Editing Billy Hughes (section)

=== Paris Peace Conference ===
[[File:Hughes Welcomehome Parispeaceconference.jpg|thumb|Australian soldiers carrying the "Little Digger" down [[George Street, Sydney]], after Hughes returned from the Paris Peace Conference]]
[[File:Paris 1919 Australian delegation.jpg|thumb|Paris 1919 Australian delegation]]
[[File:Billy Hughes speaking to Anzacs, 1918 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Hughes addressing the fifth Australian Field Ambulance, in [[French Third Republic|France]]]]
In 1919 Hughes, with former prime minister [[Joseph Cook]], travelled to Paris to attend the [[Versailles Peace Conference]]. He remained away for 16 months, and signed the [[Treaty of Versailles]] on behalf of Australia – the first time Australia had signed an international treaty.

At a meeting of the [[Imperial War Cabinet]] on 30 December 1918, Hughes warned that if they "were not very careful, we should find ourselves dragged quite unnecessarily behind the wheels of [[Woodrow Wilson|President Wilson]]'s chariot". He added that it was intolerable for Wilson "to dictate to us how the world was to be governed. If the saving of civilisation had depended on the United States, it would have been in tears and chains to-day". He also said that Wilson had no practical scheme for a [[League of Nations]] and added: "The League of Nations was to him what a toy was to a child—he would not be happy till he got it".{{sfn|Lloyd George|1938|pp=194–196}} At the Paris Peace Conference, Hughes clashed with Wilson. When Wilson reminded him that he spoke for only a few million people, Hughes replied: "I speak for 60,000 dead. How many do you speak for?"<ref>David Lowe, "Australia in the World", in Joan Beaumont (ed.), ''Australia's War, 1914–18'', Allen & Unwin, 1995, p. 132.</ref><ref>Compare: {{cite book |last1 = Tink |first1           = Andrew |author-link1     = Andrew Tink |chapter          = 9: A land fit for heroes ? |title            = Australia 1901 – 2001: A narrative history |url              = https://books.google.com/books?id=1TOMBQAAQBAJ |location         = Sydney |publisher        = NewSouth Publishing |date = 2014 |isbn             = 9781742241876 |access-date       = 19 February 2017 |quote            = At one point, Wilson reminded the Australian leader that he spoke for only a few million people. 'I speak for 60 000 dead', Hughes shot back. 'How many do you speak for?' |archive-url      = https://web.archive.org/web/20170220020335/https://books.google.com/books?id=1TOMBQAAQBAJ
 |archive-date     = 20 February 2017|url-status       = live}}</ref>

The British [[Dominion]]s of New Zealand, South Africa and Australia argued their case to keep their occupied German possessions of German Samoa, German South West Africa, and German New Guinea respectively; these territories were given as "[[League of Nations mandate|Class C Mandates]]" to the respective Dominions. In a same-same deal Japan obtained control over its occupied German possessions north of the equator.<ref name=Lowe129/> At the meeting of 30 January, Hughes clashed with Wilson on the question of mandates, as Hughes preferred formal sovereignty over the islands. According to the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, Wilson was dictatorial and arrogant in his approach to Hughes, adding that "Hughes was the last man I would have chosen to handle in that way". Lloyd George described how, after Hughes stated his case against subjecting the islands conquered by Australia to a mandate:

<blockquote>President Wilson pulled him up sharply and proceeded to address him personally in what I would describe as a heated allocution rather than an appeal. He dwelt on the seriousness of defying world opinion on this subject. Mr. Hughes, who listened intently, with his hand cupped around his ear so as not to miss a word, indicated at the end that he was still of the same opinion. Whereupon the President asked him slowly and solemnly: "Mr. Hughes, am I to understand that if the whole civilised world asks Australia to agree to a mandate in respect of these islands, Australia is prepared still to defy the appeal of the whole civilised world?” Mr. Hughes answered: "That's about the size of it, President Wilson". [[William Massey|Mr. Massey]] grunted his assent of this abrupt defiance.{{sfn|Lloyd George|1938|p=542}}</blockquote>

However, South Africa's [[Louis Botha]] intervened on Wilson's side, and the mandates scheme went through.{{sfn|Lloyd George|1938|pp=543–546}} Hughes's frequent clashes with Wilson led to Wilson labelling him a "pestiferous varmint".<ref>{{cite book |surname1         = Xu |given1           = Guoqi |chapter          = 7: The Japanese Dream of Racial Equality |title            = Asia and the Great War: A Shared History |url              = https://books.google.com/books?id=WAmDDQAAQBAJ |series           = The Greater War |location         = Oxford |publisher        = [[Oxford University Press]] |date = 2017 |page             = 201 |isbn             = 9780191632723 |access-date       = 19 February 2017 |quote            = The usually reserved Wilson even described Hughes as 'a pestiferous varmint.' |archive-url      = https://web.archive.org/web/20170220020034/https://books.google.com/books?id=WAmDDQAAQBAJ |archive-date     = 20 February 2017|url-status       = live}}</ref>

Hughes, unlike Wilson or South African Prime Minister [[Jan Smuts]], demanded heavy reparations from  the [[German Empire]], suggesting the sum of £24,000,000,000 of which Australia would claim many millions to off-set its own war debt.<ref>Lowe, pp. 136–137.</ref> Hughes was a member of the British delegation on the Reparations Committee, with [[Walter Cunliffe, 1st Baron Cunliffe]] and [[John Hamilton, 1st Viscount Sumner]].{{sfn|Lloyd George|1938|p=473}} When the Imperial Cabinet met to discuss the Hughes Report, [[Winston Churchill]] asked Hughes if he had considered the effects that reparations would have on working-class German households. Hughes replied that "the Committee had been more concerned in considering the effects upon the working-class households in Great Britain, or in Australia, if the Germans did not pay an indemnity".{{sfn|Lloyd George|1938|p=477}}

At the Treaty negotiations, Hughes was the most prominent opponent of the inclusion of Japan's [[Racial Equality Proposal]], which as a result of lobbying by him and others was not included in the final Treaty. His position on this issue reflected the racist attitudes dominant among white Australians; informing David Lloyd George that he would leave the conference if the clause was adopted, Hughes clarified his opposition by announcing at a meeting that "ninety-five out of one hundred Australians rejected the very idea of equality."<ref> Kajima, Diplomacy of Japan p. 405 </ref><ref name="australian_story">{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au:80/100years/EP2_3.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101071337/http://www.abc.net.au/100years/EP2_3.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=1 January 2017|date=21 March 2001|title=100 Years: The Australia Story. Episode 2: Rise and Fall of White Australia|publisher=Australian Broadcasting Commission|access-date=29 January 2007}}</ref> Hughes offered to accept the clause so long as it did not affect immigration policy but the Japanese turned the offer down.<ref>Margaret Macmillan, ''Peacemakers: Six Months that Changed the World'' (London: Macmillan, 2003), p. 328.</ref> Lloyd George said that the clause "was aimed at the restrictions and disabilities which were imposed by certain states against Japanese emigration and Japanese settlers already within their borders".{{sfn|Lloyd George|1938|p=636}}

Hughes had entered politics as a trade unionist, and like most of the Australian working class was very strongly opposed to Asian immigration to Australia (excluding Asian immigration was a popular cause with unions in Canada, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand in the early 20th century). Hughes believed that accepting the Racial Equality Clause would mean the end of the [[White Australia policy]] that had been adopted in 1901, one of his subordinates writing: "No Gov't could live for a day in Australia if it tampered with a White Australia ...The position is this – either the Japanese proposal means something or it means nothing: if the former, out with it; if the latter, why have it?"{<ref>{{cite book|last=MacMillan|first=Margaret|author-link=Margaret MacMillan|title=Paris 1919 – Six Months That Changed the World|year=2002|publisher=Random House|isbn=0375508260|page=319}}</ref> He later said that "the right of the state to determine the conditions under which persons shall enter its territories cannot be impaired without reducing it to a vassal state", adding: "When I offered to accept it provided that words were incorporated making it clear that it was not to be used for the purpose of immigration or of impairing our rights of self-government in any way, [the Japanese delegate] [[Makino Nobuaki|Baron Makino]] was unable to agree".<ref>'Australia and the Protocol', ''The Times'' (13 October 1924), p. 13.</ref>

When the proposal failed, Hughes reported in the Australian parliament:<blockquote>The White Australia is yours. You may do with it what you please, but at any rate, the soldiers have achieved the victory and my colleagues and I have brought that great principle back to you from the conference, as safe as it was on the day when it was first adopted.<ref name="australian_story"/></blockquote>

Japan was notably offended by Hughes's position on the issue.<ref name=adb/> Like [[Jan Smuts]] of South Africa, Hughes was concerned by the rise of Japan. Within months of the declaration of the European War in 1914, Japan, Australia and New Zealand had seized all German territorial possessions in the Pacific. Though Japan had occupied German possessions with the blessing of the British, Hughes felt alarm at this turn of events.<ref name=Lowe129>Lowe, "Australia in the World", p. 129.</ref>

With reference to Hughes's actions at the Peace Conference, the historian [[Ernest Scott]] said that although Hughes failed to secure sovereignty over the conquered German islands or relief for Australia's war debts, "both he and his countrymen found satisfaction with his achievements. By characteristic methods he had gained single-handed at least the points that were vital to his nation's existence".<ref>Ernest Scott, ''Australia During the War'' ([[University of Queensland Press]], 1989), p. 809.</ref> [[Joan Beaumont]] said Hughes became "something of a folk hero in later Australian historiography for his assertiveness at the Paris peace conference".<ref>Joan Beaumont, ‘'Unitedly we have fought': imperial loyalty and the Australian war effort', ''International Affairs'', Vol. 90, No. 2, The Great War (March 2014), p. 409.</ref>

Seth Tillman described him as "a noisesome demagogue", the "[[wikt:bête noire|bete noir]] {{sic}} of Anglo-American relations".<ref name=Lowe129/> Unlike Smuts, Hughes opposed the concept of the League of Nations, as in it he saw the flawed idealism of "collective security".<ref>Lowe, p. 136.</ref>{{qn|date=February 2017}} He declared in June 1919 that Australia would rely on the League "but we shall keep our powder dry".<ref>'Germany Unchanged', ''The Times'' (26 June 1919), p. 10.</ref>

On returning home from the conference, he was greeted with a welcome  "unsurpassed in the history of Australia" which historian [[Ann Moyal]] says was the highpoint of his career.<ref>{{Cite web|title=1919: The triumph of Billy Hughes|url=https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/1919-the-triumph-of-billy-hughes/|access-date=16 April 2023|website=[[Australian Strategic Policy Institute|ASPI]]|date=24 April 2019 }}</ref>