flocks of sailing craft added themselves to the now slow procession.
Gatherings of people became visible as dark patches on the white
foreshore 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 ashore 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 assembled 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 municipal 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 principal 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
mass between the wooden barriers of the processional lane and the
plate-glass 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 passed, 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 nobody. 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 participated outside,
if not inside, the place of occurrence. One of the principal 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
embarrassment 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
principal 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 surpassed by his lightning humour
and uncompromising common sense in the cut and thrust of debate. "Time,"
he said, "circumstances, and the age-long struggles for freedom by men
who held liberty dearer than life, have fashioned the constitution 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 institutions. 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 institution 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 passed 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 multitude 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
assemblage 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 grass 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
bass to the treble of the children's cheering.
Later on the Prince proceeded to the University. On the way he passed
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-glass 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-glass portraits of
Cardinal Wolsey and other famous founders of Oxford and Cambridge
colleges, and by the presence in the assemblage 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 ennobled
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."
[Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE GARDENS, NEW SOUTH WALES]
[Illustration: 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
assure you there is no part of my experience which I value more than my
long association with those gallant troops, both officers and men."
Concluding he said: "Many of you are now completing or beginning a
university course after service in the field. I hope that these will not
find themselves handicapped by the time they spent overseas." It was a
hope that perhaps the easier conditions and nearer prospects of young
life in Australia may well fulfil. In any case its expression was one of
the many graceful gestures of consideration that did so much to bring
the Prince close to the hearts of the people of that country.
XIV
SOME COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
"One heritage we share though seas divide" surmounted one of the
decorated arches on the route traversed by the Prince on the day of the
military review at the Centennial Park, Sydney--a phrase no doubt, but
one that expressed the sentiment which pervaded this striking occasion.
Major-General Sir Charles Rosenthal commanded the parade, which included
a naval detachment under Lt.-Commander Patrick, a body of Light Horse
under Major-General Ryrie, and portions of five Divisions respectively
under Brigadiers Bennett, Martin, Jobson, Herring, and Christian. The
command was made up entirely of demobilized men, who, despite cold grey
weather on a full working day, had donned service uniform and
assembled--many of them from long distances--to do honour to the heir to
the Throne. The numbers present were not precisely ascertainable, as the
men were not under discipline, but had turned up of their own accord.
Estimates of how many attended therefore varied considerably, but any
number up to twenty thousand may have been there.
When the Prince reached the ground he found the units drawn up in
formation about half a mile in length in front of him. Long lines of
bath-chairs and motors were on his left, filled with disabled men who
had been brought from sanatoria and hospitals in the districts around.
Behind him some thirty thousand spectators joined in the cheering. The
Prince went down the lines, shook hands with all the officers and spoke
to a number of the men. He also shook hands with every disabled soldier
present. The proceedings terminated with a general march past in column,
so arranged that the disabled men could see their old regiments go by.
A sequel to the military review was a visit a few days later to Duntroon
College, the Sandhurst of Australia. Daylight on the shortest day in the
Australian mid-winter found the Royal train, now on the standard
four-feet-eight-inch gauge of New South Wales, speeding through dry,
rolling country, dotted with occasional blue gums beneath whose tattered
foliage sheep were picking a wholesome meal. Bright sunshine reminded
one that it was Australia, though the cold wind, which drove clouds of
dust and grit into our faces, might have been from a March east in
England. At the township of Queanbeyan, where the Prince changed into a
motor-car, the entire population had assembled and the usual ceremonies
of welcome were gone through. The country beyond Queanbeyan was open,
and barbed wire fences bounded the road on either side most of the way
to Duntroon, which proved to be a pleasant garden township of
white-walled houses, set upon a low hill amongst many trees.
Senator Pearce, Commonwealth Minister for Defence, and General Legge,
Commandant of the College, with a group of red-tabbed field officers,
received the Prince on a sheltered lawn overlooking a wide grassy plain
reserved for aeroplane manoeuvres. Those presented included a number
of the professors whose rank between soldier and pedagogue was quaintly
expressed by their black mortar-boards and college gowns which only
partially concealed service uniforms and war-decorations. The Prince
afterwards saw the cadets at exercise in the gymnasium, and took the
salute of one hundred and twenty of them as they marched smartly past on
the parade ground. Addressing them afterwards in the big mess-hall at
the dinner-hour, he recalled the fine war history of the college, which
had lost no less than forty-eight of its students in battle, and was
cheered when he repeated the story of that gallant soldier General
Bridges, who had found his way from the Kingston Military College, in
Canada, to make a new Kingston in Duntroon, and to lead Duntroon's first
contingent of trained officers to Gallipoli, where he himself was
killed.
It was dinner-time and "Carry on" was the word passed round to the
cadets, when H.R.H. had finished his speech, and the cheering had
momentarily died down. The soup was then served at all the tables, but
it must have grown cold while cheer after cheer followed the Prince as
he left the hall and re-entered his motor _en route_ for Canberra, a
place only a few miles distant.
The way from Duntroon climbed slowly through undulating, park-like
country, dotted with blue gums, two thousand feet above sea level.
Freshly made roads, with water-pipes and sewers laid on, presently
indicated that the site of the much debated new capital of the
Commonwealth had been reached. The scene continued to be rural, however.
The pleasant stream, which meandered amongst willow trees and grassy
solitudes at the foot of the hill--where the Prince subsequently added a
foundation-stone to the already considerable number of these expressions
of hope and faith--might have been a hundred miles from civilization of
any kind. The little river gave to the scene that touch of verdure so
grateful in the dry and dusty bush, and one day will doubtless be
spanned by the arched bridges of the Commonwealth's capital. At present
it must be confessed that the metropolis is hardly more than a sketch of
itself, and a sketch that presents no very distinctive features.
The importance of Canberra, however, is not to be judged from the
present condition of the site. As the Prince pointed out in his speech
at the ceremony, although the city still consists largely of
foundation-stones, this is chiefly because the war has delayed progress
with the scheme of construction. Mr. Groom, Commonwealth Minister for
Public Works, who presided, summed up the position when he said,
"Victory having been happily achieved, once more the mind of the nation
is reverting to the provision of a national seat of Government where
Australia will be mistress in her own house, and where there will be no
room for the complaint of provincial influence in pursuit of national
aims." The idea thus expressed that the Commonwealth administration
should have a territory of its own, away from the influence of any
individual state, holds the imagination of the majority of Australians.
It is an idea that has worked out satisfactorily alike in Canada and the
United States, where the circumstances, which justified the building of
Ottawa and Washington in the past, are essentially similar to those of
Australia to-day. The fact that India's endeavours at capital building
at Delhi may not yet have met with corresponding success, does not
affect the matter, since the conditions in a bureaucracy differ
essentially from those obtaining in the democratic association of
self-determining Dominions.
Public opinion in Sydney supports the Canberra scheme on the practical
ground that it will bring the Commonwealth capital nearer to itself.
Melbourne is naturally lukewarm, since the present arrangement whereby
the central legislature meets there, so long as Canberra does not
materialize, is one that local pride desires to see continue as long as
possible. The remainder of the States, while not very actively
enthusiastic about a scheme which must necessarily divert a large sum of
public money from railway and other useful local projects, recognizes
that the atmosphere surrounding the Commonwealth Government would be
none the worse for being removed from the wire-pullings of state
politics. Scenic beauty, healthfulness, a good water-supply, and
accessibility to the two principal Commonwealth centres of population
and industry, combine to justify the choice of Canberra for the purpose
concerned, and the fact that a sum of some two million sterling of
public money has already been sunk in preparing the site, increases the
probability that the scheme will eventually be brought to completion.
One of the party accompanying the Prince on his visit to Canberra was a
minister of state, who loved to tell how he had left his home in the
Canberra district on a push-bike to seek his fortune twenty years
before, now to return, in company with the Prince of Wales and as the
responsible head of an important Government department. Like every one
else who knows this part of the country, he overflowed with enthusiasm
as to the healthful prospects of its future. It was from him, I believe,
that the Prince first heard the ancient tale of the cemetery for which,
after long and infructuous waiting upon local necessity, the inhabitants
were driven to import a corpse from outside. That cemetery has served
many a rising town. It must be closed by now except for purposes of
historical research, but no doubt Canberra's claim to it will be
justified when the time comes.
Another expedition from Sydney was by train and launch, up the
Hawkesbury river, and on to Newcastle. On this occasion the Prince was
accompanied by the entire New South Wales Labour Cabinet, including
Premier Storey. One of the features of the trip was a remarkable
demonstration on the part of the men working in the Sydney railway
sheds, who assembled in large numbers along the line, and shouted good
wishes as the Prince's train went out. Every engine in the big station
yard at the same time blew a shrill accord on its whistle, a choral
accompaniment which was as convincing as it was deafening.