The railway factor in New Zealand is thus a very important one. It is one also of special interest, as the New Zealand Government not only owns but manages the whole of the lines, an arrangement not found in other parts of the world to conduce to either efficiency or economy in working. It seemed so impossible to believe that a democracy could be keeping politics out of business that I fear I asked a great many very impertinent questions on the subject of political graft in connexion with railways. The map of New Zealand offered an invitation to inquisitiveness. It showed that the country possesses a remarkably large number of small unconnected railway lines running inland from the various ports. Even to-day there is no complete through line in the South Island, though progress is being made in linking up branches to obtain it. One was at first inclined to attribute this state of things to political pressure brought to bear upon the Government to supply individual political const.i.tuents with more than their share of transport facilities at the expense of the general traffic requirements of the country. On going over the ground, however, two perfectly innocent reasons leapt to defend the lines. The first is that in a country as well supplied as is New Zealand with harbours round the coasts, the natural main artery of traffic is by sea and not overland.
The second is that the mountain backbone of New Zealand is so tremendous that the cost of through railways which, owing to the lie of the land, must necessarily cross this backbone is enormous. This is exemplified by the stupendous works, culminating in a five-mile tunnel, now under construction to link the west coast with the east in the South Island.
The same applies to the North Island, it being impossible to traverse the central railway from Auckland to Wellington without being impressed by the difficulties that have had to be overcome, alike on the Raurimu spiral in the middle, and at the famous one-in-thirteen incline near the southern terminus.
Mistakes have, no doubt, been made sometimes, and it is quite possible that in some cases local influence may have bettered public utility, both in the routes chosen for new lines, and in the order of their construction. Upon the whole, however, the Public Works Department of the New Zealand Government, which is responsible for the building of the railways, is to be most warmly congratulated upon the lay-out as well as upon the standard of excellence attained in the matter of the work.
The three-feet-six-inch gauge adopted in New Zealand may possibly have to be changed eventually to the standard four-feet-eight-inch gauge in use in Europe and America. The decision to adopt the narrow gauge, however, was come to at a time when there was much to recommend the selection, since it enabled railway facilities to be afforded very much sooner than would have been possible had the more expensive standard gauge been chosen.
The New Zealand Government has also pursued a sound policy in doing renovations, even where they have involved considerable structural improvements, out of revenue. I was informed that original cost has, all along, been replaced out of working expenses, where changes in the lines have been made on capital account, and that since about 1907 all relaying of lines and replacing of bridges and rolling-stock has been charged to working expenses. Again, a considerable length of line has been relaid each year, with heavy rails and new sleepers. The people of New Zealand in consequence now own the entire railway system of their country at a cost far below its present market value, and that too in a state of structural efficiency, which, especially after five years of a war to which the railways sent seven thousand of their trained men, is very remarkable. The Royal train could testify to that, running as it did over difficult country, from one end of New Zealand to the other, at a pace which was seldom less than forty, and sometimes went as high as sixty miles an hour, fast travelling on a narrow gauge anywhere.
The railways are under a general manager responsible to a minister-in-charge, at present the Prime Minister, and independent of the Public Works Department, whose responsibilities end with construction. In order to minimize political interference with traffic charges, a rule is enforced that all rates must be published, thereby facilitating discussion of them. No special local tariff also can be sanctioned without public notice being first given. All rates are thus subject to criticism in Parliament. Again, at present, ninety per cent.
of the traffic of the country, including both pa.s.sengers and goods, is carried on a flat-rate basis applicable to all lines, and all places. Of the remaining ten per cent., all but a small proportion is carried on concession rates designed to help the development of backward areas, it being recognized that the railways are only adjuncts to the opening up of the country and its resources. The fractional proportion which remains is carried at special enhanced rates, but this does not affect the general position, as it applies only to a few isolated sections of not more than twenty miles apiece, where construction has been unusually expensive, and where high rates have been adopted to cover interest on the cost.
A further safeguard is provided by the fact that a rate can only be changed on the recommendation of the general manager, who is a member of the public service, and therefore debarred from taking part in politics.
Very much the same safeguards apply to the appointments. The personnel of the railways in New Zealand is permanent, no new Government having so far ventured to make any wholesale changes. The great majority of the men now in the service have begun at the bottom, either as unskilled apprentices or as cadets admitted after pa.s.sing a qualifying examination. I was unable to hear of either promotions or fresh appointments for political reasons.
That the above are real, and not merely theoretical conditions, is strikingly shown by the financial results obtained. The dominant fact is that, whereas in the United States and in England, Government control of railways has been accompanied by heavy loss during the war, in New Zealand the railways have remained on a paying basis throughout, though the war rise in New Zealand traffic-rates has only been twelve and a half per cent. in the case of pa.s.sengers, and twenty-one per cent. in that of goods, as compared with from fifty to seventy per cent. in the case of the railways in Great Britain. At the same time the basic wage for the employees has been increased in New Zealand by thirty-three per cent., to which eight per cent. has recently been added, making a total wage rise on New Zealand railways of forty-one per cent.
As regards the cost of the carriage of goods on New Zealand railways, as compared with British, the claim is made by the New Zealand railway authorities that their rates are the lower. I was unable to obtain any conclusive evidence upon this point, during the short time available, owing to the difficulty of extracting average figures capable of being fairly compared. As regards pa.s.senger rates, I understand that the present New Zealand flat-rate is twopence per mile for "upper cla.s.s"
pa.s.sengers, and one and one-third pence per mile for "lower cla.s.s,"
rates which certainly compare not unfavourably with those obtaining in England.
The gross annual revenue of New Zealand railways is now about five and three-quarter million sterling per annum. Of this sum two million is allotted to payment of interest at four per cent. upon the forty million sterling of capital cost. The balance of three and three-quarter million goes to working expenses, which before the war averaged sixty-four per cent. of gross revenue, and are now sixty-six per cent.
Government goods consignments are carried at full rates, and troops at a concession rate of one penny per mile return. There is no paper inflation, therefore, in the figures.
I have given the above particulars at some length, as the management of so big a business organization as the entire railway system of the country is obviously a good criterion of the nature of the political administration as a whole.
I may add two further instances of New Zealand methods. The first is that the Government has embarked upon a seven-million-sterling scheme for the development of hydro-electric power for industrial purposes, the country being remarkably provided with facilities for this cla.s.s of enterprise. The installations, several of which are already well advanced, are situated in widely separated localities spread over both of the islands, so that a large proportion of the country will benefit.
The total power which this scheme is expected ultimately to develop amounts to something like half a million horse-power. The work was to be proceeded with as fast as labour, which was very scarce at the time of the Prince"s visit, became available. The second point concerns the resettlement of returned soldiers upon the land and their restarting in business. Upon this object the New Zealand Government had expended a million sterling, of which the bulk consisted of loans on easy terms.
The feature that seems significant of the general situation of New Zealand, was that practically all the fifty thousand men demobilized had been found employment, and that the loans were being rapidly repaid, one-eighth (117,000) having already been refunded, while less than six per cent. of the ten thousand men who had received advances were reported as irregular with their instalments.
Travelling as the party did from end to end of New Zealand, such national enterprises as the working of the railways, the development of hydro-electric power and the restarting of the men returned from the war, were often discussed. The considerations which emerged are certainly encouraging, not only from the point of view of those already settled in the Dominion, but also to that wider community throughout the Empire that looks to Australasia as a future home.
The Prince left Christchurch by train on the morning of the 17th May, on his journey to the southern end of the South Island and pa.s.sed once more through the Canterbury plain, a well-watered land of pleasant homesteads and wide flat fields just then white with stubble from a recently reaped wheat crop. His first stopping-place was the thriving town of Ashburton, where an address of welcome was read by Major Galbraith, at one time one of the best football players in New Zealand. In the course of his reply His Royal Highness mentioned that he was a farmer in a small way himself, which made him specially interested in the splendid farming country through which he had been pa.s.sing. The Prince"s colonial farm is in Alberta; he added it to the trophies of his Canadian tour in 1919. He has already stocked and improved it and there is not a Canadian from Halifax to Vancouver who does not look confidently to this holding to bring him back there at an early date. Temuka, famed for its trout-fishing, and Timaru, a rising watering-place, came next upon his itinerary. Timaru is a port for the shipment of chilled meat, in connexion with which several substantial cold-storage works could be seen from the train. In this centre the Prince was given a picturesque reception on the wide sands of Charlotte Bay, a popular bathing-resort in the summer months. The cliffs here form an amphitheatre from which twenty thousand people, including two thousand children from the schools around, witnessed the usual reading of a civic address, and march past of returned soldiers, red cross nurses, and other war workers. In the afternoon the train traversed a fine bridge over the Waitaki river, which is here the dividing line between the Scotch settlers of Otago and the English of Canterbury. The Prince also stopped off at Oamaru, and inspected a collegiate school, one of the foremost in New Zealand, where an exceedingly smart cadet corps paraded before him, and he was conducted by the headmaster, Doctor F. Milner, over buildings and grounds comparable to those of a first-cla.s.s public school in England.
One of the features of the inst.i.tution was unenclosed dormitories, in which the lads sleep out of doors, in all weathers, with wonderfully beneficial results to their health and endurance.
Dusk fell when the train was some twenty miles from Dunedin, the Edinburgh of New Zealand, but the sky was lighted throughout the whole of this distance by enormous bonfires, every village and every homestead along the line competing as to which could make the biggest flare against the forest and hills behind. Around these bonfires the local inhabitants had a.s.sembled and cheered the Prince as the train ran through. The night was alive with enthusiasm. Little old weary England, at anchor far in her North sea, might have been glad to feel it.
Port Chalmers, the Rosyth of Dunedin, was a wonderful sight. Coloured flares were simultaneously lighted in all parts of the town, as the train pa.s.sed along the top of the cliffs. The harbour was thus shown up like an inland lake, in a setting of hills, against which houses, shipping and docks stood out in brilliant relief.
At Dunedin the train climbed down into a fairyland of electric illuminations, beginning at the railway station, where Mayor Begg and the members of the civic council were a.s.sembled. A procession in cars, through Princes Street and Stuart Street, to the Dunedin Club, where quarters had been arranged for the Prince, showed him half a mile of decorated, illuminated route, kept in absolute order by boy-scouts, cadets and school-children, though every one of Dunedin"s sixty thousand inhabitants appeared to be partic.i.p.ating in an orgy of cheering, flag-waving and flower throwing behind this slender barrier.
On the following day His Royal Highness attended an open-air reception, in the presence of an immense gathering in the city octagon, beneath the cathedral, the steps of which were occupied by a big chorus of girls from secondary schools. Here he received nine addresses of welcome. In replying, he told Dunedin that the part she played in the life of New Zealand was fully worthy of the n.o.ble traditions which her pioneers brought from the schools and colleges of the Old Country. Later on the Prince visited the hospital, whence he drove over the heights overlooking the sh.o.r.e, and down a steep winding track to Port Chalmers, where, amidst more decorations and cheering crowds, the Harbour Board and Local Borough Council presented addresses.
On another day, in the presence of twenty thousand people, grouped amongst green olearia bushes on gra.s.sy sandhills by the bay, the Prince inspected seven thousand children representing two hundred and fifty schools. A pretty incident occurred in the march past when the wide ranks of the children opened, and a score of white-clad, black-stockinged maidens trooped up and curtsyed before the Prince to the strains of the March of Athol played by a drum and fife band in Gordon plaids. The biggest and the littlest girl in the deputation then stepped forward and presented the Royal visitor with a tiny greenstone memento, purchased for him by the school-children themselves. A further event of the visit of Dunedin was a march past by lamplight in the drill hall. Five thousand tickets to this ceremony were issued to returned men, each of whom came accompanied by relations or friends, so the numbers present must have been considerable.
From Dunedin the Prince went by train to Invercargill, the fifth city of New Zealand. On the way he pa.s.sed, in a snow-storm, the woollen mills of Mosgiel, also the Mount Wallace and Kaitangata coal-mines. Receptions were given in the towns of Balclutha, an active farming centre; Gore, the head-quarters of flourishing flour-mills, and Mataura, the location of hydro-electric works, paper-mills and cold-storage plant.
Invercargill was reached in cold wind and rain, yet the whole population was found a.s.sembled in the streets. From the station the route led to the racecourse, where in the presence of an immense gathering, undismayed by the weather which had turned the whole place into a quagmire, addresses were presented from the city of Invercargill and from the Southland County. In the course of his reply the Prince referred to Invercargill as being the last stopping-place on his New Zealand tour, and added that fate would be unkind if it prevented his renewing his recent experiences at some future time.
The return journey of four hundred miles by train to Lyttleton, where His Royal Highness re-embarked upon the _Renown_ for Australia, was done in record time. The Earl of Liverpool, Governor-General; Mr. Ma.s.sey, Prime Minister, and Mr. MacDonald, Leader of the Opposition, travelled to Lyttleton to say good-bye. The Prince gave a farewell dinner on the _Renown_, at which he conferred Knight-Commanderships of the Victorian Order upon Sir William Fraser, and Sir Edward Chaytor, who had accompanied him throughout the New Zealand tour. Junior rank in the same Order was conferred upon Lt.-Colonel Sleeman, Director of Military Training; Mr. Gavin Hamilton, of the Governor-General"s staff; Mr. James Hislop, Under-Secretary for Internal Affairs; Mr. R. W. McVilly, General Manager of Railways; Mr. O"Donovan, Chief of Police, and Mr. Tahu Rhodes, of the Governor-General"s staff--all of whom had been actively connected with the tour.
The Prince at the same time handed to Mr. Ma.s.sey, for publication throughout New Zealand, a farewell message, in which he expressed his thanks to the Government and people of the Dominion for the splendid reception given to him. The message continued: "Two things particularly impressed me. New Zealand is a land not merely of opportunity for some but for all. I have never seen such well-being and happiness so uniformly evident throughout the population of country and town alike.
This Dominion is also a living example of the fact that a European race may take over a new country without injustice to the original inhabitants, and that both may advance in mutual confidence and understanding along a common path. New Zealand is one of the greatest monuments to British civilization in the world, and I have felt, from end to end of the Dominion, that there is nowhere a British people more set in British traditions or more true to British ideals. I have found the strength of your loyalty to the Empire and its sovereign as keen and bracing as mountain air, and I know you will never weaken in your devotion to British unity and British ideals."
In conclusion the Prince referred to the journeys still to be taken before he could say he had seen the British Empire as a whole, adding that he still hoped to pay New Zealand another visit some day, a hope cordially echoed by both press and people throughout the Dominion.
XII
VICTORIA
The voyage from Lyttleton to Melbourne was rough but uneventful. The _Renown_ did the 1,651 miles in three days, and very uncomfortable days they were. She carried a new pa.s.senger in the fine bulldog presented to the ward-room mess by the Mayor of Gisborne, but it languished so grievously that it had to find a new home in the Commonwealth. It had joined the Navy too late in life.
The Prince had his first view of Australia by moonlight. The sea had then gone down and mist hung in the narrow strait as the _Renown_ pa.s.sed between the dark shadowy hills of Wilson"s promontory and the grey rounded cone of Rodondo Island. The following morning, however, found the _Renown_ still outside the confined entrance to Port Phillip, enveloped in a clinging fog, that shut out everything from view. The tide was then high, so the ten-knot current, that rushes through the entrance when the water is low, had subsided, but this favourable condition could not be taken advantage of to bring in the _Renown_ as neither buoys nor lights could be seen. Impatiently the ship"s company waited for the fog to clear, but hour after hour went by and it seemed to grow only denser. Tired navigating officers, in sopping overalls, descended gloomily from the bridge, and it was realized that there would be no crossing the bar that tide. The wireless meanwhile had crackled a message through to the Australian fleet, lying within Port Phillip, asking destroyers to come out and fetch the Prince, so that he might not disappoint the enormous crowds waiting in the streets of Melbourne to welcome him. The destroyers had forty miles of intricate navigation to negotiate, but were speedily in the neighbourhood. The _Renown_ meanwhile had been carried by the currents out of her original position, but the firing of guns and the tooting of syrens eventually discovered her. That fine boat H.M.A.S. _Anzac_, recently attached to the Australian Navy, came smartly alongside, and took off the entire party.
Steaming at twenty-eight knots, with a following wave so high as nearly to conceal the accompanying destroyers from the _Anzac"s_ quarter-deck, soon brought her through the Heads, in spite of the ten-knot tide then running full against her. The fog thinned off, and showed the _Anzac_ in still autumn sunshine, pushing through a misty expanse of grey landlocked bays. Yellow sandy hills, dotted with soft-toned buildings, receded on either side as she advanced and the bay widened out, to reappear later on as she approached Melbourne harbour, which first presented itself as a forest of gaunt black cranes, with a background of roofs and chimneys emerging mistily from a low foresh.o.r.e.
The destroyer was cheered again and again, as she approached amongst launches and steamers crammed with holiday-makers out to see the Prince.
She made fast to a red-carpeted wharf, in front of goods sheds flaming with decorations, where waited a smartly turned out naval guard-of-honour, and all the port authorities in full dress. Greetings and salutes accomplished, the party transhipped to a shallow-draft steamer--the _Hygeia_--which carried the Prince to the St. Kilda pier, in front of the residential quarter, through a fleet of yachts and launches filled with cheering people.
On the pier four figures stood out prominently--the Governor-General, the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, the Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, and the Premier of Victoria. Behind them were staffs in uniform, scores of dignitaries in top-hats and frock-coats, and a guard-of-honour in khaki. Long lines of marines and sailors kept a lane down the pier, and out into the crowd beyond. The Prince landed, and shook hands with the Governor-General and the Prime Minister, who afterwards presented to him the Premiers of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania, besides numerous members of their respective Governments, most of whom had travelled long distances to attend. The civic address gone through, a procession was formed, the Prince, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, and other bigger officials in barouches, the rest of the party following in motors behind. The mounted escorts included a fine squadron of police on grey horses, each of which was a picture. The procession traversed eight miles of wide, well-kept streets, with swarms of well-dressed, well-nourished people, applauding, laughing and chaffing on either side.
The crowds were enormous. The streets were crammed. Thousands were accommodated upon stands against the sides of the buildings. Every balcony, window, roof, and parapet, whence, in any way, a glimpse could be caught of the procession, was filled with people. Commonwealth troops, cadets in khaki, and police in black uniform, though stationed only spa.r.s.ely along the line, maintained excellent order. The crowds were as full of good-humour as could be, despite having been kept waiting by the fog for more than an hour after the advertised time. A wave of clapping and cheering went down the street alongside the Prince, and tailed off into chaff and criticism, at the expense of Mr. Hughes and other members of the Government, at the end of the procession. The cheering grew stronger as the business quarter of Melbourne was reached, and the procession pa.s.sed through its s.p.a.cious thoroughfares. "Generous"
seemed to be the adjective most appropriate alike to the broad outlines of the architecture, for Melbourne despises sky-sc.r.a.pers, to the width and dignity of the well-paved streets, and to the profusion of costly motor-cars and horses seen on the way. Those who accompanied the party were soon to discover for themselves that it applies equally to the quick-witted, outspoken, hospitable, kindly people of Melbourne.
The following day was a busy one for the Prince. It began with a levee at Government House, where he invested a number of returned officers and men with decorations won at the front. The reception of a score of addresses came next and the replying to the more important of them, including those from both Houses of the Commonwealth Legislature. The functions finished with a banquet at Parliament Buildings, at which the Right Honourable Mr. Hughes proposed the Prince"s health. The toast was seconded, in the warmest terms, by Mr. Frank Tudor, Leader of the Opposition. The keynote of the occasion was sounded by Mr. Hughes when he said to his guest: "The people of Australia see in you the things in which they believe."
There followed a bewildering week in which the Prince was carried from one public function to another, through extraordinary ma.s.ses of people, composed largely of women and children, but also comprising a very considerable number of men, who waited in the streets for hours at a time, sometimes in chill wind, fog or rain, on the chance of catching a glimpse of the Royal visitor. Many of them, when he appeared, made such efforts to approach and shake him by the hand, that the police had difficulty in getting his car through. His progress was so delayed in many cases that it became almost impossible for him to fulfil engagements at the hour appointed, in spite of the most liberal allowance of time for delays upon the road. Eventually appeals were made through the press for some abatement of this personal demonstration. The police arranged for a wider lane to be kept for his car, and the difficulty gradually disappeared. The Melbourne newspapers, meanwhile, day after day, made the Prince"s visit their almost exclusive business.
The smallest details of his doings were chronicled with minuteness, and long poems and articles about him were published. Photographs, in every att.i.tude and at every function, appeared prominently amongst the news of the day. The Prince was "featured" inexhaustibly. Scenes of enthusiasm also characterized the Naval Review, where every fighting ship belonging to the Commonwealth of Australia was paraded. A special agricultural show was held to which landholders from distant parts of Victoria sent breeding stock so valuable that no previous exhibition had been able to attract it. A public reception was given in the exhibition buildings, where people stood from eleven in the morning to four in the afternoon to secure front places. An entertainment was organized at the cricket-ground where ten thousand school-children went through marvellously trained evolutions, and fifty thousand spectators cheered when the Prince appeared.
When one asked folk in the street what they thought of him, enthusiasm found various expressions, but it was always enthusiasm. I have heard a stout, middle-aged and presumably sane gentleman in the smoking-room of a Melbourne hotel declare in the most bellicose tone to all and sundry that he would like to fight for him. I never heard a word of criticism.
Certainly Melbourne, and all the great interests it represents, took the Prince to a generous heart.
From Melbourne His Royal Highness made a two-days" trip by train into the rich districts of Western Victoria, through the Werribee Plain, where land fetches up to 60 per acre. Stone-walled fields of oats just rising above ground, with pleasant farm-houses amidst spa.r.s.e white gum-trees, spread on either side of the track. Low, blue hills bounded the view. Country folk waved greetings from many homesteads, as the train sped onward. The first stopping-place was Geelong, on the sheltered coast of Port Phillip, once a rival to Melbourne for the honour of being the capital of Victoria, now a marine base, and prosperous shire town. It is known throughout Australia as the home of the doctrine of the one man vote, and eight-hour day, first promulgated in the "seventies, by Sir Graham Berry, who represented Geelong in the Commonwealth Legislature. Here the Prince found himself in the midst of an agricultural, manufacturing and shipping community. The guard-of-honour was composed of naval cadets. He was shown thousands of bales of finest merino wool from mills which not only clean and sort it, but also, upon a smaller scale, manufacture it into blankets and cloth.
Pupils were presented to him from Geelong"s famous grammar school, which draws its students from all parts of Australia, and had a larger proportion of casualties, in the great war, than any other educational inst.i.tution outside the British islands. Here also he visited a big wool-shed, that of Messrs. Dennys Lascelles Ltd., with a ferro-concrete roof weighing two thousand tons, so large that the sales-room it shelters covers an acre of floor, yet there is not a single pillar in support, the necessary stiffness being given by means of reinforced girders, built upon cantilever principles, above the roof. The streets were crowded with people, and the Prince had a very fine reception alike at the reading of the munic.i.p.al address, and at the functions of shaking hands with returned soldiers, and inspecting school-children. A large number of schools from townships in the interior were represented, each with one pupil elected by its fellows to shake hands with the Prince.
The selected mites stood shyly out, in front of the lines of scholars, as the Prince went by to honour the promise given.
From Geelong the Prince went on to Colac, shire centre of one of the richest districts in Victoria. Here he was shown what claims to be the second largest dairying factory in the Commonwealth. It is run on co-operative lines, and makes, in addition to such products as b.u.t.ter and cheese, large quant.i.ties of dried milk, a comparatively new preparation, for which increasing demand is springing up in all parts of the world. It is an enterprise to which all may wish good luck, as a long step toward solving the important problem of rendering milk easily transportable, without loss of essential properties.
In entering, and again in leaving Colac, the train pa.s.sed quite close to a number of low conical hills and circular lakes, remains of comparatively recent volcanic action, which has given the soil over a wide area properties that enable it to grow Spanish onions in extraordinary profusion. In a favourable season, fabulous profits are made out of this crop. One man, with twenty acres, in one year cleared 1,800, of which 1,200 was net profit, after paying all cost of cultivation and harvesting. The Prince also saw some of the outlying trees of the famous Otway forest, home of the blue gum and blackwood timber used not only in Australia but also in America and Europe for decorative work.
In Colac, the streets had been elaborately decorated. Flags covered alike the stone and reinforced-concrete houses of business, and the brick and wooden residences. The accommodation of the place had been supplemented for the Royal visit, by encampments of tents, one large marquee flaunting the imposing t.i.tle of the "Cafe de Kerbstone." Choirs, in Welsh and Scottish costumes, serenaded the procession. There was much cordial cheering, especially about the shire-hall, where the civic address was read.
The next halting-place was Camperdown, another farming centre, where again a surprisingly large gathering of country folk had a.s.sembled to welcome the Prince. Motor-cars, often of the most expensive British makes, in which the owners had come from their holdings, stood about in the streets. The Royal party here transferred to motors, in which the Prince drove out to the residence of Mr. Stuart Black, one of Australia"s great landholders, descendant of settlers from Tasmania, who opened up this part of the country some eighty years ago. These settlers bore many distinguished names, including those of the Gladstone family and the MacKinnons.
The following day His Royal Highness went by train to Ballarat, past a fine stone memorial to members of the neighbourhood who had fallen in the great war, subscribed for by the residents of the district, and designed by Mr. Butler, of Sydney. The route lay through undulating agricultural country, past big heaps of white, pink, or yellow tailings, which mark the sites of now worked-out gold-mines. Some of the fields around were pitted with what looked very much like sh.e.l.l-holes, dug by early prospectors for the gold that made Ballarat famous. The Prince found the last-named place a prosperous market town, with substantial public buildings, and quant.i.ties of marble statues, dating from the days of easily made fortunes in the "seventies. It contains also wool, and other factories, including that of Messrs. Lucas and Company, for the production of underclothing, with which the Prince became acquainted under circ.u.mstances worthy of the creditable history of this firm.
During the war, some five hundred girls employed by Messrs. Lucas conceived the idea of planting an avenue, in which each tree should be connected with the name of one of Ballarat"s large contingent of fighting men at the front. At the head of this avenue, which is now a dozen miles in length, a substantial masonry Arch of Victory has been set up. The Prince opened this arch in the presence of the entire establishment of the Lucas factory, which presented him with an embroidered set of underclothing--yellow silk pyjamas, to be exact--in the making of which every employee of the firm had taken part.