Daniel Mannix was one of the most prominent opponents to conscription in World War One. He announced his position late in the first referendum debate, and was particularly prominent in the second referendum.

Daniel Mannix was born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1864. He studied at Maynooth Seminary where he was ordained a priest in 1890, and later occupied the chair of moral theology, and the Presidency from 1903. In 1913 Daniel Mannix was appointed as Co-Adjutor (i.e. assistant and successor) Archbishop in Melbourne, to help Archbishop Thomas Carr – then 74 years old - in his duties. Carr died in May 1917 and Mannix succeeded him as Archbishop. One of the reasons that Mannix was considered unsuitable for appointment to an Irish see was that he was considered too moderate on the issue of home rule by many Irish nationalists.

Mannix initially supported the war effort, but gradually grew more strident in his opposition to the war. The Easter Rising of 1916 clearly shaped his attitude. While describing the rebellion as “deplorable” Mannix also laid most of the blame for the situation on the British government and its Irish supporters.

Despite his prominent role, it is arguable as to how influential Mannix's intervention was in the final result. Maurice Blackburn thought that Mannix may have pushed as many Protestants into voting 'Yes' as he convinced Catholics to vote 'No'. Others have suggested that predominantly working-class Catholics were inclined to vote 'No' even before Mannix's speeches. On the other hand, Mannix almost certainly gave Australian Catholics more confidence in these views.

In later life, Daniel Mannix was associated with anti-communist movements within the ALP, and the breakaway Democratic Labor Party.

One of the most famous speeches given during the anti-conscription campaign was delivered in Brunswick. While opening the St Ambrose School on 28 January 1917, Mannix declared that World War One was an “ordinary trade war”.

Mannix’s “trade war” speech occurred in the aftermath of the first referendum on conscription. Mannix had announced his opposition to conscription prior to this referendum, but only relatively late in the campaign. With this speech at the opening of St Ambrose School, however, Mannix became one of the leading anti-conscriptionists for the second referendum campaign. He also drew the ire of Prime Minister Hughes, and many other Protestant Australians, who increasingly accused Australian Catholics of disloyalty.

Mannix delivered anti-conscription speeches on several other occasions at St Ambrose’s. Before the first referendum, in November 1916, Mannix opened the garden fete with a major public address opposing conscription, after earlier speeches in Clifton Hill and Preston. On 22 April 1917, two weeks before the 1917 federal election, Mannix opened the hall at St Ambrose’s, and observed that if Hughes won the election there would be a second referendum on conscription despite the Prime Minister’s promise. Then on 18 November 1917, shortly before the second referendum, Mannix again opened the St Ambrose garden fete and spoke again against conscription.

Mannix, like most Australian Catholics, was initially supportive of the British War effort. However, many people’s attitudes shifted after the Easter Rising.

The ‘Easter Rising’ of 1916 was an abortive attempt to overthrow British control of Ireland. In April 1916, a small group of Irish nationalists launched an armed revolt and seized key locations in Dublin. The rising was short lived, and the response by the British government was severe. Court martials were held in secret and executions carried out swiftly. It soon became clear that some of those executed had taken little or no part in the Rising, and evidence also emerged of non-combatants being killed by the British Army without arrest or trial.

At this time, most Australian Catholics had an Irish background. Many had direct family still living in Ireland. As a consequence, they were generally sympathetic to the political problems faced in Ireland, and concerned by the heavy-handed British response, even if they didn’t support the Rising itself.

There is no doubt that the incident reduced support for the war, however the response of Catholic Australians to the Easter Rising was complicated. Mannix was considered a moderate on the Irish question, but became the most prominent Catholic opponent to conscription. Archbishop Michael Kelly in Sydney was equivocal on both home rule and conscription while Archbishop Patrick Clune of Perth, too, was a supporter of home rule, but a dedicated conscriptionist. (Clune served as senior Catholic chaplain to the Australian Army.)

When Mannix spoke out against conscription, he rarely linked the issue to the Irish situation, instead using more familiar arguments relating to sectarianism, workers’ rights and individual liberty. One exception was in a meeting about Irish home rule in Richmond in November 1917, when Mannix alluded to the conscription campaign, and said that he was happy to put Australia first, and “The Empire would have to take second place”.

Further Information:

Revolt Victims.
Funerals in Dublin
200 Bodies Buried
Punishment of Rebels.
London May 8.

Since Easter Monday 200 bodies of victims of the revolt in Dublin have been buried. Fifty of these corpses were not identified before interment.

Distressing scenes occurred at the funerals. Owing to the difficulty experienced in obtaining coffins, a number of the bodies were buried in shrouds. Only one mourner in each instance is permitted by the authorities to follow the remains.

On several occasions the police have opened and searched coffins in order to prevent the smuggling of arms out of the city.

The Countess Markievicz, who led a detachment of the rebels in Dublin, has had her sentence of death commuted to one of penal servitude for life.

George Plunkett, a brother of Joseph Plunkett, who was executed on Saturday, was also sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to penal servitude for 10 years. His mother, Countess Plunkett, has been arrested.

Sixteen other death sentences have been commuted. Henry O'Hannahan, one of the men thus respited, will undergo penal servitude for life. The other 13 men will be imprisoned for three years.

The total number of rebels deported to England has now reached 2,000. Two hundred rebel prisoners have been removed from County Galway, while another batch was brought into Dublin, where they were tried by court-martial and sentenced.

Anti-Catholic sentiment was deliberately invoked during the conscription campaign through cartoons such as this one.

This cartoon appeared in the Australian Mining Standard, a Melbourne-based newspaper operated by Critchley Parker. Parker used the newspaper to publish many anti-Catholic articles and cartoons such as this one. Some of the cartoons were re-prints of earlier cartoons from the British satirical magazine Punch. This cartoon first appeared in Punch as 'The English Labourer's Burden' in 1849.

Prior to the conscription campaigns, sectarianism between Protestant and Catholic Australians was already a problem, and Victoria was one of the worst states for this. The attacks made on Catholics and Catholic leaders by people such as Parker, and Prime Minister Hughes made this problem considerably worse.