AUSTRALIA AND CONSCRIPTION

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2899, 11 October 1916, Page 5

AUSTRALIA AND CONSCRIPTION

"■ VISITORS' IMPRESSIONS OF THE . SITUATION. Most of the male passengers who ari jr •^ r ? nl by the Moeraki vcstarday -had the Commonwealth conscription. question uppermost in their minds. A stop-work meeting of wharf labourers was accountable in part for the delay in the sailing of the Moeraki from Sydney, and throughout the Commonwealth snoh meetings were being held with various results, but most of {?. declared against conscription. One ■Wellington gentleman well known in local commercial circles was present at a meeting held on Yarra Bank, Melbourne, on Saturday week, that was attended by some 60,000 people, and the Voice of that meeting, he said, was averse to conscription. Of course, in the majority of cases these meetings • were not called to disouss in a sane fashion the issue in view of the referendum now about to be. taken, but . were really demonstrations of protest agajnst such a measure being adopted by the Commonwealth Government. In Kpite of these meetings, at which, feeling was fomented , bjr the Socialist element, the general opinion of Australian people as far as could be gathered' by visitors was that, the referendum would favour conscription. Trouble might, however, ensue when the authorities put it into force by calling up the men. Some of the leading politicians were evidently oowed by the violent antagonism that was being shown to the drastic measure, but the one figure that stood out uncompromisingly was that oF the Hon. AVilliam Hughes, the one man who has seen and knows, and he has nailed his colours ,to the mast .and .hurled defiance at the P.L.L., the cauMis, and everybody else who is opposed to conscription. The whole of Australia is stirred as never before over the great issue at stake.