James Scullin

James Scullin (1920s)

James Henry Scullin (born September 18, 1876 in Trawalla , Victoria , † January 28, 1953 in Melbourne , Victoria ) was the 9th Prime Minister of Australia . His term of office lasted from October 22, 1929 to January 6, 1932. He was the first Catholic in this office. From April 26, 1928 to October 22, 1929, and from January 6, 1932 to October 1, 1935, he was the leader of the opposition.

Before he became Prime Minister (until October 1929)

James Scullin was born in Trawalla as the fifth of nine children John and Ann Scullin, b. Logan, born. His father was a railroad worker of Irish descent. First he went to school in Trawalla and later in Ballarat . He started working at the age of 14. In the first few years he did this in alternating occupations. On the side, he continued his education at evening schools and on weekends in public libraries.

From an early age he was very interested in politics, so that in 1903 he joined a committee which can be seen as one of the forerunners of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in Victoria. One of my companions was John Curtin , who grew up in the same area of ​​Victoria.

In 1906 he was first put up as a candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives in the parliamentary elections . Since his political opponent in the Ballarat constituency was then Prime Minister Alfred Deakin , he had no chance of success. On November 11, 1907, he married Sarah Maria McNamara (1880–1962) in Ballarat . His marriage, however, remained childless.

In the parliamentary elections of 1910 he was able to move into the House of Representatives for the first time as a member of parliament. His constituency this time was Corangamite. However, he immediately lost his seat in the next elections in 1913.

For the next eight years he was the editor of the Evening Echo , a daily newspaper for the ALP in Ballarat. During this time he became known as one of his party's leading political speakers . At the same time he was one of the most resolute opponents of conscription in Australia . His attitude came very close to that of an upright pacifist . James Scullin brought in the motion to expel all supporters of the conscription from the party, which was directed against the then incumbent Prime Minister Billy Hughes as well as the former Prime Minister Chris Watson . This dispute then led to the split of the National Labor Party under Billy Huges from the ALP .

After James Scullin tried unsuccessfully in 1920 to get a seat in the state parliament of Victoria, he was able to move back into the House of Representatives in by-elections in 1923 for the constituency of Yarra . He did not have to give up this seat until he retired due to illness in 1949.

In 1927 he rose to the position of deputy party chairman and on April 28, 1928 finally to the party chairman of the ALP , succeeding Matthew Charlton . He also became the leader of the opposition.

The time as Prime Minister (October 1929 to January 1932)

The early elections to the House of Representatives on October 12, 1929 led to a major election victory for the ALP , so that James Scullin was subsequently appointed Prime Minister on October 22, 1929. The conservative opposition, however, maintained a majority in the Senate , as it was not newly elected.

James Scullin's term of office was marked by the severe economic crisis, which was triggered two days after he took office on October 24, 1929, the so-called Black Thursday , by the fall in prices on the New York Stock Exchange .

The height of the Depression hit Australia in 1930 and sparked mass unemployment. The government Scullin was no match for this situation. Disrupted public finances and rising spending forced him to abandon the gold standard for the Australian pound , the currency of the time , and to raise high tariffs on goods imports. In addition, household expenditure had to be severely restricted.

The ALP was internally torn by these measures and the resignation of his Finance Minister Ted Theodore in June 1930, who stumbled upon an affair during his tenure as Prime Minister of Queensland , did not improve the situation of the government. The opposition-controlled Senate was in any case increasingly hostile to James Scullin.

At the beginning of 1931, James Scullin pushed through on the one hand, contrary to the then common practice in the nomination process and, on the other hand, against the resistance of King George V Isaac Isaacs as the new Governor General . This was the first in Australia born and also the first Jew in this office.

In 1931, James Scullin's ability to govern deteriorated when two of his ministers resigned in January on the occasion of the reappointment of Ted Theodore as Treasury Secretary. One of the two was Joseph Lyons , who would later succeed him as Prime Minister. They teamed up with the opposition Nationalist Party of Australia and founded the United Australia Party . In October, another group of party members around the Prime Minister of New South Wales , Jack Lang , split off from the ALP and founded the Lang Labor Group . James Scullin's government fell on November 25, 1931 when this new group teamed up with the opposition and supported a vote of no confidence against him.

The necessary new elections on December 19, 1931 brought the opposition under Joseph Lyons the government majority and so James Scullin was replaced on January 6, 1932 by this in office.

The Scullin Monolith , a rock formation in Antarctica, was named during his tenure . With this name, the Australian polar explorer Douglas Mawson honored Scullin's support for the British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (1929-1931).

The time after he was Prime Minister (from January 1932)

After this election defeat and his replacement as Prime Minister, James Scullin initially remained leader of the opposition. Only after another lost parliamentary election in mid-September 1935 did he hand over the chairmanship of the ALP to John Curtin on October 1 . He kept his seat in the House of Representatives without interruption until the elections in December 1949, in which he could no longer run due to illness. He did not fill a ministerial post after his term as prime minister. He had to turn down such an offer from John Curtins in 1941 for health reasons, but was a valued advisor to the Prime Ministers who followed him in various positions.

After many years of illness, most recently bedridden, he died on January 28, 1953 in his house in Hawthorn, a suburb of Melbourne.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} adbonline.anu.edu.au : Scullin, James Henry ( 1876-1953 ), in English, accessed June 10, 2011