page_title: Billy Hughes
section_title: 1930s
hierarchical_section_title: Billy Hughes / 1930s
caption_attribution_description: Billy Hughes, John Curtin, and Governor-General Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester in Canberra.
context_page_description: William Morris Hughes, CH, KC, was an Australian politician who served as the 7th Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1915 to 1923. He is best known for leading the country during World War I, but his influence on national politics spanned several decades. Hughes was a member of federal parliament from Federation in 1901 until his death, the only person to have served for more than 50 years. He represented six political parties during his career, leading five, outlasting four, and being expelled from three.
  Hughes was born in London to Welsh parents. He emigrated to Australia at the age of 22, and became involved in the fledgling labour movement. He was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1894, as a member of the New South Wales Labor Party, and then transferred to the new federal parliament in 1901. Hughes combined his early political career with part-time legal studies, and was called to the bar in 1903. He first entered cabinet in 1904, in the short-lived Watson Government, and was later Attorney-General in each of Andrew Fisher's governments. He was elected deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party in 1914.
context_section_description: The UAP won a sweeping victory at the 1931 election. Lyons sent Hughes to represent Australia at the 1932 League of Nations Assembly in Geneva and in 1934 Hughes became Minister for Health and Repatriation in the Lyons government. Later Lyons appointed him Minister for External Affairs, but Hughes was forced to resign in 1935 after his book Australia and the War Today exposed a lack of preparation in Australia for what Hughes correctly supposed to be a coming war. Soon after, the Lyons government tripled the defence budget. Hughes also wrote in Australia and the War Today that the League of Nations was broken and that it could have worked only if it had been backed by force. He believed that every nation must look to its own defences and that, as Britain was preoccupied in European affairs, Australia would have to defend itself.
  After the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Hughes believed that the British should remain neutral, and adopted the same attitude towards Italy's invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. Hughes believed that the British Empire was in danger because of its weakness in the Mediterranean.
  Hughes was brought back to Australia by Lyons as Minister for External Affairs in 1937. In 1938 Germany requested the return of her Pacific colonies but Hughes declared that Australia should hold onto New Guinea, and in April 1939 he said that if Germany wanted colonies she would have to fight for them.
  By the time of Lyons' death in 1939, Hughes was also serving as Attorney-General and Minister for Industry. He also served as Minister for the Navy, Minister for Industry and Attorney-General at various times under Lyons' successor, Robert Menzies.
caption: Billy Hughes, John Curtin, and the Governor-General of Australia Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester in Canberra, 1945
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