Successive mayors of Brunswick sought to use their powers to suppress anti-conscriptionist activity in the municipality.

The Brunswick City Council had a pro-conscriptionist majority throughout the war. Like all Victorian councils at the time, the Brunswick and Coburg City Councils had a ratepayers' franchise that restricted voting to men. While the franchise was otherwise reasonably broad, it also allowed plural voting where the number of votes a ratepayer had depended on the value of his property. As a consequence well-off ratepayers had more influence at council elections, and the councils were more conservative than the communities they represented. Although represented in state and federal parliament by Labor politicians, in 1914 the Brunswick City Council was dominated by political Liberals.

Councillor Matthew Balfe was Mayor of Brunswick from 1914 to 1916. Although associated with the Labor Party, by 1914 Balfe was pro-Empire and pro-war. Balfe refused to allow anti-conscriptionists to hire the Brunswick Town Hall for meetings. On one occasion in January 1916 when anti-conscriptionists did manage to obtain a booking of the Hall, Mayor Balfe promptly arranged for a recruitment session to be held in the Hall on that night, thus allowing him to cancel the anti-conscription meeting.

Liberal Council Member Councillor David Phillips succeeded Matthew Balfe as Mayor in 1916. Initially he also sought to prohibit all anti-conscription meetings in public spaces of Brunswick, as reported in this newspaper article. However in October 1916 the Council did vote to allow its halls to be used by anti-conscription meetings.

No Anti Conscription Meetings in Brunswick

Reply to Letter by Mayor

We publish herewith a letter from the Secretary of the Brunswick branch of the Political Labor Council of Victoria to Cr. D. Phillips (Mayor of Brunswick), and a copy of letter sent in reply thereto.

Political Labor Council of Victoria. Brunswick Branch.

To the Mayor of Brunswick, Cr. D. Phillips.

Sir, It being the intention of the above branch to prosecute a vigorous campaign in opposition to conscription I have been directed to ask you in your highly respected official capacity of Mayor of this City to grant us permission to hold meetings on the street corners throughout the city to enable us to place our views before the people on this great momentous question. Thanking you in anticipation of a favourable reply. I am etc

P Durnin, Hon. Sec. 14 Howard street Brunswick. September 9th, 1916.

Mayor's Reply.

To Mr. P. Durnin, Hon. Secretary, Brunswick Branch P.L.C.

Sir, Yours of the 9th inst. to hand this morning and in reply I may say that I cannot comply with your request re anti-conscription meetings at the street corners throughout our City. I regret to have to take this stand, but I believe I am doing my duty to the British Empire and as Chief Magistrate to the citizens of Brunswick, and to our noble men who have died for us on the battlefield, our brave soldiers who are now in the firing line and those of our soldiers who are now in camp, who have offered their lives to fight for our liberty. And I may further state my individual opinion is that any man or body of men who refuse to back our brave soldiers who are fighting for us and our dear ones are aiding our enemies in every sense of the term, and which I decline to encourage in any way. I am, etc.,

D. Phillips, Mayor of Brunswick. Town Hall, Brunswick, 13th Sept., 1916.

From 1915 onwards the Brunswick Mechanics’ Institute came under the control of the pro-conscriptionist Council. They used it as a recruiting depot for the rest of the war.

The Brunswick Mechanics’ Institute was opened in 1870 as an educational venue providing lectures, classes and a library. By the beginning of the war, however, membership of the Brunswick Mechanics’ Institute had fallen to under 50. However the library was still well used. As a result, in 1915 the Victorian Government passed a motion bringing the Institute under the control of the Brunswick Council.

This article contrasts the calm of election day itself with the emotion and controversy that had marked the campaign.

The conscription campaign had been extremely vitriolic. This newspaper, the Brunswick and Coburg Leader, had itself contributed to this vitriol having been fervently pro-conscription, and using its pages to attack Frank Anstey in particular.

The Referendum Election

Remarkably Quiet Day

The referendum election of 28th October will certainly be remembered as the quietest and most orderly of elections, as far at least as Brunswick (in the Bourke Electorate) and Coburg (in that of Maribyrnong) were concerned. It would be possible for a stranger passing through either place and not knowing the exact location of the various polling booths to be unaware that an election was taking place at all, much less one that the discussion of which has practically convulsed the country for the past two months. Never in any previous election have vituperation, abuse and angry feeling risen to such a height, and never at any previous election was less of this exhibited on polling day. The pavement litterateur armed with whitewash had liberally done his work on footpaths and fences, and the exhortations to vote 'No' in order to prevent your daughters going to the hymeneal altar with Chinese and other coloured bridegrooms, and the assurances that Maltese, in numbers varying from hundreds to millions, were on board vessels off the cost waiting for a 'Yes' vote to land, were innumerable. Presumably these sorts of efforts did not influence the votes, for the voters who came to record their contributions to the general verdict were without exception calm and collected, and had evidently made up their minds long before. From all the booths, the Masonic Hall in Brunswick north, the Town Hall in the south, Masonic Hall in the east and West Brunswick Hall in the west - from the Coburg Town Hall and the Moreland Infant School - came the same reports: "Everything orderly; no disturbances, and a total absence of excitement." In no instance were the police called upon to interfere. Some people said that this quietude was due to the closing of the hotel bars, while others maintained that even if the hotels had been trading as on ordinary Saturdays there would have been no trouble, as the people evidently noticed the importance of the events for decision, and were determined to exercise their voters' privileges in a quiet and orderly manner. There were, of course, numerous instances, mostly of female voters, who were in doubt as to how to indicate their preference, and these were directed by the officials to the printed notices in the booths plainly indicating what was to be done.