World War 1 Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory military service for young men. When world war one first broke out, a number of people enlisted, in 1914 it was a rate at 10000 people per month. By the end of 1916 Australians realised World war one wasn’t going to end any time soon and gained more knowledge about battlefront conditions and the high rates of casualties. The number of men enlisting for war decreased to less then half, the Australian Imperial Force faced a shortage of men and consisting entirely of volunteers. One of the first legislations to be passed by the newly formed commonwealth government was the defence act of 1903; this law in the constitution allowed the government to conscript for only home defence. This was a problem as war was outside of Australia. This issue divided Australia as some wanted conscription and others were completely against of the idea.
William Hughes otherwise known as Billy was the prime minister of Australia at the time of the First World War. In 1915 he had declared, “In no circumstance would I agree to send men out of this country to fight out of their will.” Yet in 1916 he believed conscription was the only solution to increase the number of Australians enlisting for military service. For his solution to be put in action he needed parliament’s approval; this was basically impossible as his own party, the labour party was against it. Even though his party was not on his side, he was going to try anyway by getting the public’s approval through a national referendum; a referendum is the only way to change the constitution. On the 28th of October 1916, Australian voters responded to the question, “Are you in favour of the government in having in... compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service ... outside the commonwealth...?” Hughes lost the campaign 49% to 51%. These statistics show how equally divided Australia was in terms of those in favour and against conscription.
As a result of this the Labour