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Abstract
Despite the amplitude with which Prime Minister W. M. Hughes voiced Australian claims during the First World War, his conduct in the immediate postwar years shows that his nationalism remained consistent with an imperial and British standpoint. This proposition is illustrated with reference to Hughes' role in the 1921 imperial conference, the Chanak crisis, and his post-prime ministerial memoir. While obsessed with expedients to improve the speed and scope of intra-imperial communications and thus facilitate consultation, Hughes was concerned to ensure that Australia played a proper role in arriving at a consensus on the deep common interest that unified Britain and the Dominions. His lack of concern for extending the scope for independent action won by the Dominions during the war, his dismissive remarks regarding the British role in the League of Nations, and the vehemence of his communications with London in 1922, must all be seen within the context of an imperial loyalty that survived the war undiminished.
Notes
1 L. F. Fitzhardinge, William Morris Hughes: A Political Biography, vol. 1 (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1964), 224. This judgement has recently been endorsed by Carl Bridge, William Hughes: Australia. Makers of the Modern World (London: Haus, 2011), 70, 131.
2 Neville Meaney, Australia and the World Crisis (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2009), 376. See also Kosmas Tsokhas, ‘Tradition, Fantasy and Britishness: Four Australian Prime Ministers’, Journal of Contemporary Asia 31, no. 1 (2001): 3–30.
3 P. E. Deane, Australia’s Rights: The Fight at the Peace Table (Melbourne: Sands & McDougall, n.d. [1919]), 3–4.
4 P. E. Deane, Australia’s Rights: The Fight at the Peace Table (Melbourne: Sands & McDougall, n.d. [1919]), 23.
5 P. G. Edwards, Prime Ministers and Diplomats: The Making of Australian Foreign Policy 1901–1949 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press/AIIA, 1983), 52.
6 E. M. Andrews, The ANZAC Illusion: Anglo-Australian Relations during World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 196–8.
7 E. M. Andrews, The ANZAC Illusion: Anglo-Australian Relations during World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 212.
8 W. J. Hudson, Billy Hughes in Paris: The Birth of Australian Diplomacy (Melbourne: Nelson/AIIA, 1978), 43; cf. Malcolm Booker, The Great Professional: A Study of W. M. Hughes (Sydney: McGraw-Hill, 1980), 239.
9 W. M. Hughes, “The Day”—And After (London: Cassell, 1916); Andrews, 74.
10 Imperial War Conference 1917 Resolution IX; R. M. Dawson, ed., The Development of Dominion Status 1900–1936 (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 175.
11 Joan Beaumont, ‘“Unitedly We Have Fought”: Imperial Loyalty and the Australian War Effort’, International Affairs 90, no. 2 (March 2014): 397–412.
12 W. J. Hudson and M. P. Sharp, Australian Independence: Colony to Reluctant Kingdom (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988).
13 W. M. Hughes, Policies and Potentates (Sydney: Halstead Press, 1950), 236–9.
14 Hankey’s Notes, Council of Ten, Papers of Woodrow Wilson January 11–February 7 1919, ed. Arthur S. Link, vol. 54 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 363–4; Hughes, Policies and Potentates, 238–43. On this episode see Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 210–14.
15 Peter Spartalis, The Diplomatic Battles of Billy Hughes (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1983); see in addition the works of Hudson, Fitzhardinge, Meaney, and Andrews cited above.
16 Sec of State to Dominions, 22 January 1920: National Archives of Australia (hereafter NAA), CP103/12 Bundle 8/8; ‘Channel of Communication between the various British members of the League of Nations and the Secretariat-General’, 22 September 1920: NAA, CP360/9 Bundle 1/NN.
17 Hughes to Lloyd George, [7 October] 1920: NAA, CP360/9 Bundle 1/NN.
18 L. F. Fitzhardinge, William Morris Hughes: A Political Biography, vol. 2 (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1979), 460.
19 Hughes to Milner, 2 February, 29 April 1920: NAA, A3934 SC12/5 Part 1.
20 E. L. Piesse, ‘The Anglo-Japanese Alliance—Secretary of State’s Cable of 3rd May asking views of Commonwealth Government—Notes for use in preparing reply’, 12 May 1920: NAA, A2219, External Relations Vol. 9.
21 Neville Meaney, Fears and Phobias: E. L. Piesse and the Problem of Japan 1909–39, Occasional Paper no. 1 (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1996).
22 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, vol. 14, 7 April 1921, 7262–70.
23 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, vol. 14, 7 April 1921, 7262–70.
24 C. P. Stacey, Canada in the Age of Conflict, vol. 1:1867–1921 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1977), 332–8.
25 Spartalis, 229; Meaney, Australia and the World Crisis, 491–2.
26 Imperial Conference, 2nd Meeting, 21 June 1921, 2–7. References to the 1921 Conference proceedings taken from printed Stenographic Notes, copy in Hughes Papers, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA), MS 1538, Sub-series 25:2, Box 124.
27 Imperial Conference, Stenographic Notes, E1 and E6: Hughes Papers, NLA.
28 ‘A Common Imperial Policy in Foreign Affairs’, ‘E6’, 3: Hughes Papers, NLA.
29 Stacey, 337.
30 Imperial Conference, Stenographic Notes, 9th Meeting, 29 June 1921, 12–15: Hughes Papers, NLA.
31 Meaney, Australia and the World Crisis, 487.
32 Imperial Conference, Stenographic Notes, 17th Meeting, 6 July 1921: Hughes Papers, NLA.
33 Imperial Conference, Stenographic Notes, 20th Meeting, 8 July 1921, 14–15: Hughes Papers, NLA.
34 Imperial Conference, Stenographic Notes, 20th Meeting, 8 July 1921, 14–15: Hughes Papers, NLA.
35 ‘Amendment proposed by Mr Hughes’ [typescript]: Hughes Papers, NLA, 25/107.
36 Srinivasa Sastri to Hughes, 2 August 1921: Hughes Papers, NLA, 25/106.
37 Srinivasa Sastri, Report Regarding the Deputation to the Dominions of Australia, New Zealand and Canada (Simla: Government Printer, 1923); ‘Dr Sastri Visit to Australia’: NAA, A1, 1923/7187.
38 H. Duncan Hall, The British Commonwealth of Nations (London: Methuen, 1920); H. Duncan Hall, ‘The Genesis of the Balfour Declaration of 1926’, Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies 1, no. 3 (1962): 169–93.
39 ‘Report of the Conference of Prime Ministers, 1921’, [Cmd 1474], ‘XIV The Proposed Conference on Constitutional Relations’: Dawson, 208–9.
40 Hughes to Hankey, [August 1921], quoted in Stephen Roskill, Hankey Man of Secrets, vol. 2: 1919–1931 (London: Collins, 1972), 232.
41 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, vol. 14, 7 April 1921, 7265.
42 Harvey to Sec of State, 26 August 1921, Foreign Relations of the United States 1921, vol. 1 (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1936), 63–4; Michael G. Fry, ‘The Pacific Dominions and the Washington Conference, 1921–22’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 4, no. 3 (1993): 60–101.
43 D. L. George to Hughes, 3 October 1921: NAA, A6661 1370A.
44 Smuts to Hughes, 19 October 1921: NAA, A6661 1370A.
45 Hughes to Prime Minister, UK, 25 October 1921: NAA, A6661 1370A.
46 Hughes to Prime Minister, UK, 25 October 1921: NAA, A6661 1370A.
47 Hughes to Pearce, 31 October 1921: NAA, A4603 WashConf1922, 161.
48 Robert Thornton, ‘The Semblance of Security: Australia and the Washington Conference, 1921–22’, Australian Outlook 32, no. 1 (1978): 65–83; John Connor, ANZAC and Empire: George Foster Pearce and the Foundations of Australian Defence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 139–42.
49 Hughes to Pearce, 9 December 1921: NAA, A4603 WashConf1922, 559.
50 Pearce to Hughes, ‘Confidential Report’: NAA, A2219 ExRel V22, 334ff.
51 Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, vol. 30, 26 July 1922, 789–93.
52 David Walder, The Chanak Affair (London: Hutchinson, 1969); Peter M. Sales, ‘W. M. Hughes and the Chanak Crisis of 1922’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 17, no. 3 (1971): 392–405; Paul R. Bartrop, Bolt from the Blue: Australia, Britain and the Chanak Crisis (Sydney: Halstead Press, 2002).
53 Hughes to D. L. George, 20 September 1922: NAA, CP78/32, 1.
54 Sec of State for Colonies, 27 October 1922: NAA, CP78/32, 1.
55 Sec of State for Colonies to Hughes, 28 October 1922: NAA, CP78/32, 1.
56 Hughes to Sec of State for Colonies, 2 November 1922: NAA, CP78/32, 1.
57 Hughes to Sec of State for Colonies, 2 November 1922: NAA, CP78/32, 1.
58 Fitzhardinge, William Morris Hughes, vol. 2, 566.
59 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 258.
60 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 228.
61 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 174.
62 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 226–7, 435–7.
63 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 226–7.
64 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 255.
65 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 283.
66 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 269, 272, 277.
67 William Morris Hughes, The Splendid Adventure: A Review of Empire Relations (London: Ernest Benn, 1929), 438–9, 327, 429.
68 W. M. Hughes, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 6 June 1908, 12.
69 W. M. Hughes, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 27 May 1911, 11.