In 1918 Scullin unsuccessfully contested a by-election for Corangamite. At the interstate conference in Perth he persuaded delegates to maintain Labor's support for compulsory training, although that policy was later abandoned. In 1918-19 he was president of the party's Victorian branch. At the State annual conference of 1917 he spoke forcefully but unavailingly against the move to abandon Labor's commitment to compulsory military service for home defence. At Labor's special interstate conference in Melbourne in December 1916 he moved the motion to confirm the expulsion of all who had supported conscription for overseas military service. In 1916-17 he was a leading opponent of conscription. He lost Corangamite in the 1913 elections, then became, until 1922, editor of a Labor daily, the Ballarat Evening Echo. He spoke frequently, on a wide range of issues, but concentrated on moves to increase the powers of the Federal parliament and on measures such as a land tax. Scullin quickly impressed with his abilities. Scullin won the south-west Victorian seat of Corangamite at the 1910 Federal elections, when Labor under Andrew Fisher became the first party to win a majority in both houses of parliament. On 11 November 1907, in St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat, he married Sarah Maria McNamara, a dressmaker born in Ballarat of southern Irish parentage they had no children. in the western half of the State, and publicizing the Labor cause. He then became a political organizer for the Australian Workers' Union, helping to form branches of the P.L.C. In 1906 he was Labor's candidate for Ballaarat in the Federal election against Alfred Deakin, the prime minister. About 1903 he joined the Political Labor Council and helped in Labor's campaigning in State elections. Then for ten years he ran a grocer's shop at Ballarat for James McKay & Sons. James had various part-time manual jobs in the Ballarat district until his mid-twenties. More active in the Catholic Young Men's Society than in the Australian Natives' Association, he developed debating skills, leading to a thirty year association with Ballarat's South Street Society competitions as a successful contestant and respected adjudicator. He made good use of the public library, reading avidly, including Irish writers and many of the British classics. James was educated at small state schools, at Trawalla in 1881-87 and at Mount Rowan, near Ballarat, until about 14, then at night school in Ballarat. James Henry Scullin (1876-1953), grocer, newspaper editor and prime minister, was born on 18 September 1876 at Trawalla, Victoria, fifth child of John Scullin, railway platelayer, and his wife Ann, née Logan, Irish Catholic migrants from Derry.
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