World War I still showed no signs of ending in late 1916. The earlier enthusiastic Australians were now beyond hesitant to join the war as they learned more about battle front conditions and the high rates of Australian casualties in France. By June of 1916, volunteers were less than half of the 16500 men per month that were required to maintain Australia's fighting capacity. Following a visit to Britain and France, the Australian Prime Minister, William Hughes, proposed a solution - conscription.
Hughes fought hard to convince Australians to vote yes in the conscription referenda that he introduced. He announced the first referendum with the words
“I am going to work for this referendum and its success as if it were the only thing for which I live.” His determination provoked a debate that divided the nation and forced Australians to consider where their primary loyalty lay.
The conscription debates reflected the division of loyalties which had emerged in Australia since the late nineteenth century, and especially since Federation in 1901. On the one hand, Australians felt a loyalty to their own young nation and a desire to shape its destiny. On the other hand, most still felt the “crimson thread of kinship” - the strong links to Britain, the “mother country.” The conscription issue highlighted other divisions in Australia about religion, class and the inequality of sacrifice that many people felt Australian soldiers were being asked to bear.
Supporters for conscription included: Protestants, the Women's National League, academics, businessmen and many more.
Many of these people viewed conscription as an extension of their loyalty to Britain. Protestant church leaders saw it as an essential response in a campaign against the evil “Hun” Women often saw conscription as a means of supporting the troops who were already fighting overseas. Others argued that the conscription would ensure that the burden of service was more fairly shared than under a voluntary system. Others argued that conscription could be used to prevent people from enlisting in the war as well as forcing them to enlist. This way, men with wives and children, men whose skills were essential to the workplace and males under 19 years of age could be prevented from enlisting in the army and going overseas.
Opposition against conscription included: Irish Catholics, Mannix, the Industrial Workers of the World, Quakers, Women's Peace Army, trade unionists farmers and many more.
Trade unionists feared that their members might be replaced by cheap foreign or female labour and that the introduction of conscription would provide the introduction of conscription would provide opportunities for employers to abandon hard-won worker rights. Some anti-conscriptionists argued that conscription was wrong because war itself was immoral and that killing another man was unjustified. Opposition to conscription came mainly from within the Labor Party and its trade union and catholic supporters. These groups feared that the working classes would be over-burdened in any case if the main asset of the more privileged classes - their wealth- was not also conscripted. Labor Party supporters often viewed the pro-conscription lobby as war profiteers who, in the selfishness would happily condemn others to die while they stayed at home and made money. Also, working classes were anti conscription because while the privileged classes voted for conscription, the working class people were the ones that would be forced to join the war. However, the privileged classes would be able to buy immunity from conscription and not have to be the ones that had to fight the war.
Dr Daniel Mannix was the archbishop of Melbourne and was born in Ireland. He was reluctant to support any English cause particularly the case following the 1916 Irish rebels and the brutal execution of their leaders. Mannix argued that this only served to prove that the British could behave just as barbarically as the “Huns”, who were rumoured as having ruthlessly bayoneted Belgian babies.
As you can see, the conscription debate divided Australian society on an even larger scale than Federation had. Loyalties were torn between their mother country Britain and their own young nation. The conscription issue highlighted other divisions within Australia about religious, class and the inequality of sacrifice that many people felt the Australian soldiers were being asked to bear.
