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James Henry "Jim" Scullin (18 September 1876 – 28 January 1953) was an Australian Labor Party politician and the ninth Prime Minister of Australia. Scullin led Labor to government at the 1929 election. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 transpired just two days after his swearing in, which would herald the beginning of the Great Depression in Australia. Scullin's administration would soon be overwhelmed by the economic crisis, with interpersonal and policy disagreements causing a three-way split of his party that would bring down the government in late 1931. Despite his chaotic term of office, Scullin remained a leading figure in the Labor movement throughout his lifetime, and served as an ''éminence grise'' in various capacities for the party until his retirement in 1949. The son of working-class Irish-immigrants, Scullin spent much of his early life as a laborer and grocer in Ballarat. An autodidact and passionate debater, Scullin would join the Australian Labor Party in 1903, beginning a career spanning five decades. He was a political organizer and newspaper editor for the party, and was elected to the House of Representatives first in 1910 and then again in 1922 until 1949. Scullin quickly established himself as a leading voice in parliament, rapidly rising to become deputy leader of the party in 1927 and then Leader of the Opposition in 1928. After Scullin had won a landslide election in 1929, events took a dramatic change with the crisis on Wall Street and the rapid onset of the Great Depression around the world, which hit heavily indebted Australia hard. Scullin and his Treasurer Ted Theodore responded by developing several plans during 1930 and 1931 to repay foreign debt, provide relief to farmers and create economic stimulus to curb unemployment based on deficit spending and expansionary monetary policy. Although the Keynesian Revolution would see these ideas adopted by most Western nations by the end of the decade, in 1931 such ideas were considered radical and the plans were bitterly opposed by many who feared hyperinflation and economic ruin. The still opposition-dominated Senate, and the conservative-dominated boards of the Commonwealth Bank and Loan Council, repeatedly blocked the plans. With the prospect of bankruptcy facing the government, Scullin backed down and instead advanced the Premiers' Plan, a far more conservative measure that met the crisis with severe cutbacks in government spending. Pensioners and other core Labor constituencies were severely affected by the cuts, leading to a widespread revolt and multiple defections in parliament. After several months of infighting the government collapsed, and was resoundingly defeated by the newly formed United Australia Party at the subsequent 1931 election. Scullin would remain party leader for four more years but the party split would not be healed until after Scullin's return to the backbenches in 1935. Scullin became a respected elder voice within the party and leading authority on taxation and government finance, and would eventually play a significant role in reforming both when the ALP returned to government in 1941. Although disappointed with his own term of office, he nonetheless lived long enough to see many of his government's ideas implemented by subsequent governments before his death in 1953. ==Early life== James Henry Scullin was born in Trawalla, Victoria on 18 September 1876. His parents, John and Ann (née Logan) Scullin, were both Irish Catholics from County Londonderry. His father was a railway labourer, who emigrated to Australia in his 20s. His mother joined her husband in Australia later. James was the fourth of eight children, and grew up in a tight-knit and devoutly Catholic home. James attended the Trawalla State School from 1881 to 1887 and earned an early reputation as an active and quick-witted boy, though never physically robust. These characteristics would remain with him for life. The family moved to Mount Rowan, Ballarat in 1887, and the young James attended school at Mount Rowan State School until 12. Thereafter he held various manual odd-jobs in the Ballarat district until about 1900, and for ten years from 1900 he ran a grocer's shop in Ballarat. In his mid-20s he attended night school, was a voracious reader and became somewhat of an autodidact. He joined a number of societies and was active in the Australian Natives' Association and the Catholic Young Men's Society, eventually becoming president of the latter. He was also a skilled debater, participating in local competitions and having an association with the Ballarat South Street debating society for nearly 30 years, which would prove formative to his interest and talent in politics. Scullin was a devout Roman Catholic, a non-drinker and a non-smoker all his life. Scullin became active in politics during his years in Ballarat, being influenced by the ideas of Tom Mann and the growing labour movement in Victoria, as were many of his later ministerial colleagues such as Frank Anstey, John Curtin and Frank Brennan. He became a foundation member of his local Political Labor Council in 1903 and was active in local politics thereafter. He was a campaigner and political organizer for the Australian Workers' Union, the union movement with which he would remain most closely associated throughout his career. He spoke often around Ballarat on political issues and helped with Labor campaigns at state and federal level. In the 1906 Federal elections he was selected as the ALP candidate for the seat of Ballarat against then Prime Minister Alfred Deakin. Although a race in which Labor had virtually no chance of winning, Scullin ran a spirited campaign and impressed those within the movement for his efforts. On 11 November 1907 he married Sarah Maria McNamara, a dressmaker from Ballarat. The marriage was childless. Due to Scullin's frequent and often serious bouts of illness over his long career, Sarah served the role as her husband's protector and was a crucial source of support and care for her husband, particularly in his final years. She was frequently called to assist or stand in for her husband at social occasions when her husband's illness prevented him from attending personally. She was an active member of the Labor Party herself, and would remain well-informed on politics. Very unusually among Australian political spouses (and even more so during the period of her husband's career), Sarah would often attend parliamentary sessions, and would even be present during the debate and vote that brought her husband's government down. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Scullin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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