the ALP around its anti-conscription values.
Reasserting the party’s message in the days before the second plebiscite, the
ALP Opposition Leader, Frank Tudor, declared in a published manifesto:
The introduction of conscription into Australia would open
the door to sweated female and child labour, and would no doubt be welcomed by
those opposed to our ‘White Australia’ policy ... this year the employing classes
of [Canada] have already asked for permission to import Chinese labour, and I
have not the slightest doubt that similar requests will be made in this country
immediately the bulk of our manhood has been transported oversea [sic] ...
It is contended that Australia is the only country in the world that has not
adopted conscription, but I would like to make it clear that no country has
ever adopted conscription. The Government in each instance brought in
conscription by Act of Parliament. Australia is the only country where the
question was placed before the people, who, as you know, rejected it in October
1916, and it is to be hoped will do so again.[55]
New South Wales
During his campaigns for conscription, Prime Minister Hughes
received support at the highest levels of the ALP in NSW. Premier Holman, the
last two state party presidents and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly
were all conscriptionists, as were the majority of state Labor MPs.[56]
Described as an ‘eloquent and incisive conscriptionist’, Premier Holman was
also a high-profile supporter of the Universal Service League, which had been
established in Sydney to provide practical support to the conscriptionist cause.[57]
However, this high-level support did not necessarily extend
to the wider state ALP apparatus. For example, on 15 October 1915, the NSW ALP
central executive passed a specific resolution (with Premier Holman and other
conscriptionists in mind) that:
this Executive ... regrets that members have allowed the
name of the [ALP] to be associated with their membership of the Universal
Service League, and expresses the opinion that it is unadvisable for members to
associate themselves with controversial issues upon which the Movement may be
called upon to express an opinion.[58]
The NSW Political Labor League also publicly professed its
opposition to conscription. It contended that the current provisions in the Defence
Act regarding military service were appropriate and further argued the
unfairness of politicians advocating for conscription when they themselves were
not liable for service.[59]
A leading proponent of this sentiment was James Catts—the federal member for
Cook—who, as well as being both a federal and state ALP campaign director, also
became a leading advocate of the anti-conscription movement. Catts believed
that although conscription in defence of Australia was justified, this should
not extend to sending men to fight in conflict overseas.[60]
On 4 September 1916, Hughes met with the NSW ALP central
executive and attempted to garner its support for the Military Service
Referendum Bill. Having spoken in vain until midnight, Hughes reportedly
attempted to reconvene the following day with only his supporters and the
minimum number of anti-conscriptionists to secure a quorum. However, the
anti-conscriptionists were able to assemble the rest of their colleagues at the
meeting, and so Hughes’ proposal supporting conscription was rejected by a vote
of 21–5.[61]
Hughes and his fellow conscriptionist Ernest Carr (federal member for
Macquarie) were summarily expelled from the NSW branch of the ALP and the executive
also determined to disendorse other conscriptionist ALP candidates.[62]
A subsequent meeting occurred on 16 September where the
central executive formally passed a resolution expelling Hughes from the ALP,
as well as disendorsing other members—including the Premier, Minister for
Education and NSW Attorney-General.[63]
In response to his expulsion, Prime Minister Hughes reportedly declared:
I do not recognise either the authority or the right of the ...
executive to expel me ... this secret junta dares to tell me and those who stand
with me that, on pain of expulsion, we must not speak as our consciences
direct. But while I live I will say that which I believe to be right, and on
this great question, which stands far above all party, nothing they can say or
do will prevent me from pointing out to my fellow-citizens what has to be done
to win this war.[64]
The enforced departure of William Spence, who had been an
enduring ALP organiser and co-founder of the Australian Workers Union, was
another contentious result of this purge. The former ALP official EJ Holloway
suggested that Spence’s long-standing friendship with the prime minister,
rather than any overt conscriptionist sentiments, led him to follow Hughes.
However, a biographer of Spence has disputed this, and instead contended that
Spence became disillusioned with the ALP, believing it had ‘deserted the best
interests of the working man for socialist theory, and thus had abandoned
practical trade unionism’. Possibly in recognition of Spence’s longstanding
commitment to the ALP, the NSW executive allowed Spence to officially resign
from the party, in contrast to all other conscriptionist members who were
formally expelled.[65]
When Arthur Blakeley was pre-selected to Spence’s electorate of Darling for the
1917 election, Spence relocated to Tasmania and won King O’Malley’s former seat
of Darwin as a Nationalist candidate at the by-election held later that year.[66]
Following the first plebiscite on conscription, Premier
Holman entered into negotiations with the CLP to form a coalition ‘Nationalist’
government, citing the need for unity during a time of war. However, many ALP
members saw this as a cynical attempt by Holman and other conscriptionists to
maintain their hold on government.[67]
Holman’s newly-formed Nationalist Party was keen to negate conscription as an
election issue, declaring that ‘the issue of conscription, having been referred
to the people of Australia, and decided by them in the negative, is settled. We
accept unreservedly the verdict of the people and will give no support to any
endeavour to raise the question again’.[68]
The Nationalist Party in NSW quickly found success at the subsequent
state election, held on 24 March 1917, winning 52 seats compared to the ALP’s
33 seats. This victory appeared to be an early indication—later confirmed by
the Nationalist’s success at the federal level—that the conscription plebiscite
result was in no way consistent with the electorate’s broader political
sentiments.[69]
Victoria
The historian Jauncey has suggested that, given the ALP’s
inability to win government in Victoria, its state branch was ‘more of an opposition
party’ and therefore implicitly more comfortable opposing the government on
conscription.[70]
The Victorian state MP Maurice Blackburn exemplified this opposition,
instigating a letter-writing campaign to federal ALP parliamentarians seeking
assurance of their anti-conscription views. This reportedly resulted in
securing ‘many’ pledges, but it is likely the campaign only worked to highlight
existing sentiments, as opposed to enticing anyone to join the
anti-conscriptionist cause.[71]
On 1 September 1916, two days after announcing his intention
to hold a plebiscite on conscription, Prime Minister Hughes met with 20 members
of the Political Labor Council of Victoria central executive to press the case
for conscription. Although he acknowledged that he would never force
conscription on Australians if they did not want it, his hour-long address
claimed an immediate need for it, declaring France to be on its knees in the
war. However, despite his arguments, Hughes failed to convert any of his
colleagues to the cause of conscription, according to the then-ALP State
President. The Secretary of the Victorian ALP executive also subsequently travelled
to Sydney prior to Hughes’ meeting with the NSWALP executive, to ensure its NSW
colleagues heard a strong anti-conscription message prior to Hughes addressing
them.[72]
During the 1916 plebiscite campaign, the Victorian ALP executive
published an anti-conscription manifesto which government censors targeted
through destruction of the printing type and confiscation of 10,000 copies (a
tenth of the total first print run). The ‘banned’ manifesto became highly
sought-after and generated heightened interest in the anti-conscription
campaign.[73]
The executive also organised anti-conscription meetings, including at the
Melbourne Town Hall where speakers included Frank Anstey; Senator for Victoria,
Edward Findley; New Zealand anti-conscription activist Robert Semple; and the
father of Albert Jacka (the first Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross).
During his address, Nathaniel Jacka rejected claims that he and his enlisted
sons were conscriptionists—much to the approval of those in attendance—and
would later declare that ‘he wanted his sons to return to a free Australia’.[74]
Women in the Victorian ALP also exerted considerable energy
within the anti-conscription movement. For example, Jane (better known as Jean)
Daley organised the Labor Women’s Anti-Conscription Committee in September 1916
and was reportedly ‘one of the party’s most effective speakers’ against
conscription.[75]
Other notable female ALP advocates included May Francis, Jennie Baines and
Muriel Heagney.[76]
Despite the state ALP apparatus’ strong anti-conscriptionist
position, its parliamentarians held mixed views. The Victorian MP Frank Tudor,
who before the plebiscite was federal Minister for Trade and Customs, was
reportedly delighted when the ALP executive approved his request to resign from
Cabinet on account of his anti-conscriptionist beliefs. In contrast, the state
ALP Opposition Leader, George Elmslie, decided to resign his position because
he could not support the anti-conscription campaign, despite the state executive’s
calls for him to reconsider. However, the example of Victorian senator Edward
Russell demonstrated the more fluid political nature of the conscription
debate. Initially an anti-conscriptionist, Senator Russell reportedly reneged on
his decision to resign from the federal Cabinet at the same time as Tudor, but
later did so following Hughes’ decision to set aside the ballots of those who refused
the pre-plebiscite call-up to military service training. Yet despite this bold
stance, the senator—and youngest member of the Labor Cabinet—was subsequently
enticed to follow Hughes into the new Nationalist government, where he was
rewarded by being made an Honorary Minister.[77]
The results of the 1916 conscription plebiscite demonstrated
a clear distinction between Victoria’s ALP members and its elected
representatives, especially in the federal Senate. Despite five of the six
Victorian-based federal senators being anti-conscriptionist—the exception being
Senator Russell—the broader population narrowly voted ‘yes’ to conscription.[78]
However, throughout 1917 the anti-conscriptionist elements within the Victorian
ALP grew more emboldened and confident. For example, on 7 July, the Victorian
Political Labour Council passed a resolution demanding the abolition of
compulsory military training from both the ALP platform and the federal Defence
Act.[79]
Ongoing anti-conscription efforts within Victoria were also able to shift the
state vote from supporting conscription in 1916, to opposing it the following
year.
Queensland
The Queensland branch of the ALP was unique during the conscription
plebiscite campaigns of 1916–17, as the only ALP base which was largely unified
against compulsion. This included its parliamentary members, where only one member
of the state government Cabinet ministry was an acknowledged conscriptionist.
The ALP central executive was a key driver of this overt anti-conscriptionist
stance and threatened to disendorse any federal member who voted in favour of
the Military Service Referendum Bill. All but one of the Queensland
representatives heeded this warning, with Senator Thomas Givens (who later
defected to the Nationalist Party) the only exception.[80]
Among the broad anti-conscriptionist sentiment, Queensland
Premier Tom Ryan was a leading force. As the only governing anti-conscriptionist
ALP leader, Ryan was highly-regarded by other ALP anti-conscriptionists for his
courage, persistence and plain-speaking.[81]
His Irish Catholic background was anecdotally a significant factor in his
anti-conscriptionist position, as this demographic was particularly subjected
to heavy attack from conscriptionists during the plebiscite campaign.[82]
In November 1916 Prime Minister Hughes wrote to all state premiers
declaring that state police (as opposed to military police) should take the
lead in arresting civilians for offences against the Defence Act, which
implicitly targeted anti-conscriptionist activities. However, Premier Ryan
refused this request in what was one of many combative reckonings between the
Queensland Premier and the prime minister.[83]
The most infamous of these occurred in 1917, prior to the
second plebiscite on conscription. On 19 November, Premier Ryan
spoke at a public meeting in Brisbane where he candidly voiced his opposition
to conscription. Publication of this speech was subsequently censored but Premier
Ryan responded by repeating the censored comments within the Queensland Parliament,
where they would be recorded in Hansard. Within the parliamentary chamber Ryan
boldly declared his belief that military conscription would inherently lead to
industrial compulsion of labour and the destruction of trade unionism.[84]
The premier also directed that 10,000 copies of his speech be made available to
members of the public, in pamphlet form—orchestrated by the Australian Worker
organisation.
Prime Minister Hughes directly intervened in his capacity as
Attorney-General, and demanded that all copies of the Parliamentary Debates
containing Ryan’s censored remarks, and the related pamphlets, be seized. In
discussing Ryan’s remarks, Hughes declared:
I have a copy of the so-called Hansard before me. I
have had an experience in Parliament extending over 23 years. I have consulted
with men whose experience has been as long as my own. I have never seen a Hansard
in the least degree resembling this. It is a Hansard in name only. It is
in effect a no-conscription pamphlet, teeming with the greatest
misrepresentation, and containing statements calculated not only to mislead the
elector with regard to his vote on 20th December, but seriously to
prejudice voluntary recruiting ... Rest assured, if some of the statements
published in your so-called Hansard are repeated outside, I shall know
how to deal with them.[85]
A legal fracas between Hughes and Ryan ensued; however, the
High Court Chief Justice was loathe to entertain them, and suggested an
indefinite adjournment of proceedings.[86]
It is also of note that Premier Ryan was also adopted by
anti-conscriptionists outside his home state of Queensland. For example, on 16
December 1917—just days before the second conscription plebiscite—Ryan was
revered as an anti-conscriptionist ‘leader and hero’ in front of a 120,000
person crowd at the Domain in Sydney.[87]
Western Australia
In early June 1916, the Western Australian State Labor
Congress met in Kalgoorlie to discuss the conscription issue. An initial motion
opposing conscription was amended several times, to the point where the motion that
eventually passed stated that ‘in the interests of the defence of Australia and
the Empire, this congress desires to express its confidence in the Federal
Government’.[88]
This motion essentially allowed Western Australian ALP parliamentarians to
advocate their own individual views on conscription.
Western Australian Senator Patrick Lynch was reportedly the
first federal ALP parliamentarian to publicly endorse conscription, while a member
of the Legislative Council, James Cornell, was a relative late-comer in joining
the conscriptionist movement.[89]
At the 1916 ALP Commonwealth Conference, Cornell justified his stance through
the belief that only conscription ensured an equality of sacrifice during
wartime. However, the Victorian AWU organiser, John McNeill, rebuffed this opinion
and instead contended that there had been no equality of sacrifice for
Australia’s working class, who had largely borne the brunt of the nation’s war
effort thus far.[90]
Removed from the east coast epicentre of the conscription campaigns,
Western Australia voted with the
pro-conscriptionist minority in both plebiscites. Some reasons posited for this
include the fact that parochial state loyalties may have prevailed, in support
of the conscriptionist Minister for Defence and Deputy Leader, Senator George
Pearce, who was noted as ‘an influential figure in West Australian politics’.[91]
Additionally, it has been further suggested that Hughes’ absence from Western
Australia during the campaigns ‘doubtless helped to preserve calm and maintain
confidence in government’, the implication being that this ‘confidence’ helped
to elicit support for conscription.[92]
South Australia
In 1916, South Australia’s parliament contained 66 members,
59 of whom were regarded as conscriptionist.[93]
Leading the conscriptionist campaign was the South Australian Premier and ALP
Leader Crawford Vaughan, who in September 1916 cautioned Prime Minister Hughes
that further censorship would not help the cause for conscription, and that in
fact a relaxation of censorship may instead work to the Government’s advantage.[94]
Some of the few anti-conscriptionists within the state government included
Lionel Hill and Ephraim Coombe, who respectively became president and executive
officer of the Anti-Conscription Council of South Australia.[95]
Yet despite the ALP Special Commonwealth Conference’s decree
in December 1916 which moved for the expulsion of conscriptionist members from
the party, several labour unions in South Australia refused to implement this.[96]
Furthermore, the South Australian branch of the ALP came to explicitly allow
its representative parliamentarians to determine and express their own views on
conscription. This regulation was only replicated in Western Australia, with
the branches in the eastern states requiring blanket opposition to conscription
from their members.[97]
Despite this, only two South Australian federal parliamentarians stayed in the
ALP after the split, Senator James O’Loghlin and Member for Adelaide, Edwin
Yates.[98]
The scale of this defection led the South Australian ALP President, Norman Makin,
to lament in 1918 that more South Australian ALP members had left the party
over the conscription issue than in any other state.[99]
Political impact on the ALP
The central role of Hughes in dividing the ALP over
conscription has often been asserted; by his former ALP colleagues at the time,
to contemporary assessments of the former prime minister’s legacy. For example,
the historian Leslie Robson has bluntly assessed that ‘Hughes practically
single-handed destroyed the Labor Party’.[100]
Indeed, Hughes’ personal leadership of the conscription cause almost certainly led
to the heightened intensity of the fracture, as the plebiscite campaign was
largely fought in a spirit of ‘mortal hatred’.[101]
However, the official First World War historian, Ernest
Scott, is more sympathetic to Hughes, declaring:
...it cannot be said that Mr. Hughes was indifferent to the
unity of the party, nor could he be, since he was one of its creators, and it
was the organised political force by which he had attained power ... Mr. Hughes was
pre-eminently a party man.[102]
Conversely, Scott believed that Frank Tudor’s resignation
from the Government in September 1916 ‘unmistakably marked the coming of the
great cleavage which wrecked the Labour Party’.[103]
Scott has, however, acknowledged that Hughes ‘did tend to make enemies of some
who might have supported a less uncompromisingly aggressive leader. He was
indiscriminate. His attitude was that all his opponents were tarred with the
same brush, whereas in fact there were marked differences between [them]’.[104]
These differences, as the earlier pre-war context within the
ALP demonstrates, fuelled already significant tensions within the Party. The
outbreak of war further compounded these stresses, leading a newly installed
government to manage an overseas military commitment, while simultaneously
reconciling this with a traditional support base that largely opposed
militarism.[105]
As well as uncovering latent cultural divisions within the ALP, the
conscription plebiscite also provided the opportunity for labour unionists—who
provided the bulk of the ALP’s resources—to purge the party of those
politicians who did not fully embrace their agenda, under the premise of being
conscriptionists.[106]
In retrospect, the senior Victorian ALP official EJ Holloway
stated, ‘I have seen men’s loyalties tested in several crises during my
lifetime in Labor’s ranks. Never have I seen anything to compare, in that
regard, with the conscription crisis’.[107]
Such a declaration arguably stemmed from the hard political facts which followed
the split: more than a third of ALP parliamentarians followed Hughes when he
walked out in late 1916, while Tom Ryan became the only governing leader
anywhere in the country who was anti-conscriptionist.[108]
Historian Ernest Scott similarly mused that ‘a large number of the men who had
been the creators of the political Labour Party in [the] States and
Commonwealth were now dissociated from the majority of its members. So
extensive a loss of influential personnel was a severe handicap’.[109]
Yet Hughes demonstrated little sympathy for the state of his
former party in the Parliament. In late February 1917 Hughes reminded the ALP
of its earlier promise to:
...pursue with the utmost vigour and determination every course
necessary for the defence of the Commonwealth and the Empire in any and every
contingency [and that] in this hour of peril there are no parties, so far as
the defence of the Commonwealth and Empire are concerned.[110]
Hughes also went on to suggest the reason that the ALP wavered
in its total support for the war (through not supporting conscription) was:
The official Labour Party is no longer master of its own
actions. It is a mere pawn in the hands of outside bodies. It does what it is
told to do. If a member dares to murmur, to speak as he thinks, to let fall an
indiscreet word, to reveal by word or act his true feelings, to protest against
an intolerable tyranny, what a lot is his? He is a marked man. Even abject
submission to the will of the juntas will not save him. He lives with the sword
of excommunication suspended over his head.[111]
In the wake of the 1916–17 conscription plebiscites, the
ALP was politically caught on the defensive. At the federal level in
particular, the ALP suffered longstanding accusations of supposed disloyalty,
incompetence in international affairs, softness on defence issues, and an
inability to nurture key relationships with allies.[112]
This was further compounded by its opponents’ narrative that the ALP was
increasingly aligned with the Catholic Church, which demonstrated its
questionable loyalty to the Empire throughout the conscription debates.[113]
Attitudes of the Commonwealth Liberal Party
The CLP Tasmanian senator Thomas Bakhap is recorded as the
first parliamentarian to publicly express support for conscription. On 16 April
1915 he stated in the Senate chamber that ‘it is not a popular thing for me to
go out, as I have done, and say I believe in conscription ... but I feel that it
is what I ought to say, and that I should be a poor custodian of the people’s
interests if I did not say it’.[114]
By mid-1916, the CLP was collectively a staunch advocate for
conscription, revealed in such ways as its early support for the Universal
Service League.[115]
The CLP’s early solidarity regarding conscription was also demonstrated by
federal CLP representatives voting unanimously in support of the plebiscite-enabling
Military Service Referendum Bill in September 1916.[116]
One of the CLP’s leading conscriptionists was the Member for Flinders, Sir William
Irvine, who served as Attorney-General in the preceding Cook Government. In
making his case for conscription on 3 October 1916, Irvine claimed in the
Melbourne Argus that France was the ‘home of conscription, the country
in which democracy had begun and found its highest expression. The French
democracy stood for liberty, equality and fraternity, but recognised its
obligations’.[117]
Irvine also claimed in the same article:
...it had been said by some women that they would not take the
responsibility of sending other women’s sons to their death. If you are worthy
to be the wives and mothers of such men as have been sent from amongst us, put
away all such sentiments. Surely they were strong enough to look real facts in
the face and not be blinded by sentimentalism. The way before us was a long and
bloody one. We could not turn back; we dare not stop’.[118]
After conscription was rejected in the 1916 plebiscite,
Irvine pressed the Government to introduce conscription through parliament, regardless
of the recent popular result. To emphasise his commitment, Irvine refused a
ministerial position in the new Nationalist Party Government, so long as it
continued to seek a popular mandate for conscription.[119]
State CLP leaders held views consistent with those of their
federal counterparts, including the Western Australian CLP Opposition Leader
Frank Wilson, who reportedly stated in June 1916 that ‘I am in favour of a form
of conscription that would not only bring the slackers into the ranks of the
soldiers, but would embrace industrial organisations’.[120]
The entire NSW branch of the CLP was recorded as being pro-conscription and at its
state conference in July 1916 a resolution was passed in support of ‘universal
service’ for the war effort.[121]
Historian Ken Inglis has also noted that, among the CLP, ‘enthusiasm [for
conscription] was tempered only by a regret that the leader of their crusade [Prime
Minister Hughes] was a man on the wrong side’.[122]
This ‘tempered enthusiasm’ was particularly recorded in
South Australia where state politicians’ ambivalence towards Hughes reportedly
slowed their efforts in supporting the 1916 pro-conscription campaign.[123]
However, even within the national CLP constituency, their vote in the 1916
plebiscite was divided. Polling analysis revealed that although in some
metropolitan areas the pro-conscription vote was even higher than the Liberal
vote at the last election, the majority of non-metropolitan voters—who usually
supported the CLP—voted against conscription, possibly due to fears of
potential labour shortages if conscription was enforced.[124]
Attitudes of the Nationalist Party of Australia
The Nationalist Party of Australia was formed on 17 February
1917 as a formal merger between the CLP and the National Labor Party; the
latter being the collection of conscriptionists expelled from the ALP
throughout late 1916. Billy Hughes was able to maintain his hold on power until
the formal merger was announced, having resigned and then been reappointed by
the Governor-General following the CLP providing written assurance that it
would support the minority National Labor Party in government.[125]
Within a week Hughes announced his new Cabinet to the Parliament
and, in regard to the conscription issue, declared:
...the policy of the Government is clear and definite; it
intends to respect the verdict of the people delivered on the 28th
October, 1916. It is, of course, impossible to see or say what the future may
have in store, but it is clear that the electors of Australia alone can reverse
their previous decision.[126]
When the Nationalist government was installed, it had a 23-seat
majority in the House of Representatives but lacked control of the Senate by
four seats. However, in the following weeks the Senate composition changed in
unusual circumstances, with three ALP Tasmanian senators becoming affected,
respectively, by an immediate need to travel, sudden illness and a nervous
breakdown.[127]
The machinations became even murkier when the NSW ALP senator,
David Watson, subsequently alleged that both Prime Minister Hughes and Defence
Minister Pearce had sought to change his political allegiances through bribery.
In recalling his conversation with the Prime Minister, Senator Watson claimed
that Hughes had offered him a more conducive Senate seat or a non-parliamentary
position if he vacated his role entirely.[128]
In response, Hughes emphatically denied any impropriety,
stating that he merely ‘appealed to [Senator Watson’s] conscience, his
convictions, and his courage’.[129]
The Government blocked a motion from the ALP Opposition to have the matter
investigated; however, the questionable nature of the situation led the
Tasmanian Nationalist senators Bakhap and Keating to vote with the Opposition
and trigger a double dissolution election, which was held on 5 May 1917.[130]
During the election campaign, the Nationalists attempted to clearly
differentiate themselves as the
‘Win-the-War’ party, and their entire campaign largely centred on patriotic
notions of supporting Australia’s troops.[131]
Among their campaign policies, the Nationalists promised that they would only
introduce conscription if Australians agreed to it via a second plebiscite.
This was generally seen as good politics but the strategy was not unanimously
followed, as the Nationalists William Watt and William Irvine continued to
assert the Government’s need to enact conscription throughout the campaign.[132]
The Nationalist Party’s victory in the 1917 election was
decisive, as it won a further 21 seats in the House of Representatives and all
18 contested Senate seats. This included Hughes’ comfortable victory in his new
seat of Bendigo, having prudently left his former West Sydney electorate (which
the ALP retained in the 1917 election).[133]
The overall result provided further proof that the 1916 conscription campaign
was not determined along party political lines, but was instead a reassertion
of support for the war effort, albeit without the need for conscription.[134]
However, despite its significant electoral success, the
Nationalist Party remained a problematic union, with former Liberals
significantly outnumbering their ex-ALP colleagues within the party room. The
historian Joan Beaumont has suggested that Hughes could only keep this
coalition together by ‘maintaining an atmosphere of crisis and emergency by
fostering “the polarization of political life”’.[135]
Yet with the war effort continuing to affect virtually all facets of Australian
society, this ‘polarization’ proved relatively straightforward to accomplish.
The second
conscription plebiscite
On 25 October 1917, William Irvine rejuvenated his campaign
for conscription in Melbourne, telling a gathering at the Chamber of Commerce
that not only should the Government ‘stand or fall’ on the imposition of
conscription, it should also have the right to conscript labour into
government-sanctioned state employment. Irvine would also later declare that he
‘absolutely opposed a referendum [on conscription]. Surely if men are risking
their lives we can be prepared to risk our seats’.[136]
Later, on 12 November, Prime Minister Hughes spoke at the
Lyric Theatre in Bendigo, also to once again publicly campaign for
conscription. He declared that ‘the campaign opened tonight raises issues vital
not only to the very existence of the Commonwealth and the Empire, but to
liberty and to civilisation’.[137]
Hughes also recalled the previous conscription campaign, where:
...there was an orgy of gross misrepresentation, of vile
slanders; the fears, the passions, the ignorance, the credibility of the
citizens were appealed to by every device at the command of those who were
determined that Australia should not honour her solemn pledges and fulfil her
sacred duty to the Empire and to the cause of liberty ... October 28, 1916, was a
black day for Australia; it was a triumph for the unworthy, the selfish, and
anti-British in our midst ... They were doomed to a rude awakening on May 5. The
electors, being loyal at heart, saw them as they were, reckless extremists,
peace cranks, dis-loyalists, and pro-Germans.[138]
Hughes vigorously argued that conscription was necessary
because ‘voluntary recruiting has failed’. This was not because of the lack of
available personnel or the nation’s supposed war-weariness, but because of ‘a
systematic campaign of poisonous doctrines insidiously disseminated throughout
the country’.[139]
The Prime Minister also reminded those in attendance that ‘every free nation
that is fighting this great battle for liberty against military despotism has
abandoned voluntarism’.[140]
Hughes emphasised that the decision to again campaign for
conscription was not taken lightly, and cited his previous speeches where he
stated that he would only instigate a second plebiscite if the circumstances of
the war demanded it. Accordingly, he declared that ‘we have not sought an
excuse for bringing this question before the people, but have acted only when
recent events [specifically, the implications of the Russian revolution]
created a situation so menacing that had the Government failed to act, it would
have proved itself not only inept, but treacherous’.[141]
More specifically, Hughes called for a conscription ballot
that would draw upon those single men aged 20–44 without child dependants.
However, those men who were judged to be physically unfit or who would face
undue hardship, were employed as judges, police magistrates, ministers of
religion or in essential industries, or who were conscientious objectors, would
be exempted from the ballot.[142]
Exemptions based on religious grounds would also be granted
if an applicant’s ‘genuine religious belief forbade them to bear arms’, but this
would not preclude them from being obliged to undertake non-combatant roles,
and would not apply to ‘sudden converts’.[143]
Also of importance was Hughes’ closing remark to the audience that ‘I tell you
plainly that the Government must have this power [to enforce overseas
conscription]. It cannot govern the country without it, and will not attempt to
do so’.[144]
Published material citing the Prime Minister’s views was
also subsequently circulated in the form of a pamphlet entitled Reinforcements
Referendum: Concise Catechism with Questions Answered by the Prime Minister.
In asserting many of the points contained within Hughes’ Bendigo address, it
also emphasised that ‘the Government will not carry on without the power for
which it is now asking’.[145]
In contrast to Hughes’ detailed arguments, other party
leaders tried more emotive methods to encourage the adoption of conscription.
For example, in a town hall speech in Chatswood on 19 November, the Minister
for Navy, Joseph Cook, highlighted the stark need for conscription, declaring
that their German enemy was ‘a foul brood. They kill babies. They torture and
starve prisoners. They destroy and defile ... They are fearful liars and the
champion bullies of the world’.[146]
At a later meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall, the Minister
for Works and Railways, William Watt, further declared that ‘any man or woman
who voted “no” [to conscription] was either ignorant or disloyal’, while also
claiming that many anti-conscriptionists were tainted with ‘German influence
and German gold’.[147]
As the campaign continued, Hughes also grew more emotive in his speeches, such
as his 24 November declaration:
If you turn down the government proposal, you not only cover
the name of Australia with dishonour, gravely imperil safety and liberty, and
prove yourselves unworthy of freedom, but you literally condemn some of the
best and bravest men in the world—the men who are fighting for you—to death ... Electors,
upon which side do you stand? In which camp will you pitch your tent? Will you
stand with those who are resolved that come what may we will not desert our
boys at the Front, that Australia shall do her duty to the Empire, that she
shall stand side by side with Canada, New Zealand and Britain until victory is
won, and the cause of liberty assured, or will you go into that camp in which
every German, every Sinn Feiner, every IWW man, every reckless extremist has
pitched his tent?[148]
After another arduous campaign, Australians went back to the
polls on 20 December 1917 for a second plebiscite on conscription to answer the
reworded question ‘Are you in favour of the proposal of the Commonwealth
government for reinforcing the Australian Imperial Force overseas?’ The nature
of this question was strongly criticised for assuming prior knowledge of the Government’s
specific ‘proposals’ regarding conscription.[149]
Anti-conscription advocates have highlighted the various
means Hughes’ Nationalist government attempted to disenfranchise segments of
the population from the second plebiscite. For example, the electoral roll for
the plebiscite was closed only two days after the ballot was announced, which
affected regional voters who only received news of the plebiscite after the
rolls had closed.[150]
The fact that the poll was held on a Thursday also reportedly hampered workers’
ability to cast their vote. Additionally, the Government determined that if
British subjects (or their fathers) had been born in an ‘enemy’ country, they
were unable to vote—unless more than half the sons in that family aged 18–45
had either enlisted or been rejected from enlistment.[151]
There were also instances reported of polling booth officials intrusively
questioning voters with ‘foreign’ names prior to issuing them with their ballot
paper.[152]
The second plebiscite resulted in another majority ‘no’
vote, with an increase in the total vote against conscription, and the
Victorian response switching from its previous majority ‘yes’ position in the
first plebiscite. Despite the electorate’s second rejection of conscription—and
Hughes’ previous statement that he could not govern the country if this
happened—on 3 January 1918 Hughes was given a resounding vote of confidence in
a ballot at a meeting of his Nationalist Party colleagues, with the result being
63–2 in favour.[153]
Despite this support, Hughes dutifully offered the Governor-General his
resignation five days later, but as no other Nationalist leader commanded
sufficient support from caucus, he was subsequently asked to maintain his role.[154]
Conclusion
Less than a year after the second fiercely combative
conscription plebiscite, the First World War concluded on 11 November 1918.
However, the impact of the 1916–17 plebiscites continued to be felt for a long
time within Australia’s political parties—especially the ALP. Spurned by many
of its rank-and-file and parliamentary members, the ALP lacked strong
charismatic leadership with enough experience and political nous to match Billy
Hughes. Accordingly, the ALP’s categorical defeat in the 1917 federal election
was devastating. New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and
Tasmania all recorded over 10 per cent swings away from the ALP, with
Queensland faring only marginally better. It would be more than a decade before
the ALP returned to government, led by the anti-conscriptionist former
newspaper editor, James Scullin. The ALP would also not have a majority in the
Senate until 1943.[155]
Conversely, while Billy Hughes ultimately saw his campaigns for conscription
defeated, he more than proved his own political durability. Hughes remained
Prime Minister until 1923, when he resigned after having won a further two
elections as leader of the Nationalist Party. He continued to serve in
parliament (across multiple political affiliations) until his death in 1952.
Chronology of key dates
- 31 July 1914—Opposition Leader Andrew Fisher pledges the ALP
would ‘stand behind [Britain] and defend her to our last man and our last
shilling’.
- 5 September 1914—election of federal Labor Government
- 16 July 1915—War Census Bill debated in parliament
- 26 October 1915—Andrew Fisher resigns as Prime Minister, and is replaced
by William ‘Billy’ Hughes
- 7 March 1916—Hughes arrives in England to discuss the war effort
- 31 July 1916—Hughes returns to Australia following his visit to
Europe
- 30 August 1916—Hughes announces a national plebiscite on
conscription
- 14 September 1916—Military Service Referendum Bill second reading
in parliament; Frank Tudor resigns from the Government.
- 16 September 1916—Hughes is formally expelled from the NSW branch
of the ALP
- 18 September 1916—official start of the conscriptionist and
anti-conscriptionist campaigns
- 28 October 1916—first conscription plebiscite held
- 14 November 1916—Hughes and his supporters leave the ALP to form
the National Labor Party
- 5 December 1916—ALP Special Commonwealth Conference votes to
expel conscriptionists from the party
- 17 February 1917—Nationalist Party of Australia officially
established
- 24 March 1917—New South Wales Nationalist Party decisively wins
the state election
- 5 May 1917—federal election sees the Nationalist Party achieve a clear
victory against the incumbent ALP
- 12 November 1917—Hughes opens second conscription campaign
- 20 December 1917—second conscription plebiscite held
- 8 January 1918—Hughes resigns as Prime Minister but is
reappointed by the Governor-General
Conscription plebiscite results
The below tables are reproduced from JM Main’s Conscription:
the Australian debate, 1901–1970. [156]
1916
State/territory |
Yes vote |
No vote |
Majority (total) |
Majority (%) |
New South Wales |
356,802 |
474,523 |
117,721 |
57 |
Victoria |
353,930 |
328,216 |
25,714 |
52 |
Queensland |
144,017 |
157,049 |
13,032 |
52 |
South Australia |
87,908 |
119,119 |
31,211 |
58 |
Western Australia |
94,049 |
40,875 |
53,174 |
70 |
Tasmania |
48,490 |
37,830 |
10,660 |
56 |
Territories |
2,136 |
1,269 |
867 |
63 |
TOTAL |
1,087,332 |
1,158,881 |
71,549 |
52 |
1917
State/territory |
Yes vote |
No vote |
Majority (total) |
Majority (%) |
New South Wales |
341,256 |
487,774 |
146,518 |
59 |
Victoria |
329,772 |
332,490 |
2,718 |
50.2 |
Queensland |
132,771 |
168,875 |
36,104 |
56 |
South Australia |
86,663 |
106,364 |
19,701 |
55 |
Western Australia |
84,116 |
46,522 |
37,594 |
64 |
Tasmania |
38,881 |
38,502 |
379 |
50.2 |
Territories |
1,700 |
1,220 |
480 |
58 |
TOTAL |
1,015,159 |
1,181,747 |
166,588 |
54 |
[1]. Unless
otherwise specified, this paper will refer to conscription for overseas service
simply as ‘conscription’.
[2]. D Horne, In
search of Billy Hughes, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1979, p. 21.
[3]. K Inglis,
‘Conscription in peace and war, 1911–45’, in R Forward and B Reece, eds., Conscription
in Australia, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, QLD, 1968, pp.
23–4.
[4]. Ibid., p. 33;
J Beaumont, ‘The politics of a divided society’, in J Beaumont, ed., Australia’s
war: 1914-1918, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards [NSW], 1995, p. 45; L
Jauncey, The story of conscription in Australia, Macmillan, South
Melbourne, 1968, pp. 133, 121.
[5]. L Jauncey, The
story of conscription in Australia, op. cit., p. 107.
[6]. F Smith, The
conscription plebiscites in Australia, Victorian Historical Association,
Melbourne, 1974, p. 3.
[7]. Despite being
frequently referred to as a ‘referendum’, the ballots in 1916 –17 were
technically plebiscites, as the Government was not seeking a mandate to change
the constitution (which would require a referendum); Quoted in M Booker, The
great professional: a study of W.M. Hughes, McGrath Hill Book Co., Sydney,
1980, p. 203.
[8]. E Scott, Official
history of Australia in the war of 1914–1918, volume 11, p. 297.
[9]. I Turner, Anstey,
Francis George (Frank) (1865–1940), Australian Dictionary of Biography
website, accessed 24 January 2014.
[10]. The Argus,
Melbourne, 3 August 1914, p. 14.
[11]. The Argus,
Melbourne, 25 September 1915, p. 17.
[12]. E Scott, Official
history of Australia in the war, op. cit., p. 299.
[13]. W Hughes, ‘War
census speech’, House of Representatives, Debates, 16 July 1915, p.
5066.
[14]. War Census Act
1915 (Cth), accessed 20 June 2016.
[15]. P Weller,
ed., Caucus minutes 1901–1949: minutes of the meetings of the Federal
Parliamentary Labor Party, Volume 1; 1901–1917, Melbourne University Press,
Carlton VIC, 1975, p. 373.
[16]. L Jauncey, The
story of conscription in Australia, op. cit., p. 117.
[17]. K Inglis,
‘Conscription in peace and war’, op. cit., p. 32.
[18]. E Holloway, The
Australian victory over conscription in 1916–17, Anti-conscription Jubilee
Committee, Carlton VIC, 1966, p. 4.
[19]. K Inglis,
‘Conscription in peace and war’, op. cit., p. 33.
[20]. E Andrews, The
ANZAC illusion, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1993, p. 121.
[21]. E Scott, Official
history of Australia in the war, op. cit., pp. 336–7.
[22]. W Hughes, ‘Ministerial
war policy speech’, House of Representatives, Debates, 30 August
1916, p. 8403.
[23]. Ibid., pp.
3–4.
[24]. W Hughes, ‘Ministerial
war policy speech’, House of Representatives, Debates, 1 September
1916, p. 8424.
[25]. Ibid., pp.
3–4.
[26]. K Inglis,
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[38]. Ibid., pp.
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