HUGHES, WILLIAM MORRIS ), Australian statesman, was born on Sept. 25, 1864, at Llansantffraid, Mont gameryshire, Wales. At the age of 20 he went to Australia. Here he drove sheep and cattle across New South Wales and Queensland, worked on farms and cooked for harvesting gangs, became a sailor on coasting steamers, prospected for gold, tramped from station to station doing odd jobs, taught children in remote set tlements, walked hundreds of miles organizing for the Australian Workers' Union, and in the end drifted back to Sydney and gravitated to politics. He formed the Sydney waterside workers into a militant organization, and entered the New South Wales parliament in 1894 as member for the Lang division of Sydney.
As a member of the Opposition Hughes was an effective de bater, and devised the Labour party's caucus system of settling all internal dissensions outside the House and presenting a united front in parliament. Then in 1901 came federation, and as mem ber for West Sydney in the first House of Representatives Hughes found wider scope for his political genius. In 1904 J. C. Watson formed the first Labour ministry, and Hughes, who in the midst of his industrial and political work had found time to qualify as a barrister, became minister for external affairs. The ministry was short-lived, but thenceforth it was clear to friends and foes alike that a new force had entered Australian politics. During the years that followed Hughes became a powerful orator, and his courage, energy, intellectual gifts and dominating personality made his succession to Mr. Fisher almost inevitable.
Hughes was attorney-general in the Fisher ministry of 1908, and revealed a breadth of view and a warm Imperialism hardly to be looked for in a party which, not so many years before, had toyed with the idea of "cutting the painter." He promoted the scheme of compulsory military service, and he was heart and soul with his leader when Fisher, who had returned to office after the Liberal defeat of 1913, made his historic offer in 1914 of Australia's last man and last shilling. In 1915 Fisher went to London as high commissioner, and Hughes succeeded him as prime minister. Hughes, by his driving force and faculty of kindling enthusiasm, gave an immense stimulus to the raising and maintenance of the Australian Expeditionary Forces ; and with equal energy he set to work to eradicate German commercial in fluence from Australia. He secured legislation annulling German contracts, transferred control of output to the newly established Australian Metal Exchange, prevented trading with the enemy, and disinherited enemy shareholders in commercial enterprises of every kind.
In 1916 he visited England and preached a renaissance of the British race based upon a greater development of the empire's resources and a closer-knit economic system. Returning to Aus tralia he attempted to introduce conscription. On this issue the Labour party split, and Hughes formed a Coalition Government composed of the Liberals and that section of the Labour party which followed him on the conscription issue. The conscription referendum, on which the Government was defeated, was marked by great bitterness, and there followed a period of industrial and political strife without parallel in Australia's history. Hughes was hotly attacked for his autocratic methods, for his excursions into State shipowning and shipbuilding, and for his policy of con centrating power in his own hands by means of the War Precau tions Act, the establishment of boards to control industry, and the appointment of special tribunals to settle industrial disputes over the head of the Arbitration Courts. But so long as the War lasted there was no acceptable alternative leader, and the prime minister left to attend the Peace Conference with his prestige higher than ever. His assertion of Australia's right to proclaim something rather like a Monroe Doctrine for the Pacific awakened Americans and the world to the importance of Australasia ; and at Versailles his dogged advocacy of the Commonwealth's right to a mandate over the former German colony of Papua, helped to make history. His quarrel with President Wilson, embittered by mutual dislike, gave rise to some of the most piquant passages in the annals of the conference.
In Australia, on his return, Hughes found grave industrial troubles disturbing a country already weighed down by an im mense load of debt and the problem of reabsorbing 400,000 men into civil life. But he could not prevent discontent revealing itself in the secession of certain Liberal-Nationalists and the formation of a new Country party. As the conditions which had brought it into existence disappeared, the war party which he led began to crumble, and in Feb. 1923, after holding office as prime minister for eight years, he was forced by a Liberal-Country party coali tion to resign in favour of the treasurer, S. M. Bruce.
(G. C. Di.; X.)