another almost continuously, and acres of close-packed crowds assembling
wherever it was announced that the Prince was to be present. On one
occasion he unveiled a fine bronze statue of the late King Edward. On
another he conversed with an assemblage of blinded soldiers. One of the
most picturesque of his experiences was when four thousand women
war-workers, including nurses, members of Cheer-up clubs,
motor-ambulance drivers, comforts workers, and members of the Mothers'
League marched past him in solid battalions, many of them bearing
stripes indicative of five years' public service, and some the badge
which stood for son or husband killed at the front. The scene of
enthusiasm will long be remembered when he told them he hoped that they,
like the diggers, would all look upon him as a comrade. It was a thing
he said often but never too often.
The Prince also made expeditions into the surrounding country, which
has a climate like that of Italy, the vineyards climbing the terraced
hills around Adelaide enhancing the resemblance. He here made the
acquaintance of the Australian wine industry, which continues to prosper
and expand, despite the new and devastating form of drought that
threatens it throughout the world. The difficulties of the trade are
considerable. The Australian is not himself a wine-bibber. His
intoxicant is whisky and his stimulant is tea. Withal he is a very
temperate person. No great home market, therefore, is at hand for the
native wines, and in spite of an excellence in many brands which must in
the long run establish them, the European importer still shows only a
modified confidence in stocking them to the displacement of the better
known labels of Southern Europe. Six million gallons annually, however,
are being drunk somewhere.
On the day of the Prince's departure from Adelaide, eight thousand state
school-children and forty-five thousand spectators said good-bye to him
in brilliant sunshine, on the Adelaide cricket-ground. From the
cricket-ground he proceeded to the University, where the degree of
D.C.L. was conferred upon him. Thence through large crowds, which had
waited hours for his passing, and greeted him when he appeared with
friendly shouts of "Good-bye, Digger," he went to the railway station,
and proceeded by train to Port Adelaide. Here a local civic address was
presented, and yet another large gathering of children, returned men and
war-workers cheered him. The Royal train eventually went on, down the
Port Adelaide main street, which was black with people, to the outer
harbour wharves, where Sir Archibald Weigall, Mr. Barwell, Mr. Moulden,
and other leading men of South Australia went on the _Renown_ and said
good-bye, the Prince ultimately sailing for Tasmania.
XIX
TASMANIA
The Prince's reception at Hobart, Tasmania, was a great popular
occasion. Decorations had been kept up and renewed since the preceding
month, when the visit was originally to have taken place, and were still
imposing, while the crowds along the processional route, which was
several miles in length, were enormous.
The Governor, Sir William Allardice, paid a ceremonial visit to the
Prince immediately the _Renown_ anchored off Ocean Pier. On landing the
Prince was received by Sir Walter Lee, State Premier, Major-General Sir
John Jellibrand, and members of the Tasmanian Government. On the pier he
inspected guards-of-honour of seamen and cadets, and shook hands with
five of Tasmania's eleven V.C.'s, including Sergeant McDougall, who had
been an inmate of a pulmonary hospital when war broke out, yet managed
to get to the front and came back with the most coveted distinction in
the army.
From the pier the Prince was taken to one of the big dockyard sheds,
which he found filled with returned men, nurses and other war-workers,
including the venerable Mrs. Roberts, a well-known local figure, who
stood, a bent old lady in black, waving the Union Jack beside the
commandant. Many were the Mrs. Robertses, under different names, that
these ceremonial occasions produced. One learned to look for them,
figures full of years and honour, spirits erect in failing bodies, dim
eyes lit by the old torch, frail arms carrying on the old tradition.
Homage to Mrs. Roberts, war-worker, be her style married or single. She
is a symbol of the race.
[Illustration: LEAVING PORT ADELAIDE]
[Illustration: MOUNT WELLINGTON, HOBART]
In this place the Prince was cheered in the lustiest manner, and was
presented with an illuminated copy of the Tasmanian muster-roll, also
with the gold badge of the twelfth battalion. Thereafter he was taken in
procession through the streets, where the crowd was so dense and anxious
to get near to him, that the pace had to be of the slowest. Nothing
could exceed the good nature of those who were pressing in upon the
route, however, which was well kept after the first quarter of a mile. A
civic address was read outside the town hall, where the Prince, whose
voice had given out, wisely abstained from straining it further by any
attempt to make it heard beyond the platform occupied by the Mayor and
Councillors.
Later on he attended a big state luncheon. The speakers included the
Premier, who dwelt upon Tasmania's loyalty and warm-hearted devotion to
the Empire. He also referred to developments that will eventually
revolutionize the industrial and commercial future of the island, no
less than a quarter of a million horse-power being in course of being
tapped by hydro-electric installations.
Mr. Ogden, the Labour Party chairman and leader of the Opposition in the
State Legislature, also spoke. He said the loyalty of Tasmania was not
to be measured by the population of this beautiful island, but was a
loyalty that extended to an Empire wherein the great gulf between rich
and poor would eventually be narrowed. The Prince was by this time too
hoarse to reply at any length. He managed to tell his enthusiastic
audience, however, that the chief thing he would have liked to be able
to say to them was how much he appreciated the reception given to him.
The Prince's engagements during the two days he spent at Hobart included
a civic ball and races, an investiture and a big outdoor popular
reception, and witnessing the electric illumination of the city. The
last was especially interesting, not only as exhibiting what is probably
one of the most beautiful ports in the world, but also as an
illustration of one of the uses to which Tasmania's new hydro-electric
power can be put. The installation, which is connected with the overflow
of an impounded lake in the centre of the island, is rapidly
transforming this sleepy little State of the Commonwealth into a busy
industrial centre. Copper mines on the west coast are doing all their
smelting by this means. Hobart and Launceston drive their trams and
light their street lamps with the new power. Before the war the whole of
the zinc ore won from the Broken Hill mines in South Australia went to
Germany as a matter of course to be converted. Tasmania now handles much
and will presently handle all of it. Hitherto Australian downs have
grown the wool and Yorkshire looms have woven it. Presently Tasmanian
mills will perform the latter process, and so far as the Commonwealth is
concerned her fleeces will no longer make the journey across two oceans
and back, on their way to adorn and comfort the persons of her
population. From the manufacturer's point of view there are advantages
in isolation. Power, sugar and a liberal market have drawn the Cadbury
firm to Hobart, and foundations are already laid which will ultimately
prosper upon the sweet tooth of the Polynesian belle. The old Arcadian
days of Tasmania are gone with its colonial status. Its climate will
always draw seekers of ease in retirement, and its orchards will
remunerate their leisure, but the future of the State, under the
protection of the Commonwealth tariff, is industrial.
The humorous inhabitants of its larger fellow States have a way of
calling the island a "flyfleck," but its importance in the Commonwealth
is out of all proportion to its size. The amenities it offers have from
the beginning attracted the settler with some liberty of choice, with
the result that Tasmania has contributed a large proportion of leading
men to the Commonwealth. It is also remarkable for the number of retired
members of the military and civil services of India amongst its
settlers, men who in their prime have borne heavy responsibilities, and
in their declining years are giving still commanding abilities to the
development of the land they have chosen to be their home.
The Prince crossed Tasmania by rail at night, arriving the following
morning at Launceston, another seaport city of extraordinary scenic
beauty. Here he added to his tour one more experience of the entire
population turning out to welcome him in a city decorated from end to
end in honour of his coming. He stayed the night at the "Brisbane"
hotel, and attended a number of ceremonies. In the course of the
afternoon he inspected masses of school-children. The physical
impossibility of shaking hands with all the teachers in attendance
suggested the idea of inviting those of them who were returned soldiers
to do so, and it was surprising what a large proportion were able to
claim the honour. Another function was his meeting disabled men at the
principal hospital. These poor fellows gave him the wildest reception,
and the whole assemblage laughed most heartily when, on the invitation
of one of them, he flicked halfpennies in a "two up" game. Later on the
Prince climbed the beautiful Cataract gorge afoot, at a pace with which
the members of the Cabinet who were with him had all they could do to
keep up. He finished a long day with a visit to the Launceston races,
followed by a popular reception at the town hall, where ten thousand
people passed in procession before him.
The following day H.R.H. returned to Hobart, the State Premier and other
members of the Government, including the Ministers of Lands and
Railways, accompanying him on the train. The inhabitants assembled and
cheered him at every passing station, while at the more important,
including Tunbridge, Parallah and Brighton, he alighted and participated
in civic receptions. The region traversed included a rich farming and
orcharding district, on which numbers of returned soldiers, some of them
belonging to the British Army, who are being given by the Government
precisely the same treatment as their Australian comrades, are being
started as farmers. The State not only supplies them with already
cleared and fenced holdings and necessary buildings, but finances them
on terms calculated to enable men without a penny of their own, beyond
their war gratuity, to become independent freehold proprietors within
ten years. One of the features of this admirable scheme is that the
settlement has attached to it an expert instructor, who is in Government
employ. Those settlers who have so far moved in have found a portion of
the holdings allotted to them already under crop, and some one at hand
to teach them how to apply their own labour to the best advantage. They
are being inducted into agricultural prosperity, in one of the most
perfect climates in the world, close to a railway, and in surroundings
comparable to those of Devonshire. One of them brought to show to the
Prince two prize sheep-dogs he had reared which he valued at a hundred
and fifty pounds. The Royal party left this spot regretfully, so full of
fair prospects for men who deserve all that can be done for them did it
seem. The number so far settled is not very large, but the Minister for
Lands, to whose initiative, resource and enthusiasm the success already
achieved is largely due, is hopeful that it will be possible to extend
it to all suitable returned men who present themselves. In this case
Tasmania should receive a signal increase in population, for nowhere in
the world have I seen a more cheerful outlook for the soldier who is of
the right type to become a farmer.
The Prince was booked to spend the evening of his return to Hobart at
the Soldiers' Club, before going on board the _Renown_, which was to
sail at midnight. It was characteristic of the Tasmanians that the men
themselves remembered how trying this would be for him after his long
and strenuous day. They proposed, therefore, of their own motion, that
they should say good-bye to him on the wharf, and this was the course
ultimately adopted. It was a graceful act which fittingly terminated one
of the pleasantest visits of the tour.
XX
QUEENSLAND
Accompanied by His Majesty's Australian Ship _Australia_, and two
destroyers, the _Renown_ made a fine weather voyage to Sydney from
Tasmania. After crossing the Bass Strait the course was close inshore
along the beautifully wooded hills of New South Wales, and boats laden
with people put out from the small whaling port of Eden to greet the
Prince. Loyal messages were also flashed from homesteads further up the
coast when the _Renown_ came in sight, transmitted by men, now back in
their homes, who had learnt to signal in France or Gallipoli. Entering
Sydney harbour, numbers of yachts and launches were found waiting in the
fairway to welcome the flotilla, the scene being almost as gay as when
the Prince first arrived at this wonderful port. The wharf also
demonstrated the interest felt in the arrival. It was loaded with people
whose cheers were undiminished as the Prince went his way to the
station, where he proceeded at once to entrain for Queensland.
The rail journey northwards produced some of the most remarkable
experiences of the tour, experiences the more notable for occurring in
States where public sentiment is perhaps more markedly democratic than
anywhere else in Australia. The first stop of any consequence was at
the coal-mining town of High Street. Here the Prince was taken by car in
procession through decorated streets, lined with people twenty deep the
whole way. The objective was the neighbouring railway station of West
Maitland, where H.R.H. was to rejoin the train, and where he found an
enormous crowd of miners and their wives and children, who gave him a
rousing welcome. He shook hands with three hundred returned men, also
with a pathetically long line of mothers, widows, and orphans of fallen
soldiers, and he inspected a big gathering of school-children.
A picturesque figure occupied a place in the crowd on the road between
High Street and West Maitland, a native Australian woman in flowing
robes, with a golden crown on her head, who was the head of a local
tribe of blacks. Standing beside her was a full-blooded son, who had
lost a leg in France, whither he had gone in company with white
squatters, amongst whom, prior to this, he had presumably been a
stockman. She added to her memories and her dignities a word with the
Prince of Wales.
Beyond West Maitland the route passed through fine park-like country,
with wooded hills and cultivated valleys, plainly visible in the bright
moonlight which had succeeded a typically balmy New South Wales winter's
day. The train stopped and receptions were held at various minor
centres, including Murrurundi, a place full of the romantic associations
of a bygone generation, when this part of Australia was still a land of
bush, broken only by very occasional squatters' cabins and mining camps.
As the Prince stood on a gaily decorated platform outside the station
with orderly lines of returned men and neatly dressed lady war-workers
beside him, one's mind went back to wilder scenes, enacted many years
ago. A grey-headed man told how, on almost exactly this spot, a
bush-ranger had been shot, after long eluding capture with the help of
his sister, who was a waitress at the local drinking saloon, whence she
used to ride out to his hiding-place at night in the hills, upon a horse
borrowed from race-stables near by. In this way information and supplies
were communicated to him, the midnight journeyings upon the borrowed
thoroughbred not being brought to light until the time came round for
the annual race-gathering, when the mud and sweat of its condition
attracted attention. What became of the girl, my informant did not know,
but she was honoured in the story if not in the incident.
Wallangarra, the border station between New South Wales and Queensland,
was reached the following morning, when the Prince again had the
modified excitement of changing gauges. Here he bade farewell to Mr.
Hodgson, who had acted throughout the tour in charge of the railways of
New South Wales. He was welcomed by a distinguished group of officials
representing Queensland, who came on board the train. The Premier, the
Hon. Mr. E. G. Theodore, was at that moment on public business in London
on behalf of the Queensland Government; the Governor, Sir Hamilton Gould
Adams, had recently retired. Their places were filled by Mr. Fihelly,
acting Premier, and Mr. Lennon, acting Governor, pending the arrival of
Sir Matthew Nathan from England.
From the border the track climbed steadily to the top of a pleasant
wooded plateau, three thousand feet above sea level, dotted with rich
orchards and gardens, which are being opened up in increasing numbers
and of late at rapidly advancing land prices. It is difficult to realize
at first sight how the fruit-trees manage to take root. Some of the very
richest and most sought after plots are a mass of tumbled rocks amongst
which there seems room for nothing to grow, yet it is just amongst these
rocks that the very finest peaches and apples are raised.
A newly constructed branch line carried the party to the returned
soldiers' settlement of Amiens. Here a cheerful crowd of some two
hundred Australians and British had assembled, accompanied by wives and
babies, the wives in a surprisingly large percentage of cases from
England, and the babies some of the healthiest looking imaginable. The
Prince would have liked to spend some time in this settlement, but an
inexorable programme hurried him away. He had time, however, to hear a
great deal about the felling, burning and clearing up of string-bark
forest, the fencing and ploughing of the land, also the planting of it
with fruit-trees of the finest stocks. He also saw a number of
comfortable bungalows each with the amenity of a roomy veranda, in which
the settlers live. Ten acres of good soil were considered a sufficiently
large holding to keep one man employed, and each place is arranged to
include this area, apart from rocky or water-logged portions. The
average out-turn of such a holding, when planted with suitable trees of
six years' growth, is estimated, with prevailing fruit prices, at L700
per annum. Returned men, accepted by the local agricultural authorities
as likely to succeed on such properties, and irrespective of whether
they are from Australian or British units, are able to obtain advances,
as they may require them, up to a total of L625, against work done upon
their places. These advances are repayable in easy instalments, spread
over long series of years, at about five per cent. interest, which is
less than the money at present costs to provide. Most of the holdings,
when seen by the Prince, were only partially cleared and planted. The
men were hopeful of pulling through, however, until the trees should
come into bearing, their pensions and advances, eked out by the growing
of tomatoes, potatoes and other vegetables, for which there appeared to
be considerable local demand at remunerative prices, being considered
sufficient to keep them. Once the trees come into bearing their owners
can reasonably expect to do quite well. The authorities estimated that,
in the ordinary course, a man should be able to pay off all indebtedness
within ten years, after which he would find himself the absolute owner
of an unencumbered property, capable of indefinite expansion by taking
up more land, and even without any expansion, sufficient to support the
settler and his wife and children in conditions of comparative comfort.
The life on these holdings is in the open air, in a sunny climate,
without any extremes of temperature, amongst beautiful natural
surroundings, and in an atmosphere so bracing that these well-watered
uplands have long been utilized as a health resort. The breaking in of
the holdings is, no doubt, very hard work, and here the Government
advances make it possible to pay for help in the case of men unequal to
do the whole of it themselves. Once this has been done, the work that
remains, of cultivating, manuring, pruning, and spraying the trees, and
of picking and packing the fruit, is very much less strenuous; and for
those prepared for a life in the open air where country pursuits
replace the feverish interests of the city, the prospect seems almost
ideal. Certainly those we saw entering upon it gave the very pleasantest
impression. The man will, of course, do best who possesses those
qualities which make him the lender, instead of the borrower, of the
stump-puller, and the purveyor, instead of the buyer, of tinned luxuries
at the co-operative shop and packing establishment. For all, however,
there seems to be a living under conditions which must certainly be
considered favourable.
The sun was getting low when the Royal train pulled up at Warwick, a
prosperous city in the breezy uplands of the Darling Downs two thousand
feet above the sea level, home of sheep, mixed farming and white-stemmed
forest trees. Here in the Central park, commanding a beautiful view of
blue distant mountains, the entire population had assembled and the
usual civic address was presented.
I talked with two of the residents, both men from the Thames Valley, one
a doctor, and the other a chauffeur. They agreed in not even considering
the idea of going back to the old country. This part of Queensland, they
said, was a place where it was easy to make a living, an its warmth and
sunshine were delightful after the English winters of which so little
can be safely predicted. They would not admit that the summer was too
hot, or that the drought from which this part of Australia had only
recently suffered had been more than a very temporary setback in the
steady growth of continually increasing prosperity.
The train halted for the night in open upland country, with delightful
bracing air, one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen
painting a clear evening sky. The following morning, in warm brilliant
sunshine, the track crept down the wooded slopes that gird in the
Darling Downs, and emerged in the rich cultivated Lockyer plain below.
Here fine red cattle were feeding down magnificent crops, six inches up,
of green luscious oats, the settlers considering that this somewhat
remarkable procedure increases the ultimate harvest of grain, by causing
the young plants to stool out.
Beyond the Lockyer plain the route lay through the Liverpool hills
whence it descended, by easy gradient, to Brisbane and the sea. Not a
station, a village or a house upon the way, but was gay with
decorations. The inhabitants were out upon all sides, on horseback, in
buggies, in cars, or seated upon fence rails, every man of them hat in
hand, every woman and girl a-smile, every child wide-eyed with
excitement. Operatives cutting down trees, navvies shovelling ballast
upon the railway track, farmers plowing their fields, husbandmen pruning
their orchards, stopped work and saluted or shouted a welcome as the
train went by. Boys raced beside the Royal saloon in youthful endeavour
to keep up. Not a churlish glance, nor an indifferent face, was seen for
a hundred miles.
Brisbane first presented itself in the shape of pleasant garden suburbs
full of wooden houses on stilts, each surrounded by a garden of flowers.
It developed, as the train rushed on, into the solid masonry of a
closely built city. The heartsome sound of cheering accompanied all the
way. Arrived at the railway station, H.R.H. was welcomed with every
formality. The State Premier, the whole of the Cabinet, the Mayor and
the city Council, received him on the platform. Naval and military
guards-of-honour were in attendance. The usual procession of motor-cars
was ultimately in motion, and carried the visitor through several miles
of streets, in which elaborately decorated arches, made of wool bales,
fruit, vegetables, and corn-sheaves, gave homely, delightful, convincing
character to their setting. Crowds lined the entire route and gave the
Prince a welcome the warmth of which was equal to that of any he had
previously received. The way was kept by returned men, and long lines of
women war-workers, including nurses and helpers of every kind, formed a
solid wall of white on either side of the route for at least a quarter
of a mile.