James Menzies (Australian politician) James Menzies (Australian politician) James Menzies (9 August 18621 November 1945) was an Australian businessman and politician who served in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1911 to 1920, representing the district of Lowan. Before entering politics, he ran the general store in Jeparit, Victoria. He was the father of Robert Menzies, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia. Menzies was born in Ballarat West, Victoria, one of the nine surviving children of Elizabeth (née Band) and Robert Menzies. His parents were both Scottish immigrants, meeting soon after their arrival in Australia in 1854 and marrying the following year. His father –
Prime Minister of Italy Giolitti was Prime Minister five times between 1892 and 1921 and the second-longest serving Prime Minister in Italian history. Giolitti was a master in the political art of "trasformismo", the method of making a flexible, fluid centrist coalition in Parliament which sought to isolate the extremes of the left and the right in Italian politics. Under his influence, the Italian Liberals did not develop as a structured party. They were instead a series of informal personal groupings with no formal links to political constituencies. The period between the start of the 20th century and the start of World War I,