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By 1916 the AIF faced a shortage of men.Legislation prohibited members of the Australian Military Forces from serving beyond the limits of the Commonwealth or its territories “unless they voluntarily agree[d] to do so” (The Prime Minister, Mr William Morris Hughes, speaking to a large crowd during the conscription referendum campaign, Brisbane QLD, c1916. At the outbreak of the First World War, the number of people volunteering to enlist for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was so high that recruitment officers were forced to turn people away.

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Enlistment numbers continued to fall, and in 1917 Hughes called for a second referendum on the issue of conscription. Conscription is a system of compulsory enrollments of men and women into the armed forces, and it was a major issue in Australia between 1914 and 1918.
The first referendum on the issue of conscription was held in 1916. However, conscription was strongly opposed by his own party in the senate.Hughes decided to take the issue directly to the people. Although the process Hughes used to obtain a popular mandate was a plebiscite, it was referred to as a referendum.The proposal to introduce conscription provoked furious debate within the Australian community.The referendum was narrowly defeated, with 1,160,033 votes against and 1,087,557 votes in favour. The second conscription campaign was just as heated as the first, with the most prominent anti-conscription activist being the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Daniel Mannix.The second referendum was held on 20 December 1917. As the war went on, casualty rates increased and the number of volunteers declined.

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•conscription was vital for the war effort •number of Australian troops needed to increase •needed to support the British Empire •maintaining the AIF at full strength was important •to support "brave volunteers" on the front lines. The conscription debate generated deep division and confusion across Australia. Although Mannix opposes conscription, he supports the war effort and the troops who have volunteered for service. Mon 18 Sep 1916 - The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. On a state basis, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia voted a majority against conscription, while Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Federal Territories voted in favour of conscription.In the ensuing political fall-out, the Labor Party split and Hughes formed a breakaway party called the Nationalists.Enlistment numbers continued to fall, and in 1917 Hughes called for a second referendum on the issue of conscription.

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Australians were asked:The second referendum was also defeated, with 1,181,747 votes against compared to 1,015,159  votes in favour.Australia, South Africa, and India were the only participating countries not to introduce conscription during the First World War.

Already got a Trove account. With the crisis of November 11, 1975 foremost in the minds of many Labor supporters, 59 years earlier on November 14 1916, the Party was subject to its first major political upheaval — a national split over the issue of conscription.

Dr Mannix, a Catholic priest who would become Archbishop of Melbourne in 1917, was strongly opposed to conscription, believing it would prolong the war. what was Hughes' quotation in 1915. But we need to be super sure you aren't a robot.Please enable JavaScript in your browser to get the full Trove experience. With the exception of a small number of Quakers who opposed conscription as trampling on the inalienable right of freedom of conscience, and a few Independents and Methodists, the Protestant churches whole-heartedly supported the war and the conduct of the government. There were different people on both sides of the issues which were and weren't in favor for conscription.

The second referendum was held on 20 December 1917. Click on current line of text for options. We recognise their continuing connection to land, sea and