be related to the actions of Hughes and his mistakes in the exercise of government power. The heavy-handed tactics, the arrogance displayed, and eventually the dirty fighting, created more detractors than supporters; these faults, and additionally Hughes' inability to appeal, either directly or indirectly, to many ordinary voters, were major problems that hampered the 'yes' campaign. The call-up, and the collapse of cabinet, were the two events that dealt the prospects for 'yes' a death blow in the final weeks of the campaign. Hughes' gamble had not paid off, and he was forced to dramatically reappraise the position of Australia in the war. Recruitment was temporarily helped by the small surge caused by the general call-up just before the vote (enough at least to maintain the lower estimates of troop needs for a few months). However, it soon returned to its lowest numbers. The fallout from the failure to secure conscription at the ballot box was significant. Despite the numerous political post-mortems and attempts at reconciliation, it was now clear to most people that Hughes could no longer command the respect or service of his Labor Party colleagues. The government was revealed to be a shell, consisting of Hughes, Pearce and just two other ministers. Immediately following the poll, another event – which would be the last straw for the Labor Party – emerged. A general strike amongst the coalminers had been brewing throughout October, and by November it had boiled over. Within weeks the Labor Party split, Hughes and his followers walking out to form a new National Labor Party that would eventually merge with the opposition Commonwealth Liberal Party to form the Nationalists and maintain Hughes as Prime Minister for another six years. Hughes accepted the decision of the voters, despite calls from some newspapers and supporters to push ahead with the introduction of conscription regardless of the result. The men who had been called up and whom had reported would be free to return home upon a month of training. In their analysis of the failure of the poll, Hughes and Pearce calculated that, assuming a consistent bloc of support from the Commonwealth Liberal Party, about half of the Labor movement had stuck with Hughes at the polls, and half had defected to defeat the referendum, in concert with other narrower demographic groups such as farmers, pacifists and the Irish. Through the operations of his colleagues during