Editing Billy Hughes (section)

==Prime minister==
[[File:Portrait of W. M. Hughes.jpg|thumb|right|Hughes as prime minister]]
Following the [[1914 Australian federal election]], the Labor Prime Minister of Australia, [[Andrew Fisher]], found the strain of leadership during World War I taxing and faced increasing pressure from the ambitious Hughes who wanted Australia to be firmly recognised on the world stage. By 1915 Fisher's health was suffering and, in October, he resigned and was succeeded by Hughes. In social policy, Hughes introduced an institutional pension for pensioners in [[Benevolent Asylum|benevolent asylums]], equal to the difference between the 'act of grace' payment to the institution and the rate of IP.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/online/aged1.htm|archive-url=https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20040913140000/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/31911/20040914-0000/www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/online/aged1.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=13 September 2004|title=Australian Web Archive|publisher=webarchive.nla.gov.au|date=23 August 2006|access-date=22 April 2013}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

From March to June 1916, Hughes was in Britain, where he delivered a series of speeches calling for imperial co-operation and economic warfare against Germany. These were published under the title ''The Day—and After'', which was a bestseller.<ref name=adb/><ref>Tom Roberts, ''The Making of Murdoch: Power, Politics and What Shaped the Man Who Owns the Media'' (Bloomsbury, 2020), p. 47.</ref> His biographer, Laurie Fitzhardinge, said these speeches were "electrifying" and that Hughes "swept his hearers off their feet".<ref name=adb/> According to two contemporary writers, Hughes's speeches "have in particular evoked intense approbation, and have been followed by such a quickening power of the national spirit as perhaps no other orator since [[William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham|Chatham]] ever aroused".<ref>Thomas Farrow and William Walter Crotch, ''The Coming Trade War'' (London: Chapman and Hall, 1916), p. 3.</ref>

In July 1916 Hughes was a member of the British delegation at the [[Paris Economy Pact|Paris Economic Conference]], which met to decide what economic measures to take against Germany. This was the first time an Australian representative had attended an international conference.<ref name=adb/>

Hughes was a strong supporter of Australia's participation in World War I and, after the loss of 28,000 men as casualties (killed, wounded and missing) in July and August 1916, Generals Birdwood and White of the [[First Australian Imperial Force]] (AIF) persuaded Hughes<ref>(Bean, vol III).</ref> that [[Conscription in Australia#World War I|conscription]] was necessary if Australia was to sustain its contribution to the war effort.<ref>''The Official History of Australia in The War of 1914–1918'', Vol III, The AIF in France, C. E. W. Bean, p. 864.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed, if any --></ref>

However, a two-thirds majority of his party, which included [[Roman Catholic Church in Australia|Roman Catholics]] and [[trade union]] representatives as well as the Industrialists (Socialists) such as [[Frank Anstey]], were bitterly opposed to this, especially in the wake of what was regarded by many Irish Australians (most of whom were Roman Catholics) as Britain's excessive response to the [[Easter Rising]] of 1916.{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}}

In October, Hughes held a [[Australian plebiscite, 1916|national plebiscite for conscription]], but it was narrowly defeated.<ref>{{cite web|title=Plebiscite results, 28&nbsp;October&nbsp;1916|work=Parliamentary Handbook|publisher=[[Parliament of Australia]]|url=http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=;db=HANDBOOK;group=;holdingType=;id=handbook%2Fnewhandbook%2F2008-12-19%2F0068;orderBy=;page=0;query=Plebiscite%20results,%2028%20October%201916;querytype=;rec=6;resCount=Default|access-date=16 February 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314012958/http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=;db=HANDBOOK;group=;holdingType=;id=handbook%2Fnewhandbook%2F2008-12-19%2F0068;orderBy=;page=0;query=Plebiscite%20results,%2028%20October%201916;querytype=;rec=6;resCount=Default|archive-date=14 March 2012|url-status=live}}</ref> The enabling legislation was the ''Military Service Referendum Act 1916'' and the outcome was [[advisory referendum|advisory only]]. The narrow defeat (1,087,557 Yes and 1,160,033 No), however, did not deter Hughes, who continued to argue vigorously in favour of conscription. This revealed the deep and bitter split within the Australian community that had existed since before Federation, as well as within the members of his own party. {{Citation needed|date=February 2010}}

Conscription had been in place since the 1910 Defence Act, but only in the defence of the nation. Hughes was seeking via a referendum to change the wording in the act to include "overseas". A referendum was not necessary but Hughes felt that in light of the seriousness of the situation, a vote of "Yes" from the people would give him a mandate to bypass the Senate.<ref>''The Great War'', Les Carlyon.</ref> The Lloyd George Government of Britain did favour Hughes but only came to power in early December 1916, over a month after the first referendum. The predecessor Asquith government greatly disliked Hughes{{Why|date=March 2016}}<ref>''Billy Hughes in Paris-The Birth of Australian Diplomacy'', W. J. Hudson, p. 2.<!--ISSN/ISBN needed, if any--></ref> considering him to be "a guest, rather than the representative of Australia".{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} According to [[David Lloyd George]]: "He and Asquith did not get on too well. They would not. They were antipathetic types. As Hughes was never over-anxious to conceal his feelings or restrain his expression of them, and was moreover equipped with a biting tongue, the consultations between them were not agreeable to either".<ref>David Lloyd George, ''War Memoirs: Volume I'' (London: Odhams, 1938), p. 1034.</ref>

[[File:The Official Visits To the Western Front, 1914-1918 Q608.jpg|thumb|left|The Right Honourable William Morris Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia, and the Right Honourable Andrew Fisher, Australian High Commissioner to the UNited Kingdom, in conversation with staff officers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).]]

In reaction to Hughes's campaign for conscription, on 15 September 1916 the NSW executive of the Political Labour League (the state Labor Party organisation at the time) expelled him and other leading New South Wales pro-conscription advocates from the Labor movement.<ref>The Australian Century, Robert Manne.</ref><ref>MR. HUGHES AND THE LABOR PARTY (16 September 1916). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 – 1954), p. 11. Retrieved 22 November 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155158739</ref><ref>Caucus minutes of 14 November 1916 in ''A Documentary History of the Australian Labor Movement 1850–1975'', Brian McKinley, (1979); {{ISBN|0-909081-29-8}}</ref> Hughes remained as leader of the federal parliamentary Labor Party until, at 14 November caucus meeting, a no-confidence motion against him was passed. Hughes and 24 others, including almost all of the Parliamentary talent, walked out to form a new party heeding Hughes's cry "Let those who think like me, follow me." This left behind the 43 members of the Industrialists and Unionists factions.<ref>The Australian Century, Robert Manne, p. 75.</ref> That same evening Hughes tendered his resignation to the Governor-General, received a commission to form a new Government, and had his recommendations accepted.<ref>THE FEDERAL CRISIS (15 November 1916). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 – 1954), p. 7. Retrieved 22 November 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155059469</ref> Years later, Hughes said, "I did not leave the Labor Party, The party left me."<ref name=adb/> The timing of Hughes's expulsion from the Labor Party meant that he became the first Labor leader who never led the party to an election. On 15 November, [[Frank Tudor]] was elected unopposed as the new leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party.<ref>{{cite book|first=D. J.|last=Murphy|author-link=Denis Murphy (Australian politician)|year=1975|title=T. J. Ryan: A Political Biography|publisher=University of Queensland Press|isbn=0702209929|page=447}}</ref><ref>Biography for TUDOR, the Hon. Frank Gwynne, Biographies, Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 22 November 2020, from https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22handbook%2Fallmps%2FKWL%22</ref>

=== Nationalist Party ===
[[File:Australia’s Prime Minister Delights the Empire (1915).webm|thumb|thumbtime=1|Animated cartoon of Billy Hughes by Harry Julius (1915)]]
Hughes and his followers, which included many of Labor's early leaders, called themselves the [[National Labor Party]] and began laying the groundwork for forming a party that they felt would be both avowedly nationalist as well as socially radical.<ref name=adb/> Hughes was forced to conclude a [[confidence and supply]] agreement with the opposition [[Commonwealth Liberal Party]] to stay in office.

A few months later, the Governor-General, [[Ronald Munro Ferguson, 1st Viscount Novar]], persuaded Hughes and Liberal Party leader [[Joseph Cook]] (himself a former Labor man) to turn their wartime coalition into a formal party.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=Dictionary of Australian Biography|title=Ronald Munro Ferguson|url=http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500721h/0-dict-biogMu-My.html#munro-ferguson1|access-date=5 October 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150726211818/http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks15/1500721h/0-dict-biogMu-My.html#munro-ferguson1|archive-date=26 July 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> This was the [[Nationalist Party of Australia]], which was formally launched in February.  Although the Liberals were the larger partner in the merger, Hughes emerged as the new party's leader, with Cook as his deputy.  The presence of several working-class figures—including Hughes—in what was basically an upper- and middle-class party allowed the Nationalists to convey an image of national unity.  At the same time, he became and remains a traitor in Labor histories.

At the [[1917 Australian federal election]] Hughes and the Nationalists won a huge electoral victory, which was magnified by the large number of Labor MPs who followed him out of the party. At this election Hughes gave up his working-class Sydney seat and was elected for the [[Division of Bendigo]], after he won the seat by defeating the sitting Labor MP Alfred Hampson, and both marks the only time that a sitting prime minister had challenged and ousted another sitting MP for his seat along with him becoming the first of only a handful of [[Members of the Australian Parliament who have represented more than one state or territory]].

Hughes had promised to resign if his Government did not win the power to conscript. Queensland Premier [[T. J. Ryan]] was a key opponent to conscription, and violence almost broke out when Hughes ordered a [[raid on the Government Printing Office]] in [[Brisbane]], with the aim of confiscating copies of [[Hansard]] that covered debates in the [[Queensland Parliament]] where anti-conscription sentiments had been aired. A [[Australian plebiscite, 1917|second plebiscite on conscription]] was held in December 1917, but was again defeated, this time by a wider margin. Hughes, after receiving a [[vote of confidence]] in his leadership by his party, resigned as prime minister.  However, there were no credible alternative candidates.  For this reason, Munro-Ferguson used his [[reserve power]] to immediately re-commission Hughes, thus allowing him to remain as prime minister while keeping his promise to resign.<ref name=adb/>

===Domestic policy===
====Electoral reform====
{{Main|Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918}}
The government replaced the [[first-past-the-post]] electoral system applying to both houses of the Federal Parliament under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1903 with a [[Instant-runoff voting|preferential system]] for the House of Representatives in 1918. That preferential system has essentially applied ever since. A multiple majority-preferential system was introduced at the [[1919 Australian federal election]] for the Senate, and that remained in force until it was changed to a quota-preferential system of proportional representation in 1948.<ref>{{cite web|title=A brief history of the society and its purpose|publisher=Proportional Representation Society of Australia|url=http://www.vicnet.net.au/~prsa/history/history.htm#Gardiner|access-date=22 April 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204150320/http://www.vicnet.net.au/%7eprsa/history/history.htm#Gardiner|archive-date=4 December 2008|url-status    =dead}}</ref> Those changes were considered to be a response to the emergence of the Country Party, so that the non-Labor vote would not be split, as it would have been under the previous first-past-the-post system.

====Science and industry====
=====Research body=====
In early 1916, Hughes established the Advisory Council on Science and Industry, the first national body for scientific research and the first iteration of what is now the [[Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation]] (CSIRO). The council had no basis in legislation, and was intended only as a temporary body to be replaced with "Bureau of Science and Industry" as soon as possible. However, due to wartime stresses and other considerations the council endured until 1920, at which point an act of parliament was passed transforming it into a new government agency, the Institute of Science and Industry. According to Fitzhardinge: "The whole affair was highly typical of Hughes's methods. An idea coming from outside happened to chime with his preoccupation of the moment. He seized it, put his own stamp on it, and pushed it through to the point of realization. Then, having established the machinery, he expected it to run itself while he turned his full energies elsewhere, and tended to be evasive or testy if he was called back to it. Yet his interest was genuine, and without his enthusiasm and drive the Commonwealth intervention would either not have come at all or would have been far slower".{{sfn|Fitzhardinge|1979|p=64–67}}

=====Aviation=====
{{Main|1919 England to Australia flight}}
It was a scheme of Hughes' devising that set the scene for long-distance civil aviation in Australia.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eustis |first1=Hamilton Nelson |title=The greatest air race : England-Australia 1919 |date=1969 |publisher=Angus & Robertson (U.K.) Ltd. |location=London |isbn=9780207950988 |pages=12–15}}</ref> His interest in the possibilities of peacetime aviation was sparked by his flights travelling between London and Paris for the Paris Peace Conference.<ref name="cbhs">{{cite web |title=The Great Air Race of 1919 |url=https://canadabayheritage.asn.au/blog/2019/12/16/the-great-air-race-of-1919/ |website=City of Canada Bay Heritage Society |language=en-AU |date=16 December 2019 |access-date=10 July 2022 |archive-date=29 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220629140401/https://canadabayheritage.asn.au/blog/2019/12/16/the-great-air-race-of-1919/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> On a Christmas visit the year before, in 1918, to wounded servicemen convalescing in Kent, Hughes had met Australian pilots who were facing the seven-week sea voyage home and were eager to pioneer an air route and fly to Australia instead. Such a vast distance had never been attempted by air; the [[Transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown|first ocean crossing by aircraft]] occurred only months later in June 1919.<ref name="au nat geo">{{cite magazine |last1=McGregor |first1=Alasdair |title=Flying far: The largely forgotten 1919 England to Australia Air Race |url=https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2019/12/flying-far-the-largely-forgotten-1919-england-to-australia-air-race/ |magazine=Australian Geographic |date=9 December 2019 |language=en-AU}}</ref> Despite the risks of such a venture, Hughes' eagerness to see Australia at the forefront of technological development and in a central position in world affairs, had him seeking the support of his cabinet for a scheme to establish a Britain–Australia route.<ref name="au nat geo"/> A February 1919 cable from Hughes said: "Several Australian aviators are desirous of attempting flight London to Australia they are all first-class men and very keen your thoughts", and also advised the cabinet of the advantages that such a groundbreaking flight would offer Australia: "would be a great advertisement for Australia and would concentrate the eyes of the world on us."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nasht |first1=Simon |title=The Last Explorer: Hubert Wilkins, Australia's Unknown Hero. |date=2011 |publisher=Hatchette Australia |location=Sydney, New South Wales |isbn=978-0-7336-2584-8 |chapter=The Great Race}}</ref>

A month later, the acting prime minister of Australia, [[William Watt (Australian politician)|William Watt]], announced: "With a view to stimulating aerial activity, the Commonwealth Government has decided to offer £10,000 for the first successful flight to Australia from Great Britain."<ref name="au nat geo"/><ref>{{cite news |author1=<!--No byline--> |title=AVIATION DEVELOPMENT:Commonwealth Government offers £10,000 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/155222294 |access-date=10 July 2022 |work=The Age |date=20 March 1919 |page=6 |via=Trove: [[National Library of Australia]]}}</ref> The reward would go to the first crew to complete the journey in under thirty days.<ref name="greatairrace">{{cite web|date = 2019|url = https://www.greatairrace.com.au/history/|title = The 1919 Great Air Race|publisher = 2018 Great Air Race|access-date = 10 March 2019|last = 2018 Great Air Race|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190309142859/https://www.greatairrace.com.au/history/|archive-date = 9 March 2019|url-status = live}}</ref> Brothers [[Ross Macpherson Smith|Ross]] and [[Keith Macpherson Smith|Keith Smith]], pilot and navigator, and mechanics Walter Shiers and Jim Bennett won the prize when their [[Vickers Vimy]] G-EAOU twin engine plane landed in Darwin on 10 December 1919. The flight set a record for distance travelled by aircraft, having flown {{convert|17,911|km}}, surpassing the previous record of {{convert|5,140|km}} set the year before on a Cairo to Delhi flight. Hughes achieved his aim of garnering world press attention for Australia,<ref name="au nat geo"/> while Australia's first, and one of the world's earliest airlines, [[Qantas]], was founded in 1920, commencing international passenger flights in 1935.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/oldest-airlines-in-the-world-that-are-still-operating.html|title=Oldest Airlines in the World That Are Still Operating|website=World Atlas|access-date=10 July 2022|archive-date=6 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190406075028/https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/oldest-airlines-in-the-world-that-are-still-operating.html|url-status=live}}</ref> A cofounder of the airline, [[Hudson Fysh]], who had been commissioned by the government to survey landing fields in northern Australia for the competition, was present to greet the crew of the Vimy when it landed.<ref name="cbhs"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/history-founders/global/en |title=The Men Who Established Qantas |publisher=Qantas |access-date=10 July 2022 |archive-date=27 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627062239/https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/history-founders/global/en |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== 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>

===1920–1923===
[[File:Billy Hughes, 1927 (George Lambert).png|thumb|[[Parliament House, Canberra|Parliament House]] portrait of Hughes by [[George Washington Lambert]], 1927]]
{{refimprove section|date=September 2022}}
Hughes demanded that Australia have independent representation within the newly-formed [[League of Nations]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=2010-12-07 |title=Australia's last brick of nationhood |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-12-07/australia27s_last_brick_of_nationhood/41892 |access-date=2024-02-15 |work=ABC News |language=en-AU}}</ref> Despite the rejection of his conscription policy, Hughes retained popularity with Australian voters and, at the [[1919 Australian federal election]], his government was comfortably re-elected.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Election Speeches · Billy Hughes, 1919 · Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House |url=https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1919-billy-hughes |access-date=2024-02-15 |website=electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au}}</ref>

After 1920, Hughes's political position declined. Many of the more conservative elements of his own party never trusted him because they thought he was still a socialist at heart, citing his interest in retaining government ownership of the Commonwealth Shipping Line and the [[Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia)|Australian Wireless Company]]. However, they continued to support him for some time after the war, if only to keep Labor out of power.

A new party, the Country Party (known since 1975 as the [[National Party of Australia]], was formed, representing farmers who were discontented with the Nationalists' rural policies, in particular Hughes's acceptance of a much higher level of tariff protection for Australian industries, that had expanded during the war, and his support for [[price controls]] on rural produce. In the New Year's Day Honours of 1922, Hughes's wife Mary was appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (GBE).

At the [[1921 Imperial Conference]], Hughes argued unsuccessfully in favour of renewing the [[Anglo-Japanese Alliance]].<ref>Dorsey D. Jones, 'The Foreign Policy of William Morris Hughes of Australia', ''The Far Eastern Quarterly'', Vol. 2, No. 2 (February 1943), p. 160.</ref>

At the [[1922 Australian federal election]], Hughes gave up the seat of Bendigo and transferred to the upper-middle-class [[Division of North Sydney]], thus giving up one of the last symbolic links to his working-class roots.  The Nationalists lost their outright majority at the election. The Country Party, despite its opposition to Hughes's farm policy, was the Nationalists' only realistic coalition partner.  However, party leader [[Earle Page]] let it be known that he and his party would not serve under Hughes. Under pressure from his party's right wing, Hughes resigned in February 1923 and was succeeded by his Treasurer, [[Stanley Bruce]].<ref name=adb/> His eight-year tenure was the longest for a  prime minister until [[Robert Menzies]] passed him in 1957.

Whilst the incumbent prime minister, Hughes switched seats at both the 1917 and 1922 elections, the only prime minister to have done so not once but twice. All other elections have seen the prime minister re-contest the seat that they held prior to the election.