Rain had been falling heavily, but the girls faced it cheerily at the head of their avenue, many a tree of which bore the flag that told that the soldier it commemorated had been killed. The presentation was made to the Prince by two ladies, one of whom was Mrs. Lucas, the founder of the firm, which she had started on a very small scale, at a time when the miners were beginning to desert the Ballarat goldfield, leaving, in many cases, families behind them. Mrs. Lucas gathered these families around her, and by a system of profit-sharing, attached them to her firm, which is now well known throughout Australia.
This was not the only function at Ballarat. The Prince also received an address standing out in the rain, on a platform in the main street, in the midst of a crowd so large that those in the rear could neither hear nor see very clearly what was going on in front. As the result, both the reading and the reply to the address were much interrupted, a patriotic cornet on the outskirts playing "G.o.d Bless the Prince of Wales" part of the time while the Prince himself was speaking. The Prince got hold of his audience, after two false starts, however, and to such purpose that the latter part of his speech was listened to with an interest that the rain, which plastered his hair and flattened out his collar, appeared to enhance. The cheering at the end was most hearty. The crowd did not disperse when the speeches were over, but waited in the rain until after the completion of a further ceremony, which took place inside the town hall, where the Prince shook hands with numbers of returned men and nurses. He was again loudly cheered when he came out and got into his car _en route_ to the train to Melbourne.
The rain that was so insistent during the visit to Ballarat was of dramatic importance to the country at large. It broke a long and serious drought, extending over an enormous area--a drought so severe that we pa.s.sed, on the road to Ballarat, way-worn sheep that had been driven three hundred miles in search of fodder and water. They were browsing, on their homeward way, on one of the farmer"s stock-routes which traverse Australia from end to end. These cattle-tracks are generously bordered by pastures fenced off from the surrounding country, so as to conserve food for flocks and herds in movement.
Two days later, just three weeks from Australia"s mid-winter, the Prince crossed, by train from Melbourne, the chill slopes of the Great Dividing Range, which separates the basin of the Murray river, flowing westward through central Australia, from that of the streams which pour their waters southwards to the coast. On the way, he received addresses at Kyneton and Castlemaine, once gold-mining camps, now not less prosperous dairying and woollen-working centres, the entire countryside turning out to receive him. Thence the train climbed down to a pleasant plateau on which stands Bendigo, city of flowers and dry, healthful breezes, and a centre of large and still exceedingly productive quartz gold-mining.
Enormous heaps of grey "mullick" shale, and yellow and white tailings here stand amongst beautiful avenues of shady eucalyptus trees, and substantial buildings of stone and brick. One of the cheeriest civic luncheons of the tour was a feature of the day--the Mayor toasting the Royal guest as Duke of Cornwall, Prince of the "Cousin Jacks," to whom the development of the Bendigo gold industry is so largely due. A novelty also appeared on the triumphal arches in the streets, which, in place of wreaths and patriotic texts, carried whole bevies of the prettiest girls the city could find. These arches had been built in the form of bridges connecting the porticoes on one side of the street with those on the other. The girls occupied the middle and dropped flowers as the Prince pa.s.sed in his car.
Intensive small culture is so successful about Bendigo, that we were told as much as 300 has been made out of an acre of tomatoes in a single year. Bendigo may thus look forward to a future of agriculture when her reefs are exhausted. Gold-mining brought her population, but her fields and gardens will probably keep it.
Later in the afternoon the Prince, accompanied by the Prime Minister, in overalls, descended the shaft of one of the gold-mines that amongst them keep the mints of the country busy turning out sovereigns that bear on the reverse the effigy of the kangaroo. The Prince thus made the acquaintance of the gold industry which has played so dramatic a part in the history of the Commonwealth. The output has been falling off gradually since 1903 when the value produced was over sixteen million sterling. It still averages over ten million sterling annually however, and is likely long to remain a very important source of wealth.
It was on this expedition that newspaper men accompanying the tour had their first opportunity of becoming acquainted with a number of distinguished Australians with whom they were so fortunate thereafter as to travel extensively. I have already mentioned that the Rt. Hon. Mr.
William Hughes, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, was one of them, his outspoken frankness and caustic humour illuminating and diverting long stretches of the railway journeys. Another member of the Commonwealth Government, closely a.s.sociated with the tour, was the Hon. Mr. Pearce, Minister of Defence, who was supported, whenever the Prince was in naval ports, by the Hon. Sir Joseph Cook, Minister for the Navy, and Rear-Admiral Grant, Senior Member of the Naval Board, authorities who were able to afford the Prince first-hand information about the training and equipment of the forces that have given an account of themselves at once so memorable and so recent. Major-General Sir Brudenell White, Commonwealth Organizer of the visit, Brigadier-General H. W. Lloyd, Brigadier-General Dodds, Commodore J. S. Dumaresq, were also outstanding figures of the party. The Commonwealth arrangements, extensive though they were, represented only a small portion of the organization connected with the Australian part of the tour. Every State had also its own organizer, besides numerous committees--committees for decoration and illuminations, reception committees, committees for dinners and dances, school committees, committees to guide and instruct the British Press. These last-named bodies, to whom the debt of the visiting newspapermen was considerable, consisted not of delegated correspondents but of the editors and proprietors of the leading journals themselves.
These gentlemen also took upon themselves the duty of making known throughout each State the story of the Prince"s doings, thus giving to the business of publicity the best and most influential brains available, and placing at the disposal of the Overseas pressmen a constant reference to experience and local knowledge of the utmost value.
[Ill.u.s.tration: JUTLAND DAY AT MELBOURNE]
[Ill.u.s.tration: WITH AUSTRALIA"S MOST DISTINGUISHED CITIZEN]
With the Commonwealth Prime Minister an ex-Labour member, and with Labour Governments in power in several of the Australian state legislatures, no one can visit Melbourne, seat of the Commonwealth Government, without coming up against some of the industrial problems and prospects in this country. It has already been mentioned that, at the dinner given to the Prince by the Commonwealth Government, in Parliament Buildings, Mr. Frank Tudor, leader of the Labour Party in opposition to Mr. Hughes" Government, warmly seconded the toast of the Prince"s health. I repeat this fact, as it seems to be indicative of the general att.i.tude of Victorian labour towards the Royal visit. The British pressmen had the opportunity of meeting some of the Labour leaders, amongst them Mr. E. J. Holloway, Secretary of the Melbourne Trades Hall, and Mr. D. L. MacNamara, Labour Member of the Victoria Upper House. They are men of moderate views, while full of schemes for bettering the conditions of labour on this continent. Mr. MacNamara is the author of proposals, now forming part of the Australian Labour Party"s platform, for revising the Commonwealth const.i.tution, upon lines designed to make the will of the people supreme. He would abolish existing State governments, and divide the States into provinces administered by councils exercising only such functions as might, from time to time, be conferred upon them by the Commonwealth Government, the Upper Chamber in the latter to be done away with, thereby leaving the lower Federal House a free hand to put through legislation beneficial to the ma.s.ses. This scheme, whatever may be its intrinsic merits, is rather of theoretic than practical interest, as there is not much probability of any proposals for increasing the powers of the Commonwealth Government being accepted by the States, which are after all in paramount authority for the time being. It is nevertheless important as showing the constructive nature of problems with which Labour men in this part of Australia concern themselves. Mr. Holloway"s activities have been chiefly connected with organizing proposals for the immediate advantage of workers, reducing their hours of work, and increasing their pay. Australian labour is watching developments in England, and a tendency is growing to subst.i.tute friendly round-table conferences between workers and employers for the less elastic processes of strikes and lock-outs which have so often been resorted to in the past.
There was no lack of evidence in Melbourne to show how closely the community, as a whole, is affected by the new distribution of political power. Smoke-room a.s.sertions that industry was being destroyed by the frequency of strikes need not be taken too seriously, since the manifest prosperity of the crowds and the well-ordered activities of the factories did not at the time confirm any such mournful supposition. It is apropos to mention, however, that in Melbourne places of business much capital is locked up in purely emergency apparatus for doing without such public utilities as water-supply, electricity and gas, these arrangements being designed to enable industry to continue during periods of munic.i.p.al inactivity, a fact which is certainly significant of the frequency of strikes in the past. Another noticeable feature is the far-reaching nature of the activities of the unions. In the sub-editorial rooms of the leading newspapers may be seen labour forms, to be filled up even by men holding well-paid appointments upon the staff, giving detailed particulars of hours of duty, overtime and emoluments.
Friendly personal interest, rather than anything deeper, was perhaps apparent in what some of the Labour men said about the Prince. Friendly personal interest was always there, however. Even those who were inclined to ascribe the wonderful reception in the streets to the Prince being "a good sport, and well advertised," readily admitted the desirability of the British connexion, and their own cordial wish to keep up old relationships in this new land. At the time of the Prince"s visit correspondence appeared in the Melbourne Press on the subject of alleged Catholic lukewarmness in regard to Royalty, and it must be said that political trouble in Ireland has not been without its echo of difficulty in Victoria, though the extent of anything of the kind might be very easily exaggerated.
The wonder is, however, not that isolated exceptions should be found, but that, with all the divergent political ideals, and conflicting social conditions, necessarily met with in a large city of such recent growth as Melbourne, so generous a measure of warm-hearted loyalty should have been manifested, loyalty in which all sections of the community, including Labour, showed themselves to be in warm accord.
XIII
NEW SOUTH WALES
Towards the end of the visit to Melbourne it became plain that the tension of repeated functions and strenuous journeys had begun to tell upon the Prince. He held out manfully, but was clearly overtired. This was by no means surprising, at all events to any member of the tour party, for all had begun to feel a strain which fell in a degree vastly multiplied upon His Royal Highness.
That well-informed journal, "The Melbourne Argus," referring to the matter, said: "When the programme was arranged, before the arrival in Melbourne, the opinion was expressed in these columns that it was proposed to place too great a strain upon the Prince, and since his arrival it has become every day more evident that human strength is unequal to the tasks which have been set. The Prince has not made any complaint, but has most generously and courageously met all engagements.
Only those in close a.s.sociation with him know the expenditure of nervous force which this conscientious discharge of duty has entailed."
Eventually the programme was altered so as to give H.R.H. an additional week in Melbourne, free from public engagements. The hope that he would rest, however, was not in any literal sense fulfilled, as he spent his holiday in riding and golf, hardly less tiring than the public functions which the doctor had forbidden him. His staff were lucky if, after a long day spent in the saddle, he could be persuaded not to dance into the small hours. This strenuousness is characteristic. In the _Renown_ he spent much of his spare time exercising on deck or playing squash racquets. A mile run was his not infrequent preparation for a long day of public engagements. It is an attractive habit, but in the case of one subjected as the Prince is, at short intervals, to emotional as well as physical strain it hardly carries the recuperative benefit that it might in ordinary circ.u.mstances. The rest in Melbourne, such as it was, enabled him to carry on throughout the remainder of the tour. He seemed occasionally to take every ounce out of himself, but he "carried on."
Melbourne"s send-off, when the Prince ultimately left to proceed to Sydney, was, if possible, even more demonstrative than its reception when he arrived. Nine aeroplanes, soaring round the Ionic columns of Parliament Buildings, as dusk was falling, created the first stir in the immense crowd which waited along the road he was to take. Presently distant cheering was heard gradually coming nearer, as his car made its way from the Moone Valley racecourse, where he had spent the afternoon, to the top of Collins Street, where the official portion of the route commenced. Slowly the procession extricated itself from the ma.s.s of people who rushed up to say farewell, and a.s.sailed his car with offerings of flowers and wax Kewpie dolls for luck. A real horse-shoe, tied up in ribbon, was thrown by an admirer unable to get near enough to present it. It was perhaps owing to the good luck it brought that it dropped harmlessly into the bottom of the Prince"s car. Eventually, the procession was able to go forward along a barricaded lane kept by the police in the middle of the street. In this s.p.a.ce children raced alongside, and a ripple of waving hats and handkerchiefs kept pace with the cars as they advanced, while the evening air rang with cries of "Good-bye, Digger": "Come Again!" interspersed with clapping and cheering. The Prince stood upon the seat of the car waving his hat through some miles of these demonstrations.
On the wharf at Port Melbourne a farewell address was presented by the local authorities beneath a gigantic arch inscribed "Australia Is Proud of You." Here the State Premier and other notables attended, also a guard-of-honour of the Royal Australian Naval Brigade. The reverberation of boots upon the wharf, as the crowd rushed afterwards to catch a last view of the Prince as he went up the gangway of the _Renown_, drowned the sound of a fife and drum band, operated by ladies in MacKenzie tartans, which banged on cheerfully alongside.
The _Renown_ sailed at daylight, escorted out of harbour by a flotilla of Australian destroyers. The voyage was along a hilly sh.o.r.e for the most part covered with forest. The first port of call was in the wide, sheltered harbour of Jervis Bay, the Dartmouth of Australia. Here Sir Joseph Cook and Rear-Admiral Grant, with Captain Walters, Dr. Wheatly and other senior members of the Naval College, received the Prince, who inspected a smart guard-of-honour of cadets, and was subsequently shown over the inst.i.tution, which is well arranged and up to date. The buildings include airy dormitories, comfortable study rooms, convenient lecture halls, commodious laboratories, and s.p.a.cious gymnasium and gun-room, and are built round a roomy gra.s.s "quarter-deck," on which the cadets in the course of the afternoon handsomely defeated the best Rugby football team that the _Renown_ could produce. Nothing could exceed the pleasantness and wholesomeness of the atmosphere of this fine naval training college. The life by the cadets is an open-air one, and a more healthy and promising body of youngsters it would be impossible to find anywhere. They are being given a sound education amongst surroundings calculated to impress upon them the beauty and attractiveness of the land whose service they are about to enter. The harbour, at the foot of the college playing-fields, is to be the port of entrance to the federal territory of Canberra. The site of the new capital itself is only some seventy miles inland, a distance which is thought nothing of in this country of magnificent s.p.a.ces. A railway has been surveyed to connect the two places, and a corridor of federal territory had been marked out, so that the entire line, including the port, may be out of reach of any state influence.
The Jervis Bay College is a step in the direction of making the fine fighting ships, which Australia already possesses, independent of the help of the Mother Country. Boys are growing up there who will hereafter command them, and perhaps build the big naval graving docks, that are so badly wanted in Australian waters, to enable the modern battleships of Great Britain to reinforce effectually those of Australia in any trouble that may arise in the Pacific.
"What do you think of our harbour?" is as inevitable a question in Sydney as "What do you think of America?" is in New York. It was soon countered by the demand of the blue-jackets on the _Renown_, "And what do you think of our ship?" but its relevance was easy enough to understand, when, in the misty dawn, of what was mid-winter in Australia, but might have been a fine June day in England, we reached the high rocky headlands which guard the entrance to these wonderful inland waters.
A flotilla of war-vessels, including two Australian cruisers and a number of destroyers, escorted the Prince"s ship into an aquatic amphitheatre. On all sides were beautiful wooded promontories sloping down to the edge of still pearly water. The slopes were studded with home-like villas, each gay in its own garden. Bays and inlets made shaded alleyways in all directions from the central expanse. Slowly the battle-cruiser threaded her way through the deep water marked but by buoys into the inner harbour. Hundreds of decorated motor-boats and dozens of double-decked ferry-steamers crowded round, each one of them a cheerful bouquet of brilliant parasols and fine-weather millinery.
Well-groomed men, opulently dressed women, and smartly turned out boys and girls, on one boat after another waved handkerchiefs and Union Jacks, clapped, cheered, laughed, and sang. Bra.s.s bands banged out the National Anthem, and the usual pet.i.tion to the Almighty to bless the Prince of Wales. The Prince waved and smiled in return, from his eyrie above the bridge, while fresh boats raced alongside, and continually restarted the hubbub.
As the _Renown_ advanced up the harbour droves of rowing-boats and flocks of sailing craft added themselves to the now slow procession.
Gatherings of people became visible as dark patches on the white foresh.o.r.e of every promontory. In the case of the rocky headland overlooking the middle harbour, the patch must have been many acres in extent. The _Renown_ dropped anchor half a mile from Farm Cove, a sheltered gap in the encircling hills. The Prince went ash.o.r.e in his launch, through a decorated cheering sea-lane of tugs, ferry-steamers, rowing-boats and yachts. He landed on a shaded beach, the slope behind solidly crammed with people, while beside the water, in a grove of bunting and greenery, were a.s.sembled the most distinguished men to be found in this part of Australia. Those present included the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, the State Governor, the State Premier, Members of the Commonwealth Government resident in New South Wales, the whole of the State legislature, Ministers, Judges in robes and wigs, Admirals and Generals in the last inch of permitted gold-lace.
Immediately behind was a decorated marquee in which were the civic officials, including the Lord Mayor of Sydney in munic.i.p.al robes and ermine, who presented an address. A naval guard-of-honour was drawn up on one side of the marquee, and a military guard-of-honour on the other.
Salutes were fired, bands played, the guards-of-honour were inspected, the princ.i.p.al people were presented. The address was replied to, and amidst much cheering the Prince was conducted up a decorated staircase to the top of the cliff where a number of four-in-hands with large mounted escorts of "diggers" were in waiting to convey him through the city. The proceedings differed from those on the occasion of the entry into Melbourne in that they took place in bright morning sunshine, instead of in the fading light of evening. The route, including as it did long straight stretches of undulating ground, enabled the brilliant pageant of flags, escorts and pennants to be seen as a whole as the procession jingled through five miles of densely packed people.
The way was kept by returned soldiers and cadets. Triumphal arches, constructed throughout of such characteristic Australian products as wool-bales, corn-sheaves, or balks of timber, dotted it at intervals.
Avenues of white colonnades supported flags and bunting which stretched continuously for miles. Sightseers festooned the parapets, crowded the balconies, tapestried the windows with eager faces, and formed a solid ma.s.s between the wooden barriers of the processional lane and the plate-gla.s.s show-fronts of the business houses.
In substantial Macquarie Street the Prince stopped to greet a terribly large community of crippled soldiers, who sat patiently in motors and bath-chairs by the wayside, attended by nursing sisters. Further on a no less touching spectacle awaited him, in a great gathering of black-garbed mothers, widows and orphans of diggers killed at the front, a pathetic reminder that, of the four hundred thousand soldiers raised by voluntary enlistment in Australia during the war, only one in two escaped wounds or death. Here the pressure was dense; and spectators, we heard, paid a shilling a minute to stand on packing-cases to look over one another"s heads.
The route ended on the shady lawns of Admiralty House, where the Prince inspected a great company of war-workers, who stood in ranks of variegated colour, including the red and grey of sisters who served in hospitals overseas, and the white and black of those whose no less devoted labour kept public utilities active at home while the manhood of the nation was in the field. Before entering the building where he was to stay the Prince shook hands with no less than ten wearers of the Victoria Cross.
The reception was over. Perhaps the feature in it which struck the visitor most, next to its magnificence and enthusiasm, was the light-heartedness of the crowds. After the Prince had pa.s.sed, and had been everywhere cheered, Mr. Hughes, the Commonwealth Prime Minister, Mr. Storey, the State Premier, and other ministers who were further back in the procession were subjected to volleys of chaff and counter-chaff from supporters and opponents, in which they themselves joined with the utmost goodwill. Even the crashing into the harbour, close alongside the reception wharf, of one of the aeroplanes employed on escort duty, upset the equanimity of n.o.body. A motor-launch promptly picked up the soused aviators, who seemed to find the accident the greatest of larks.
The country round was as much interested in the visit as the city itself. For days before the Prince"s coming special trains, crowded to their utmost capacity, had followed one another in quick succession into Sydney from localities sometimes hundreds of miles away in the back blocks. One heard of a father who squeezed his family of tiny children into one of these special trains, and was then unable to get a foothold on it for himself. The mites went to Sydney unaccompanied, but lacked for nothing, either upon the way or when they arrived, for every soul upon the train was prepared to father and mother them.
The ten days which followed were crowded with public functions in which what seemed to be the entire population of Sydney partic.i.p.ated outside, if not inside, the place of occurrence. One of the princ.i.p.al was the state banquet in the enormous town-hall. Seven hundred and twenty diners here sat down. Three thousand of Sydney"s maids and matrons watched the proceedings from the galleries on either side, and at a given signal after the dinner, when the Prince proposed "The Ladies," there was a sound like a vast flight of pigeons and three thousand Union Jacks fluttered into the air. The ladies had responded for themselves. Crowds blocked the wide streets for half a mile round the building, throughout the whole of the proceedings, and took up the cheering again and again.
The toasts of the evening were honoured, not only in the banquet hall itself, but by some hundred of thousands outside as well.
Mr. Storey, the Premier of the Labour Government in power in New South Wales, made a most cordial speech in proposing the Prince"s health. He described the Royal guest as a democrat in whose presence he felt no embarra.s.sment in speaking frankly. He welcomed him on behalf of New South Wales, and declared that the Royal family had always shown sympathy with the ideals for which Labour men everywhere stood. In the course of his reply, the Prince said: "I realize to the full the great part which New South Wales and Sydney have played, and must always play, in the history of Australia. This wonderful city is the cradle of the magnificent development which has made the Australian Commonwealth. The whole thing started here, and in later days you were foremost in the movement of ideas which led to federation. The greatest of all the statesmen who first worked for federation, Henry Parkes, was a Sydney man, and a Premier of New South Wales. The first Australian Prime Minister, Sir Edmund Barton, also came from New South Wales. It is amazing to think that New South Wales holds two-fifths of the population of the whole Commonwealth and that Sydney holds more than half of the population of New South Wales. That fact alone shows the vast importance, not only to the Commonwealth, but to the future of the whole Empire, of this state and its lovely capital. Sydney is indeed the London of the Southern Hemisphere."
It is characteristic of Australia that the Commonwealth banquet in Sydney, at which the Prince subsequently made what was probably his princ.i.p.al speech during the tour, was an outwardly less imposing function than was the state dinner I have just described. The Commonwealth banquet was given in one of the upper stories of a fine building in Martin"s Place erected under the direction of Sir Denison Miller, founder of that great national organization the Commonwealth Bank, which now handles the entire finances of the central Government, including the raising of loans and the issue of currency.
At the Commonwealth dinner the Governor-General presided and Mr. Hughes made one of those felicitous speeches which have won him a European reputation, though they are themselves surpa.s.sed by his lightning humour and uncompromising common sense in the cut and thrust of debate. "Time,"
he said, "circ.u.mstances, and the age-long struggles for freedom by men who held liberty dearer than life, have fashioned the const.i.tution under which we live. The monarchy is an integral part of it. If Britain decided to adopt a republican form of Government that would be the end of the Empire as we know it to-day. The Empire has grown. It is, if you like, the most illogical of inst.i.tutions. It is composed of many free nations very jealous of their own rights, and brooking no interference with these. Yet, to the outside world, it is, in time of danger, one.
And the inst.i.tution which binds all these together is the Monarchy of England." The Prince in reply declared that there was no finer body of men than those which Australia sent to represent her in the various theatres of the war. He went on to sum up the aspirations of Australia in the words of Sir Edmund Barton, "a continent for a nation, and a nation for a continent," and evoked a storm of cheering when he declared, "I am quite sure of one thing, that as Australia stands by the Empire, so will the Empire stand by Australia for all time."
The enthusiasm that characterized the Prince"s entry into Sydney, and the State and Commonwealth banquets given there in his honour, became if possible more and not less accentuated as his visit wore on. Outstanding everywhere was the tumultuous cordiality with which he was greeted by enormous crowds. The same thing occurred at the races, at the gala performance at His Majesty"s Theatre, at the parade of returned men, at a wonderful display by state school-children, also when he entered the chief military hospital beneath an arch of crutches, and when fifty thousand people pa.s.sed before him in the town-hall.
The whole was an experience which can never be forgotten by any of those who had the good fortune to be there. The popular reception in the town-hall was especially impressive. Here, standing on the dais in the centre of this fine building, the Lord Mayor of Sydney alongside, and a number of ministers, judges and soldiers, grouped about him, the Prince, in plain grey jacket suit and soft brown hat, received the salutes of a great mult.i.tude of men, women and children--the blind man led by friends, the old lady who must see the Prince before she died, the baby who would be able to say in years to come that it was present. The people were shepherded past by members of the local police, for whose patience and courtesy it is impossible to express too great admiration, in one long, smiling, curtsying, hat-doffing stream. Numerous barriers had been erected, but there was no crushing whatever. It was a demonstration of orderliness and public spirit of the very best.
Another picturesque function was where, under the twinkling pendants of the big chandeliers in the ballroom of Sydney"s Government House, beneath the portrait of his ancestor George III, and before a brilliant a.s.semblage of naval and military officers, judges, ministers, civic authorities, and members of consular bodies, the Prince shook hands with several hundreds of representative men belonging to all sections and communities of the Australian continent. Interesting also was the day he spent amongst the young folk. It began with a visit to the Sydney Cricket-Ground where twelve thousand children of the local Government primary schools, headed by Mr. Mutch, Minister for Education, Mr. Board, Director of Education, and Colonel Strong, Chairman of the Executive Committee, organized and supervised a picturesque exhibition of physical drill. The children deployed upon the gra.s.s in the centre, where they went through evolutions and exercises, and arranged themselves so as to form patriotic emblems and messages of welcome. Fifty thousand parents and relations occupied gigantic stands around the ground and added a ba.s.s to the treble of the children"s cheering.
Later on the Prince proceeded to the University. On the way he pa.s.sed through some of the less fashionable quarters of Sydney, where he was warmly received by crowds consisting largely of artisans, amongst whom his popularity seemed to grow each day he remained in Australia. At the University, a place with fine buildings, in pleasant country surroundings, on the outskirts of the city, he was cheered by some two thousand undergraduates, five hundred girl students, and a big gathering of graduates and members of their families. The great hall, with stained-gla.s.s mullioned windows, dark grained timber roof and grey stone walls, broken by a long array of mellowing oil portraits, where the Chancellor, Sir William Cullen, read an address, recalled the beautiful precincts of Christchurch, Oxford, upon which it appears to be designed.
The feeling of home was heightened, alike by stained-gla.s.s portraits of Cardinal Wolsey and other famous founders of Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and by the presence in the a.s.semblage of a number of red and black Oxford hoods amongst the grey ones worn by graduates of the Sydney University. The gathering included a fine body of students in uniform, many of them wearing war-decorations won overseas. The blue and gold flag of the University corps occupied a place of honour at one end.
Replying to the address, the Prince referred to the profoundly important work the Sydney University was doing, and its splendid record in the war, and went on to say: "The generation which faced the war enn.o.bled your traditions, fine as those already were, and left a great example of personal service to the King and Empire for the present generation to pursue."
[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE GARDENS, NEW SOUTH WALES]
[Ill.u.s.tration: PERTH, FROM THE KING"S PARK]
Replying later to an undergraduate address read by Captain Allen, M.C., the Prince said: "You have referred to my comradeship with your own two thousand fellow students who went to the front in the great war, and I a.s.sure you there is no part of my experience which I value more than my long a.s.sociation with those gallant troops, both officers and men."