"You ask: ' Why do your statesmen think it so
necessary to have compulsory service? For your sakes? or for ours?' The answer is fairly simple: it was for both our sakes. When the war broke out, Andrew Fisher, the present Australian High Commis- *loner in London, was the leader of the Commonwealth Labour Party, and titular bead of the Labour Government, Hughes being Lis right-hand man and the real moving power of the party. Fisher immediately offered the Imperial Government the full support of the Commonwealth to the last man and the last shilling.' A volunteer expeditionary force was at once formed; men came in by the thousand, and something approximating three hundred thousand men were enrolled and gradually sent to Egypt and elsewhere as fast as they could be trained and equipped. This burst of enthusiasm skimmed off the cream of the fighting material of the community, after which volunteering slackened. But the casualties were heavy, and at the time of the Referendum the wastage amounted to nearly seventy thousand, and was increasing in numbers greater than the volunteers offering. Some two months before Hughes's return from London it was recognized that something must be done to maintain the expeditionary force at its full strength, as voluntary enlistment was slackening off, but nothing was done pending Hughes's arrival, when it was thought that he u-ould be able to explain the actual situation, the views of the British Government, and the military necessities of the situation. On his arrival he was greeted by a wave of patriotic enthusiasm throughout Australia, and if he had, as was expected, declared then and there for compulsory service it would have been carried without question. But he faltered. He was now Premier of Australia, but he was also the leader of the Labour Party and the Labour Government, which is not quite the same thing as Australia. An influential section of the inner circle of the Labour Party led him to believe that a strong body of the extreme Labour (Socialist) Party were restive at the question of compulsion, and that he would find it difficult to carry his party (whose leader he was) unanimously for compulsion. And although the country at large was with him, and he could have carried compulsion had he struck while the iron was hot, he feared to divide his party, and thought that he could by a Referendum have secured such an affirmative vote as would silence the extreme wing. So,- to the intense disappointment of every one, he went for the Referendum, with what result you know. All the prominent leaders of the Labour Party in all the States were in favour of compulsion because they felt that Australia was bound to make good Fisher's offer of the last man and the last shilling; also because they felt that in the hour of extreme peril and danger to the Empire it was both Australia's duty and best interest to support the British Government to the utmost; also because they recognized that a German victory would be disastrous for Australia; also because they felt that it was impossible to refrain from supporting by full reinforcements the Australians already at the front. With these views the Opposition, or Anti-Labour Party; were in full accord, and the general feeling of the country was certainly in favour of compulsion failing a sufficient supply of enlistment voluntarily. Then you will say, Why did the Referendum fail?' Well, that is something of a mystery. During the six weeks' agitation and campaigning which preceded the vote on October 28th the moat violent efforts were made by the Socialist wing of the Labour Party to defeat the issue. The most outrageous and scandalously false statements were made and reiterated, and these statements were believed by the ignorant and unintelligent voters (who always outnumber the intelligents). All the hoodlums and lazy corner loafers have votes—the most abandoned men and women have as much voice as the best members of the community, men and -women. A large section of the Irish vote went No,' and a larger section of the Roman Catholic vote was antagonistic. It is believed that the leaders of that Church covertly discouraged compulsion (was this under instructions from Rome, which has played a consistently sorry part all through the war?). The Roman Catholio Archbishop of Sydney, head of the Australian Church, looked coldly upon and spoke sneeringly about compulsion. More strangely still, I have good reason for saying that the Australian troops at the front—the rank-and-file, not the officers—voted No' in large numbers; some because they scorned to be reinforced by and to fight side by side with impressed men; others demurred to helping their kinsmen being forced to leave home to join in the miseries of trench warfare. Many of the mothers, sisters, and sweethearts of the men at the front, and of the men who had abstained from going to the front, voted 'No.' Some mothers who have lost sons argued, ' Shall I vote to cause other mothers the grief and sorrow which I suffer?' and so on. And yet, in spite of all, the ' No' majority was a small one. There was also extreme rancour and bitterness of a political character on the part of the extreme Labour section, who wanted to pull down Hughes and other leaders. All the Labour leaders who were prominent in supporting the compulsion vote have since been ostracized and expelled from the regular Labour Party on account of their action. This sweeping statement includes Hughes, Holman, Premier of this State, and other leaders. They have all been cast out of the official Labour Party, and at the next General Election the entire force of the Labour political machine will be used to defeat their re-election. And still the heart of Australia beats true, and if the Referendum had to be taken again to-morrow it is doubtful whether the same result would be obtained. But amongst the less intelligent and more crassly ignorant voters, men and women, the realization of the disastrous consequences to Australia of a German victory in this war is only now slowly and imperfectly beginning to dawn, as a working man—a wharf labourer and Trade Unionist—told me on a wharf only to-day. I wish something of the truth of this matter as I have written it down could be understood by the good people in England. People here who have sufficient intelligence and detachment of mind to consider the nature of the situation are well aware that an unfavourable result of this war, or even an indecisive and patched- up peace, would be far more disastrous for Australia than for the Mother Country. Hughes is now only kept in power and in office by the Parliamentary support of his former opponents, the Anti- Labour Party, known here as the Liberal Party. No one wonders he hesitates about accepting the invitation of the British Govern- ment to take part in the War Conference in London. Still, I hope he will go."
Previous page
