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.