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Title: Down Under With the Prince
Author: Duncan, Sara Jeannette, 1861-1922
Language: English
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DOWN UNDER WITH THE PRINCE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
SIGNS AND PORTENTS IN THE FAR EAST
[Illustration: H.R.H. ON DECK: AN INTERRUPTION]
DOWN UNDER WITH
THE PRINCE
BY
EVERARD COTES
WITH TWENTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1921_
This book attempts to be a gangway to the _Renown_ for the reader who
would travel by battle-cruiser, by train, on horseback, by motor, and on
foot, the forty-five thousand miles of his Australasian tour with H.R.H.
the Prince of Wales. It is built by one who travelled, as a
correspondent, with him all the way.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I AT SEA 1
II BARBADOS 9
III PANAMA 15
IV SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 22
V HONOLULU 27
VI NEPTUNE BOARDS THE _RENOWN_ 35
VII FIJI 41
VIII AUCKLAND 47
IX NORTH ISLAND 59
X SOUTH ISLAND 73
XI ENTERPRISE IN NEW ZEALAND 87
XII VICTORIA 100
XIII NEW SOUTH WALES 116
XIV SOME COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS 130
XV WESTERN AUSTRALIA 140
XVI WHEAT, GOLD, AND LOGGING 148
XVII THE NULLARBOR PLAIN 158
XVIII SOUTH AUSTRALIA 163
XIX TASMANIA 170
XX QUEENSLAND 176
XXI THE JACKAROO AND OTHERS 192
XXII AMONGST THE SHEEP 200
XXIII EASTWARD HO 211
XXIV THE WEST INDIES 221
XXV THE BERMUDAS 236
XXVI THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TOUR 242
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
H.R.H. ON DECK: AN INTERRUPTION _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
PANAMA CANAL: A SHARP CORNER 16
SURF-BOARDING AT HONOLULU 16
EXCITEMENT GROWS IN AUCKLAND HARBOUR 18
NEW ZEALAND: THE PRIME MINISTER TAKES CHARGE 18
_From a Photograph by Guy, Dunedin_
WELLINGTON: A CANOE IN THE PETONE PAGEANT 64
_From a Photograph by Guy, Dunedin_
"THE MAORI PEOPLE WILL BE TRUE TILL DEATH" 64
WESTPORT CHILDREN: A TUMULT OF FLAGS AND FLOWERS 80
DUNEDIN'S WELCOME 80
_From Photographs by Guy, Dunedin_
WITH AUSTRALIA'S MOST DISTINGUISHED CITIZEN 112
_From a Photograph by the Central News Agency, Ltd._
JUTLAND DAY AT MELBOURNE 112
GOVERNMENT HOUSE GARDENS, NEW SOUTH WALES 128
PERTH, FROM THE KING'S PARK 128
CROSSING THE NULLARBOR PLAIN 160
ABORIGINAL DANCE 160
LEAVING PORT ADELAIDE 170
MOUNT WELLINGTON, HOBART 170
THE BACKBLOCKS: AN UNOFFICIAL FIXTURE 192
HIS FAVOURITE MOUNT 192
EMU ON A SHEEP-RUN 208
GOOD-BYE TO SYDNEY HARBOUR 208
SAMOA MAKES MERRY 224
TRINIDAD: IN THE DRAGON'S MOUTH 224
The thanks of the writer are due to those who have contributed
photographs for the illustrations, and especially to Sir Godfrey Thomas,
Bart.
DOWN UNDER WITH THE PRINCE
I
AT SEA
One March morning of last year, an ordinary train moved out of Waterloo
Station for Portsmouth, and among the ordinary people it carried were at
least two or three who were going further. They sat together and smoked,
and exchanged experiences and speculations. As the train slowed down at
Portsmouth Harbour they looked from the carriage windows and saw the
fighting tops of a big battle-cruiser lifted grey against the sky above
the houses of the foreshore, and one said to another "There she is."
There she was, the _Renown_, in alongside, waiting to sail with His
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to Australasia. It was the day before
and already the function was in the quickened air. Scraps of coloured
bunting fluttered and flew on the wharf sheds. Dockyard officials gave
orders with more responsibility than ever immediately under their caps.
The travellers from Waterloo went up the gangway to the quarter-deck,
successfully passed the officer of the watch, and found their quarters.
They were the journalists of the tour, there on behalf of the people at
home, that multitudinous "public" which, for lack of accommodation on
the _Renown_, must see the Prince's tour in the convex mirror of the
daily press.
Next day the function flowered. The Royal train rolled in. The red
carpet was spread and the Chief Passenger went up the gangway, with
every sign and circumstance by which his country could mark the occasion
of his going.
Gently the grey turrets slid out from the crowded wharf into the leaden
expanse of harbour. "Auld Lang Syne" rang into the chill wind that
rocked the rowing-boats lining the fairway. Ant-like figures swarmed
into the tall rigging of Nelson's flagship, which lay, bedecked all
over, her old oak sides stiff in checkered squares of black and white,
while her ancient muzzle-loaders banged off a smoky salvo--the senior
ship of the British Navy wishing Godspeed to her fighting junior on
Royal Service starting. The hundred and twenty thousand horse-power
steam turbines of the battle-cruiser quickened their rhythmic throb. The
still shouting crowds ashore faded to dark stains on the Southsea beach.
The red and gold of the Royal standard fluttered down from the main, and
the _Renown_ put out to sea, starting on this pleasant commission with
the same certitude and the same cheeriness, the same discipline and the
same lightness of heart, the same directness of purpose, and above all
things the same absence of fuss, with which she had often gone upon
errands perilous. The voyage, so much anticipated and chronicled, had
begun, and the convincing thing was that it was going to be, from the
_Renown's_ point of view, precisely like other voyages. That impression
came with the first turn of the propeller and remained, it may be said
at once, until the last. The circumstance and ceremonial of the
departure, the pomp of Royalty and the glitter of an Imperial mission
had all merged, before the sun set in the cloud-bank of that March
afternoon, in the sense of function and routine, detached and
disregarding, that controls life in His Majesty's ships at sea.
The _Renown_ is the most recent, the fastest, and the best armed
battle-cruiser in the world. She received at her christening the proud
traditions, extending over three hundred years, of the battles of the
British Navy, having had no less than seven fighting predecessors of the
same name, beginning with the gallant little wooden frigate _Renommée_,
captured in 1653 from the French and transferred to the British
squadrons where she became the first of the famous _Renowns_. The
present vessel was built as lately as 1916, when British need was great.
She remains a record of what those strenuous times could do.
For all her thirty-two thousand tons and gigantic armament of mammoth
guns this great battle-cruiser slides through the water with the
smoothness of the otter. She moved steadily at eighteen knots an hour
from the time she left Portsmouth, a pace which, for this last word in
fighting machines, is mere half-speed, though it is as fast as most
suburban trains can travel. She is so big that surprisingly little
motion is noticeable at sea, though waves wash freely over forecastle
and quarter-deck, contracting the space available for the exercise and
training of the large fighting crew she carries. This intimacy with the
ocean is an impression acquired early and vividly by the civilian on
board a fighting ship. A voyage on a big liner is a quite super-marine
experience by comparison, with a picturesque and phosphorescent basis
some distance below a sleepy deck-chair, and not necessarily observed at
all. A battleship penetrates rather than sails the sea, and takes very
little interest in keeping any part of herself dry. It is impossible to
ignore the ocean on such a vessel. The _Renown_ was no less amphibian
than others of her class. The accommodation contrived for the Prince was
itself liable to ruthless visitation, and even the cabin on the
superstructure, which held the chroniclers of his Odyssey, and was the
highest inhabited spot beneath the bridge, occasionally took
considerably more than enough water to dilute the ink.
Naturally there was nothing in her mission to interfere with the
_Renown's_ ordinary routine at sea. Training, gun-drill and inspections
went on as usual and it was impossible not to be penetrated with the
fact that these things were admirably done. For the passengers the day
began with breakfast in the ward-room at eight. Soon after nine the
whole ship's company assembled in divisions, in different parts of the
vessel. Kits were inspected and the day's duty commenced. One realized,
as one watched the proceedings, how completely the war has abolished the
old navy methods of stiffness and pipeclay. The relations between
officers and men are of the pleasantest and most human character. Nobody
is asked to do anything not of definite importance to the welfare of the
ship, or to the training and the making fit of the men. The navigation,
the keeping of the watches, the working of the complicated machinery by
which the vessel is driven, steered and lighted, the handling of the
gigantic guns, and the running of such supplementary services as those
of supply and wireless, proceed upon simple matter-of-fact business
principles, under the direction of the Captain, who controls the
organization as a whole. Immediately under the Captain are the
Navigation Commander, the Administration Commander, the Engineer
Commander, the Gunnery Lieutenant-Commander, the Torpedo
Lieutenant-Commander, the Principal Medical Officer, and the Paymaster,
each an expert in the particular branch he is responsible for.
Unquestionably an expert too is the ship's parson who, himself belonging
to the upper deck, is related, by his duties, so closely to the lower,
as to afford a personal link between the two, which no less sympathetic
or more official intermediary could supply. Each of the departments I
have named is manned by its own staff of officers and men, who are all
trained to carry out definite functions with cheerfulness, confidence
and goodwill. On the _Renown_ the same healthy spirit was to be found in
every one aboard, from the Flag-Lieutenant down to the humblest stoker.
It is an early inoculation of Osborne and Exmouth and apparently expands
in the system with promotion.
At general divisions on Sundays, the entire ship's company assembled for
inspection on the decks, each officer at the head of his respective
contingent. A finer sight than these divisions it would be impossible to
find, the men well-set-up, and bearing decorations won in every naval
engagement during the war, from Zeebrugge to the Falkland Islands, and
from the Dardanelles to Jutland, wearing too in many cases the red
triple stripe upon the sleeve which tells of fifteen years of good
service under the White Ensign.
A battle-cruiser has many aspects. It is a fortress with parade grounds
and cricket pitches, a monastery with divagations in port, a school of
many things besides arithmetic, and a community that could teach social
law to Mr. Hyndman. It is above all from this point of view the home,
the castle and the club of the officers and men who inhabit it, and the
centre of these significances is the ward-room. The _Renown's_ had an
ante-room which enshrined the files, not greatly disturbed, of a few
newspapers, and was a most comfortable smoking-room, but it was about
the tables and chairs, the Mess President's mallet and the unwearied
piano of the ward-room itself that the hoariest traditions of His
Majesty's Navy most conspicuously flourished and the atmospheric essence
of the Senior Service most happily clung.
There is a variety of the game of Patience played with cards called
"Knock." It was plainly invented, in a moment of drowsy leave, by a
sub-lieutenant to whom had arrived the felicity of ordering, by a stroke
upon the table, Commander X or Lieutenant-Commander Y to "pass the wine"
in penalty for having read an urgent signal from the bridge and omitted
to excuse himself to him, the said Sub-Lieutenant, and Mess President
for the week, though youngest officer present. Various were the offences
thus visited across the field of the repast, which had a goal at each
end, kept, so to speak, by the Chaplain, with his grace before and after
meat. In that consecrated interval no lady's name may be pronounced, and
nothing of any sort may be perused. The Spell with which the ward-room
guards its daily history at once paralyses the pen. There is really no
way of learning much about these things except by entering the Navy or
persuading a battle-cruiser to give you a berth in her, opportunities
which occur but seldom to any of us. The relaxations of that genial and
athletic place form a tempting theme, but it is better for the
publishers that a modest number of these volumes should reach the
libraries than that a whole edition should be sunk at sea.
All this announced and admitted however, this was the voyage to
Australasia of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and the _Renown_, at least in
the public eye, must be subordinated to her duty.
The Prince was to be met quite often, going about the ship, like anybody
else, with always an unaffected word and pleasant smile for those he ran
up against. He did a good deal of reading and other work in his
state-room in the morning, but in the afternoon he often shared in the
recreations of the officers, playing squash racquets in a small court
that had been rigged up upon the superstructure, shooting at clay discs
thrown out from the ship's side by means of a spring trap, or running
and doing Swedish exercises on the poop. H.R.H. ordinarily messed with
the Captain and the members of the Royal Staff, in the cuddy, which had
been enlarged and pleasantly decorated in ivory and green for the
purpose; but he was also an honorary member of the ward-room and
gun-room messes and sometimes dined with one or other of them. On other
nights he often had officers or passengers to dine with himself and his
staff, in the simplest and most informal way, his guests coming away
with the pleasantest impressions of unpretentious good fellowship and
cheery company. On these occasions the Prince himself proposed the
health of the King, and about this ceremony, simply and modestly as it
was observed, hung an odd little Imperial thrill. Republics are worthy
forms of Government, but they impose upon no man the duty of toasting
his own father. It was a gesture that somehow placed the youthful host
momentarily apart--one imagines his having to reconquer the effect of it
as often as he makes it.
The Prince is keen upon naval affairs and soon knew the ship from one
end to the other. He often accompanied the Captain on inspections and
took a hand in all sorts of duties, down to those of the oil furnaces.
He sampled the men's food, tasted their grog and would often have a
cheery chat with them. There was no attempt to sequester the Chief
Passenger. He shared and contributed to the life of the ship.
II
BARBADOS
Gloom was cast over the _Renown_, the day before reaching Barbados, by
the falling overboard, in rough weather, of a fine young gunner of
marines, who was sitting on the taffrail gaily talking to his mates when
a roll came that sent him into the sea. The poor fellow had hardly
stopped falling when patent life-buoys, which sent out white clouds of
smoke, easily visible in the bright afternoon sunshine, were dropped.
The big ship swung round. The man was swimming, when lost to view
amongst white-topped waves. A boat was smartly lowered, and within
fifteen minutes of the cry "Man overboard," the rowers had reached the
buoys and were carefully searching the precise spot where the speck
which had been one of our company had disappeared. The Prince was much
concerned at the accident, and came upon deck the moment he heard of it.
But our hearts grew heavy as the minutes went by and the search proved
vain. It had eventually to be recognized that the unfortunate man had
sunk before reaching the life-buoys, close as they had been dropped to
him in the water. A funeral service was afterwards held on the
forecastle, the entire ship's company and all the officers attending to
pay respect to the memory of their shipmate. The Prince also sent a
personal message by wireless to the relations of the deceased. It was
one of those accidents that no amount of care can entirely prevent, upon
the necessarily low, and but slightly fenced decks of a modern
battle-cruiser in a heavy sea.
The following evening the _Renown_ arrived off Barbados. The
light-cruiser _Calcutta_, flagship of the West Indian squadron, met her
at sea and escorted her in to the anchorage half a mile from shore. A
dozen sailing barques, mostly American, also three or four steamers of
various nationalities, were lying at anchor, all of them decked with
bunting in honour of the Royal visit. The usual salutes were fired and
formal exchange of calls between the Prince and Sir Charles O'Brien,
Governor of the island, and Admiral Everett, commanding the West Indian
station, took place.
It was the first pause for the purpose of the tour, the first official
touch. The feeling of function, of standing at attention, which was soon
to clothe the enterprise as with a garment, fell upon all concerned. The
silk hat for the first time bobbed in the visiting steam-launch, and the
address came out of the breast pocket of the municipal morning coat.
Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, as seen from the _Renown_ through
the soft warm muggy atmosphere of the end of March, was a tumbled mass
of white and red buildings embowered in emerald foliage, and fringed by
the masts of anchored sailing vessels, themselves reflected in the
broken amethyst of the open roadstead. The narrow streets had been
decorated by the wives and daughters of the residents, headed by Lady
Carter, wife of a late governor of the island, who had expended an
immense amount of labour upon the work. Gigantic sago-palm leaves had
grown into royal emblems wherein the fronds took the place of feathers.
The Broad Street of the city might have been a Cantonese bazaar, so
thick was it with coloured banners. Nelson's statue, in the local
Trafalgar Square, looked out of a mass of brilliant floral designs. An
imposing triumphal arch of flowers had also been erected. Even the tiny
wooden huts of the negroes, on the outskirts, carried paper decorations
that must have cost much labour to make. A well-set-up company of
volunteers furnished a guard-of-honour at the landing. The members of
the Barbados House of Assembly, headed by the Governor in white
political uniform, received the Prince. Bands and salutes added to the
formality of the occasion. Complimentary addresses were presented in the
old Assembly House, where the Prince shook hands with a remarkably long
line of returned military and naval officers and men, for Barbados sent
an extraordinary large proportion of her sons to the war.
A fleet of motor-cars then turned up and the Prince was taken for a
drive through the island. The procession was headed by that veteran
planter and member of Assembly, Mr. Graham Yearwood, who seemed to have
at his finger-ends every local romance of the past three hundred years,
from the story of the "Rendezvous" on the coast, where loyalist planters
repelled the onslaught of Cromwellian squadrons, to that of a certain
cavernous gully which we also saw, where, for long months, was hidden
the body of a swashbuckling moss-trooper slain in single combat by a
Barbadian planter. The Prince was also conducted over the buzzing
machinery of an immense, up-to-date sugar-factory, fitted with the
latest appliances, and learnt something of the vicissitudes of the sugar
industry, an enterprise which was doggedly operated through years of low
prices, bad crops, and hurricanes, and only narrowly saved from complete
bankruptcy by a grant obtained from the British Parliament by Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain. At the time of the Royal visit, it was in a state of
abounding prosperity with prices at twelve times their pre-war level.
Even with the year's by no means favourable season the current crop was
valued at eight times the average of five years previously, which meant
ease and comfort to all connected with this premier industry of the
island.
The whole of the city portion of the route was lined--in places ten
deep--with cheering, laughing, bowing coloured people and their women
and piccaninnies; the folk of the cane fields and factories. In the
country portion of the route, negroes rushed to the roadside from their
work in the fields the moment the Royal car appeared in sight. "God
bless you!" they cried to the Prince. "Come! Come! Lookee here, he too
sweet boy!" "God bless my old eyes that have seen him," mingled with
laughter and the clapping of hands, while old men bowed low, with
dignified, wide-armed, slow gesticulation, and women and girls,
sometimes smartly got-up with head-kerchiefs made of Union Jacks, and
always with strong, free hip-gait, and the widest of white-toothed
smiles, came running to drop a curtsy or bend in salute. It was real
contagious joy and excitement, like the overflowing froth of a bottle of
Guinness, and as for the noise only a Jazz Band could describe it.
The road was sometimes crowded with four-wheeled mule-drawn carts,
piled high with fresh-cut, yellow sugar-cane, on its way to the presses,
each stem the thickness of a rolling-pin and the length of a
cavalryman's lance, for the harvesting was in full swing. The negroes
take the crop, which looks much like sorghum or Indian corn, with
cutlasses, primitive work done by primitive people. The luscious growth
needs a good deal of fertilizing and care the year round, and
generations of these simple folk have thriven upon it since the middle
of the seventeenth century. Seventy-four thousand acres of it there are
and probably a hundred thousand negroes producing it, all, so far as we
could observe, delighted to see the Prince of Wales.
The road wound sometimes through pillared aisles of stately sago-palms,
past dense groves of green mahogany and bread-fruit trees or brilliantly
red flowering devil-trees, hibiscus, and silk-cotton. Sometimes one saw
brown heaps of sweet potatoes, as large as turnips, just dug from the
earth. The procession climbed through open fields of uncut sugar-cane
and sorghum, getting a fine view of rolling cultivation, bordered with
blue sea and white surf-swept beach. Ancient windmills swung black,
droning sails on the hill-tops. Tall brick chimneys told of
long-established crushing mills close to the cane fields. Cheerful
villages of flimsy wooden shacks and solid stone houses followed one
another in quick succession, each with its inhabitants lined up in
holiday clothes to cheer. Again and again the Prince alighted to inspect
boy-scouts, girl-guides, and war-workers, or to say a pleasant word to
assemblies of school-children. One gathering proved a community of
"Red-legs," descendants, now of mixed race, of Scotch and Irish prisoners
of war and "unruly men" exiled and sold for seven years as white
servants to the colony in 1653. It was easy to pick out in the
white-clad crowd individuals with negro features and pale Celtic skins.
Later in the day, the Prince attended a formal state dinner, and evoked
a storm of applause by contradicting emphatically a rumour, which had
been causing a good deal of anxiety in the island, to the effect that
there was a possibility of some of the West Indies being disposed of to
America. "I need hardly say," said His Royal Highness, downrightly,
"that the King's subjects are not for sale to other governments. Their
destiny, as free men, is in their own hands. Your future is for you
yourselves to shape, and I am sure Barbados will never waver in its
loyalty, three centuries old, to the British Crown."
It would thus appear that Cromwell's experiment is not likely to be
developed by the present government. The assurance was noteworthy as the
first of the pleasant and telling things the Prince had to say during
his progress, opportunities which he never missed and which, in the
aggregate, enhanced so greatly the success of his mission.
III
PANAMA
At dawn, in hot, soft, hazy weather, the _Renown_, followed by the
_Calcutta_, left the blue, transparent waters of the Caribbean Sea and
entered the green, muddy channel, fringed with dense, verdant forest,
which is the beginning of the Panama Canal. Three aeroplanes, each
bearing the stripes of the American Air Service, droned overhead in
noisy welcome. Resonant concussions and white, fleecy puffs of smoke
amidst low wharves and jetties where Colon lay in the forest, spread a
Royal salute upon the vibrating air. Music arose upon the _Renown_,
while staff-officers arrayed themselves in gold-lace and helmets, ready
to receive the Prince's guests. Launches arrived at the ship bringing
the British Minister to Panama, Mr. Percy Bennett, accompanied by
Captain Blake and Major-General Bethell, respectively naval and military
attachés at the British Embassy at Washington. An hour's quiet steaming,
thereafter, brought us to the giant Gatun locks, which stand in three
black tiers of steel, the gates rising, one above another, in a massive
setting of grey, rounded concrete, a severing gash in the high, green
hill which is the Gatun dam. Here, Señor Lefevre, President of the
Panama Republic, Admiral Johnston and Colonel Kennedy, commanding the
American naval and military forces in the Panama Zone, also Engineer
Colonel Harding, Governor of the Canal, and Monsieur Simonin, French
Chargé d'Affairs, came on board.
The formality attending these official arrivals, so often to be repeated
throughout the tour, was practically always the same. The visitor who
came up the gangway from the dock or the launch, as the case might be,
saluted the quarter-deck--a survival this from the days when it bore a
crucifix--and was saluted in turn by the Officer of the Watch, who, with
his telescope tucked under his arm, conveyed the stranger past the row
of marines drawn up at attention to the Captain and the Equerry in
waiting, who brought him up the starboard companion to the mezzanine
deck. Here he would be received by the Prince attended by his Staff. The
visit seldom exceeded twenty minutes. When H.R.H. left the ship for the
shore the Captain awaited him on the quarter-deck and conducted him past
the marines presenting arms to the gangway. On these occasions the
junior members of the party were the first to step off, finishing with
the Admiral and last of all the Prince, both Admiral and Prince being
"piped over the side" to the shrill music of the bos'n's whistle. There
was as little variation about the arrival on shore. Always the
guard-of-honour, the band, the stunting aeroplanes, always six bars of
"God Save the King" and the pause at attention, always the hand-shaking
with the officer commanding the guard-of-honour, the inspection, and so
to the business and pleasure of the visit.
[Illustration: PANAMA CANAL: A SHARP CORNER]
[Illustration: SURF-BOARDING AT HONOLULU]
On this occasion the guard of American soldiers in white uniforms and
the familiar wide-brimmed hats was drawn up upon the lawn beside the
topmost lock. Thence, past some thousands of prosperous-looking
employees of the Canal, and their families, who had turned out to see
the reception, the Prince was taken to the Control House, whence the
whole of the operations of the locks are regulated, from the
manipulating of the little, black, towing mule-engines, which ran
busily, like scarabaeid beetles, up and down rails set in concrete
slopes on the top of the lock walls, to the opening and closing of the
seventy-foot high gates, and the letting in and letting out of the green
sluggish water.
From the veranda of the Control House we got our first striking
impression of the dramatic achievement of the Canal. We were on the
level of the wide island dotted expanse of the Gatun lake. The
enormous _Renown_ and the tiny _Calcutta_ lay, side by side, in
thousand-feet-long pools, at our feet, in a turmoil of waves of rushing
water, out of which, from time to time, some frightened fish would leap,
a silver gleam that disappeared before one had made out its shape or
kind. The great design was in action before our eyes. The locks opened
and closed with extraordinary speed and almost noiseless efficiency, and
by the time the Prince had returned from inspecting the monster spillway
and power-house, to which he was carried in a tiny train that was in
readiness alongside the locks when we arrived, the _Calcutta_ was
already entering the lake, while the _Renown_ had surmounted the locks
and was only waiting to take on the Royal party before following in her
wake.
The route thereafter lay at first through the green water of the lake,
past islands covered with densest jungle. About the middle of the lake,
we passed masses of bare tree-trunks, standing erect in the water, on
either side of the broad track that is kept clear for the passage of
ships. These trees are what remain of a forest that covered the bottom
of the valley before the building of the dam which converted it into a
lake. The trunks, though standing in some seven fathoms of water, still
keep their branches and project many feet above the surface; and have to
be avoided by passing ships. This dismal avenue has kept its place for
ten years. It must have been green once. Like a forest after a great
burning it stands in skeleton and carries no leaf now, a curious
reminder that water can be as pitiless as fire.
In the afternoon we entered the Culebra cut. Here man has been at grips
with nature in her least amiable mood. The channel becomes a winding
gorge through steep, rugged crags and rounded hills. The stupendous
cutting shows treacherous alternating layers of red gravel, yellow sand,
brown crumpled rock, and soft, slippery blue clay. A number of mammoth
floating steam dredgers were here at work, a fresh slip having occurred
a few days previously. Progress, therefore, had to be of the slowest. A
climax was reached near the end of the cutting, where, at a sharp curve
in the channel, a whole hillside, half a mile each way, had commenced to
move, the débris extending right into the canal, which was also impeded
by a small island, apparently squeezed up from the bottom by the
terrific pressure of the slipping hill. The place looked almost
impossible, the great length of the _Renown_ making the manoeuvring of
her in what remained of the channel one of the trickiest pieces of
navigation imaginable. Naval officers are not easily put off, however,
and by the most delicate handling, the vessel ultimately crawled past
the obstruction. The cheerful little red-roofed township of Pedro Miguel
was reached soon afterwards. Here the entire population had turned out
to see the Prince, the girls in brilliant costumes, amongst which one
might sometimes see the black mantilla of Spain; the men in anything,
from working overalls and slouch hats, to the leisured fashions of New
York. At Pedro Miguel began the slow process of descending to the level
of the Pacific. The first lock dropped us some thirty feet into the
picturesque lake of Miraflores, surrounded by rounded grass-grown hills,
emerald in the setting sun. Two more locks followed at the end of the
lake, and we entered a stretch of water at ocean level, which took us to
the docks at Balboa, upon the Pacific, close to the city of Panama.
[Illustration: EXCITEMENT GROWS IN AUCKLAND HARBOUR]
[Illustration: NEW ZEALAND: THE PRIME MINISTER TAKES CHARGE]
At Panama the Prince had the most friendly and hospitable reception,
banquets and balls succeeding one another on shore, while on the
_Renown_ several ceremonies took place, including the receiving and
replying to addresses from British, West Indian and East Indian
residents. Some of the local cordiality was quaintly worded.
"In frantic supplication we fling ourselves at the feet of Almighty God
to shower His blessings upon Your Highness." More, it may be imagined,
could not be done. "If we be allowed another paragraph may we then be
permitted, in this final gasp, to express our desire that Your Royal
Highness will greatly enjoy your short visit to this port." It is
understood that the desire of the permitted paragraph and the final gasp
was not denied.
Another picturesque ceremony was when the Prince drove in procession to
pay a formal visit to the President of Panama. The motor-cars first
traversed the wide American zone of the Canal region, speeding over
smooth, asphalt roads, past well-built verandahed houses, with white
walls and dark-coloured jutting roofs, the windows and doors meshed with
fine wire-gauze, an arrangement which gives them the appearance of
prosperous meat-safes. These houses are part of the wonderful sanitary
arrangements which have turned Panama, from being a yellow-fever camp,
into one of the most healthy regions in the world. They are inhabited by
the engineering, traffic and administrative staffs, and the police and
military establishments of the Canal zone. They stand in spacious
gardens with beautifully-kept lawns and flower-borders, and are supplied
with up-to-date electric-light and fans, good drinking-water, and
perfect installations of sewers. There are also carefully thought out
clubs and institutes, which supply the Canal employees with
entertainment for their spare hours, alcoholic liquor alone excepted,
for the zone is strictly "dry."
Smart American sentries saluted at the barbed wire boundary, whence the
route wound past conical hills which may well have been the range that
gave to Drake the first white man's view of the Pacific Ocean.
Thereafter the procession plunged into the narrow streets of Panama
city, which were lined with cheering, laughing crowds of gaily dressed
negroes, Mexicans and Spaniards. Bunting fluttered from every window in
the high tiered houses. An escort of picturesque mounted police, with
rough peaked saddles and undocked horses, closed in on either side.
Immense, decorated barouches, drawn by fine pairs of Mexican horses,
were substituted for the Canal zone motor-cars, and the procession
moved on in state, the Prince alighting, _en route_, to inspect a fine
body of about a hundred returned soldiers of the West Indian Regiment
who had assembled in his honour.
The President and his entire council, in black frock-coats and shining
top-hats, welcomed the party upon the steps of the Presidential House, a
pleasant residence, with garden quadrangle, overlooking the sunny
harbour. The Prince was conducted upstairs to a large reception-room,
hung with yellowing paintings of previous Presidents, where compliments
were exchanged and refreshments offered. Later in the day an official
dinner was given, at which the President proposed the Royal health in
flowing Spanish, mentioning the large number of residents, in the chief
cities of Panama, who are British subjects from the West Indian islands,
and emphasizing the gratitude felt by all Panamanians towards Great
Britain for having taken up the cause of the smaller nations in the
World War. The reference filled several eyes in the company with
conscious rectitude, and they were not all British.
IV
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In passing the Culebra Cut landslide, in the Panama Canal, one of the
propellers of the _Renown_ touched a submerged rock which had escaped
the notice of the surveyors. When Balboa harbour was reached the ship's
divers went down to see what the damage amounted to; and as poking about
the cruiser's bottom, thirty-three feet below the surface, in muddy
water infested with sharks, is, to say the least, an unpleasant task, it
was characteristic of the ship that one of the first to don diving-dress
and go over the side was the Engineer-Commander himself. The result was
to ascertain that one of the blades of one of the propellers had had a
small piece broken off, but that the damage was so slight that it would
not be necessary to dock the vessel for repair.
A start was therefore made for San Diego, our next port of call. The
course skirted the mountainous coast of Mexico, which showed mistily on
the starboard horizon. The water was of the smoothest and clearest, and
of tint so blue as to be almost azure. The temperature was tropical, and
we found surprising abundance of sea-life. Yellow turtles, as big as
footballs, with their little pointed heads stuck out to watch us,
floated by in scores. Schools of glistening porpoises leapt in the sun
besides a couple of big, slow-moving, log-like blackfish. You can travel
from London to Bombay and see hardly a creature, but here the sea
teemed. Birds too were plentiful--quantities of duck, white, wheeling
gulls, and black, slender, frigate-birds that sailed past like kites.
A few days later, in an amethyst sea, off the green slopes of Loma
point, the _Renown_ cast anchor. The houses and towers of San Diego,
seven miles off, across the Harbour of the Sun, glistened pearl-like in
soft morning light, above the golden setting of the Coronada sand. Out
at sea, at dawn that day, six grey, business-like American destroyers
had met the _Renown_ and escorted her in, a score of United States
flying-boats and aeroplanes hovering in well-kept formations overhead.
At the mouth of the harbour was lying that fine battleship the _New
Mexico_, flagship of the United States Pacific Squadron, which fired a
welcoming salute. After the anchor was down, Admiral Williams, acting
Naval Commander-in-Chief in the Pacific, who flew his flag on the _New
Mexico_, visited the Prince. Mayor Wild, of San Diego, and other local
residents also arrived from the shore to pay their respects.
The morning was taken up with the receiving and returning of these
visits. In the afternoon the Prince landed at the municipal pier in the
heart of the city. Here he found Governor Stephens, of California, at
the head of a large deputation, waiting to welcome him. Every avenue to
the wharf was blocked with motor-cars. Well-dressed crowds pressed upon
the ropes that fenced in a central space reserved for British veterans,
to whom had been given the place of particular honour in the town's
reception of its visitor. The veterans were some hundred and fifty
strong, and gave the Prince the heartiest of cheers. They proved to be
residents of California, about half of them being from San Diego itself.
They had all served in the forces of the British Empire in the Great
War. At their head was General Carruthers, lately Chief-of-the-Staff
with the Australian Expeditionary Force in France. It was a wonderful
spectacle of colour and cheerfulness, as the Prince went down the line,
shaking hands with his old comrades in the field, while mites in
pinafores pushed to the front to present him with bouquets, and pretty
girls in Highland costume sang "God save the King." The crowd broke
through the barriers, before the motor-cars, provided to convey the
party to the Stadium, had been reached, but everybody was in the
friendliest of humours, and did their utmost individually to make space
for the procession to start. The first three or four cars, containing
the Prince, the Governor, the Mayor, and a few of the Staff, eventually
got through. The rest extricated themselves gradually from the press of
people and vehicles, and made their way by more or less devious routes,
the road marked out for the procession having by this time become so
crowded as to be almost impassable. The procession reformed at the
Stadium, a mile or so distant. On the way, prosperous suburbs of
extraordinary attractiveness were passed, the houses often of
Spanish-colonial type, with deep verandas set in spacious gardens and
well-kept lawns, with masses of roses, geraniums, hibiscus, and purple
salt-grass in full bloom. The ground here was high, and one looked down
upon the city, with palm-trees in the foreground, and the harbour and
its shipping in the middle distance, while on the horizon were piled the
rugged mountains of southern California, pink in the evening light.
The Stadium proved to be a massive open-air amphitheatre of
cream-coloured stone, capable of seating fifty thousand spectators, of
whom some ten thousand were present. Here complimentary addresses were
presented and replied to, the gathering applauding, with equal energy,
the heart-to-heart statement of Mayor Wild that the Prince was a
"regular fellow," and the impressive periods of Governor Stephens, who
dwelt upon the importance of the Royal visit as strengthening the
connexion between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Another feature of the occasion was the playing of a gigantic open-air
organ, the largest of its kind in the world. The organist sat by the
roadside and the pipes of his instrument pointed unprotected to the sky.
An official dinner and a ball followed later in the day at the big hotel
on Coronada Beach. Innumerable motor and other parties had meanwhile
been organized by individual residents, every one of the thirteen
hundred sailors and marines on the _Renown_ who could in any way be
spared from duty, being given a delightful outing and the kindest and
most hospitable of entertainment. In this way numbers of them were able
to see something of the wonderful country around San Diego, with its
incomparable mountains and valleys, and its hundreds of square miles of
fertile peach-orchards, just then one gorgeous mass of coral blossom.
San Diego, with its famous bathing beach, its clear air, dry balmy
climate, and seventy thousand prosperous white inhabitants, thus took to
its generous western heart not alone the Prince himself, but also every
British soul aboard the ship by which he travelled. A year before, the
_Renown_ had become acquainted, in New York, with American kindness and
hospitality which seemed, at the time, to be impossible to equal. The
ship now had experience, on the other side of the American continent, of
a similar reception, in every way as warm and spontaneous, accorded too
by people as representative of the western states of the Union as New
York is of the eastern. This inclusion of the battle-cruiser's men was
one of the pleasantest features at almost every port of call upon the
voyage, but it was nowhere more general or more genial than in this
American city of the Far South.
V
HONOLULU
In warm, moist atmosphere, and the tropical light that glares beneath a
cloudy sky, the _Renown_ dropped anchor in the open roadstead off the
rocky coast of Honolulu. Around the ship were depths of clear,
iridescent blue, with streaks of brilliant green where the water
shallowed inshore. Further on, a line of low, white breakers bounded a
green patchwork of undulating cultivation which sloped upwards, with
occasional ploughed fields of red, volcanic soil, towards a cloud-topped
horizon of mountains in the interior of the island. Immediately
overhead, showing black against the clouds, half-a-dozen flying boats
and aeroplanes rattled a cheery American welcome. The smoke of the
light-cruiser and dozen destroyers which had met the _Renown_ at sea and
escorted her to anchorage, drifted in the heavy air, blurring the cranes
and derricks of the inner harbour.
Salutes banged off. Flags dipped and rose. Words of command rang through
the battle-cruiser. A guard-of-honour of marines, lined up in white
uniforms on the quarter-deck, came with a clank to attention. The notes
of the United States National Anthem floated out, as the American
Governor and other local authorities came aboard to pay visits of
ceremony to the Prince. It was our second glimpse of Imperial America.
It is just twenty-two years since the United States, after some
preliminary coquetting with Queen Liliuokalani, took up this white man's
burden in the Pacific under the style of a Territory; and her guests,
more familiar with the conception, looked with interest at the fringe of
the experiment. It seemed immensely prosperous and contented. Its
obvious aspects were those of a principal base of America's naval power
and the bourn of an endless tide of tourists, for whom alone the place
might exist with profit. These naturally exposed a social life almost
exclusively American. Hotels, newspapers, warehouses, factories, and
stores were managed by Americans. Only on the beach among the bobbing
craft of the breakers were the island originals conspicuous, at home in
an element they love. Elsewhere they seemed to form a brown undercurrent
of the Hawaiian world, content, in their Polynesian way, with a little
so it was easily come by. They are still, one gathers, much governed and
influenced by the missionaries to whom they owe their Christian faith.
Like the North American Indians they are fast dying out. Like the
Burmese they are content to be supplanted in their own labour market by
others--Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and Filipinos. Doubtless there
are Hawaiian boys at American Universities, Hawaiian professional men,
Hawaiian merchant princes, cultivated Hawaiians who read Bergson and
Bernard Shaw and are the product of a generation of progress; but our
opportunity was too brief to find them. It is hardly surprising that the
Hawaiian was not greatly in evidence, when one was told that there are
but 22,000 of pure race, against 110,000 Japanese for example, 31,000
Americans and British and 23,000 Chinese, with a considerable Filipino
element, and more than a flavouring of Spanish.
On a large open space upon the wharf, surrounded by the substantial
stone buildings of a prosperous modern harbour, the Prince landed to
receive his welcome to the island. On one side of the square was an
up-to-date guard-of-honour of United States infantry at attention, every
button gleaming, every uniform stitch identical, with that felicity of
neatness so characteristic of American kit, as His Royal Highness shook
hands with its commanding officer, and walked down the line. On the
other side was a motley gathering of his own fellow-countrymen and
women, residents of the island, who had served with the British Forces
during the war, and had now gathered, in varying costumes much mingled
with khaki bearing many a worn decoration, to do honour to their King's
eldest son, whom they cheered lustily. On the third side of the square
the indigenous element was represented by pleasant, brown-faced young
men in blue uniforms of modern cut, over which they wore brilliant red
and yellow tippets of priceless "Oo" and "Iiwi" feathers, handed down
from days gone by, when they were insignia of Hawaiian royalty. Their
function, on behalf of the remaining representatives of the ancient
dynasty, was to garland the British Prince with "lais," ropes of
close-strung pink carnations and scarlet ilima flowers, bringers of
good-luck, and to present him with a polished brown calibash, the size
of a foot-bath, adze-hewn, a hundred years ago, from hard-wood felled in
the interior, and now filled with a luscious assortment of bananas,
mangoes, loquats, paw-paws, water-lemons, pineapples, bread-fruit, and
crimson mountain-apples, symbols which made him free of the good things
of the island.
Subsequently the Prince returned the official visits paid to him, and
was introduced to various local institutions. His reception by the
American Governor was in the spacious, many-windowed hall of the Iolani
palace, where an elected assembly of Hawaiian representatives now
prosaically meets in what were once such picturesque places of authority
as the king's bed-chamber and the queen's boudoir. On the walls a number
of mellowing oil-portraits, depicting stout, brown, benevolent monarchs,
uncomfortable but doubtless impressive in the tight fashions of the
Victorian age, mutely testified to the splendours of the past. They
seemed to look down at the function with mingled sorrow and superiority,
as those who could have given an entertainment committee points on such
an occasion as this.
Famous the world over is the surf-riding of Honolulu's wide Waikiki
beach. To surf-ride with the joy of confidence it is necessary to have
an acute sense of balance; it is even more necessary to be able to swim.
The base of the exercise is a flat surf-board, the shape of a snow-shoe,
with which the rider swims out to meet the approaching breaker. This,
with bewildering agility, he then mounts and strides, and the breaker
carries him poised and dramatic to the beach. The adventure was most
graceful when it succeeded, but it often ended in a considerable tumble
in which the swimmer was lucky to escape a bang upon the head from his
own capsized means of support.
The Prince was naturally enthusiastic for an initiation, and came off in
the end passing well, to the delight of the heterogeneous crowd that had
assembled in bathing costumes appropriate to the warmth of the occasion
to see him undergo it. Cinematograph men, in swaying surf-boats, made a
valiant effort for pictures alongside the swimmers, but, for once upon
the tour, were handsomely discomfited, for the rollers of the Waikiki
beach are no respecters of public purposes.
In the evening, H.R.H. was taken to an official ball, given by the
Governor, in the spacious town armoury, where the principal white
residents, now costumed in the garments of civilization, were formally
presented beneath a forest of national flags, amongst which predominated
the Stars and Stripes of the United States and the combined Union Jack
and tricolor of Honolulu. The ball was much as other balls, but it had
an unusual pendant. Before midnight struck the Prince was spirited away
ten miles across the island, through long shadowy aisles of pillared
cabbage-palms, shining ghost-like in dim starlight, beneath dense
foliage of bread-fruit, mango, and coco-nut trees, where sweet-scented
aloes perfumed the warm, still night, and on through grey cuttings in
volcanic rock, to the country-house of Mr. Robert Atkinson, to whom had
occurred the excellent idea of affording him an opportunity of seeing a
real "Hookupu" gathering, now a very rare event amongst the dwindling
race of Hawaiians. Stout, white-robed, brown-faced ladies, bearing the
coloured, feather-tipped sticks of royal state, and chanting the "aloa"
of welcome, lined the path leading to the deep-foliaged "ouhani" tree of
happiness which shaded the front of the bungalow, a self-sown visitant
that every Hawaiian prizes, provided only that it has not been
artificially planted, and that it is not at the back of the residence.
Here, in a large and reckless hole in the well-kept lawn, the entire
carcases of four pigs, quantities of chickens, fish, and sweet potatoes,
wrapped closely in green "ti" leaves, were in process of being roasted
by Hawaiian cooks, the heat being provided by boulders, previously made
red-hot, with which the sides and bottom of the pit had been lined.
Fruit was piled high in golden profusion, upon low, wooden platforms
around which, upon mats on the ground, the Prince and other guests took
their seats. Princess Kawananakoa, a lady of fine figure, in middle
life, dressed in the conventional garments of Bond Street,
representative of the Hawaiian Royal house, was given a place of honour
next to the guest of the occasion. Hawaiian soldiers in yellow robes,
with scarlet head-pieces that might have been patterned on the helmet of
Achilles, and gold-tipped "tabu" staves, the size of broom-sticks, which
represented life-and-death authority under the old régime, took up
stations in the background. Immense flower-garlands were hung round the
visitors' necks and they were served, upon plates of "ti" leaves, with
savoury viands from the still smoking pit.
Then from gourd-lutes of a weird band of musicians, tinkled out a soft
refrain. Suddenly, from the dim shelter of an aerial-rooted banyan tree,
human voices reinforced the chant, and four Hawaiian damsels,
voluminously clad in flaming yellow feather-mantles, ending in deep
ruffs over the ankles, leapt gracefully upon a mat in front, where they
were joined by two similarly caparisoned and equally agile male partners
with whom they proceeded to dance. The performance was like an Indian
_nautch_ run mad. The heads and busts of the dancers remained almost
stationary, thus forming a fulcrum around which the rest of their
persons seemed to gyrate, with serpentine arms, india-rubber hips, and
racing feet, the dancers, all the time, pouring out doleful melodies to
which the gourd-lutes twanged in solemn harmony. One could almost see,
as the weird notes rose and fell, Polynesian folk, in frail, palm-wood
canoes, blown out to sea by fierce Eastern typhoons, from fisheries on
the far coasts of the Malay, to perish mournfully and alone, in the vast
empty spaces of the Pacific, only an occasional wanderer, through the
centuries, finding refuge in some rare isle, and there building up a
race of mingled blood, whose high cheek-bones, soft tongue, swaying
dances and outrigged boats, speak of a Mongolian origin and an Eastern
home.
Another expedition, on which the Prince was taken before leaving
Honolulu, was to a grass-grown hill, once the scene of human sacrifice,
where a pageant was being held in honour of the centenary of the arrival
in Honolulu of the Christian missionaries, who have played so important
a part in the history of the island. Here he saw half-naked folk, with
conch-shell trumpets, similar to those in use to-day at festivals at the
mouth of the Ganges, also processions of queer idol images that would
not have jarred the decorative scheme of a Durga-Puja celebration in
Hindustan. Scenes were here enacted, in which shapely brown maidens,
clad in ancient, indigenous paper garments, reminiscent of Japan, took
part. European missionaries, some of them lineal descendants of those
who landed in Honolulu from the brig _Thaddeus_ in 1820, also appeared
in the garments of their predecessors of a hundred years ago. One of the
incidents depicted was the historical breaking up and burning of the
island idols in the days of Queen Kaahumanu, widow of King Kamshamcha,
"the lonely one." There was a tense moment in the audience when the
first image had to be flung upon the ground, for superstition dies hard
even after a century's banning; but the image was flung and went into
fifty pieces, at the feet of civilization. Christianity is now the only
religion actively practised in the island, but the Hawaiian prefers to
be on the safe side in case the old powers of darkness should not be
altogether dead. He is not a whole-hearted iconoclast.
VI
NEPTUNE BOARDS THE _RENOWN_
The relations between the Royal Navy and H.M. King Neptune are known to
partake of the spirit of compromise which so happily characterizes the
British Empire elsewhere. Neptune permits the suzerainty but demands a
certain ceremonial which acknowledges his ancient rights. The function
has a date and a determination and is observed by all King George's
vessels on crossing the Equatorial line. It is in the nature of an
initiation and lends itself to gruesome and alarmist description. For
days before the _Renown_ reached the specified spot our feelings were
harrowed and our dreams disturbed by foretellings of the unescapable
ordeal of all novices. There was no immunity in being a passenger, even
in being the Chief Passenger. Neptune was not aware of passengers. The
wardroom was horrid with boding. Mercifully we were preserved from the
imagination of the snotties.
The Royal Navy does nothing by half. Elaborate preparations were made
long in advance. Active brains in Wardroom, Gunroom, Warrant Officers',
Petty Officers', Engineers' and Stokers' messes and in the lower deck,
found a morning and an evening occupation inventing rhymed patter,
designing and making the weirdest of costumes, in which oakum, canvas,
ship's-paint, and stove-soot all largely figured. An extensive stage was
erected on the forecastle with a sail forty feet long, containing four
feet of sea water, convenient for the "baptizing" of all those on the
ship, of whom there must have been at least five hundred, who had not
previously crossed the line. Wooden razors the size of cutlasses,
barrels of lather made of coloured flour and water, whitewash brushes
for applying the same to the countenance were provided, also a
gauge-glass for a clinical thermometer, a cutlass for a lancet, and
quantities of dough-pills, the size of marbles, well flavoured with
bitter quinine, for physicking the victim before his ablution.
The Prince himself was one of the most active of the conspirators. To an
inquiry sent "up top" (i.e. to the Prince's quarters) a reply signed by
Captain Dudley North, R.N., was received by the "Father of the ship"
(i.e. the Commander), upon whose broad shoulders falls responsibility of
every kind.
It ran:
"His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has not yet crossed the
Line. I am desired by H.R.H. to say that he is looking forward with
interest to his meeting with His Majesty King Neptune and
Amphitrite, his wife, and also to his initiation as a Freeman of
His Majesty's domains.
The following members of the staff have crossed the Line, and are
entitled to wear the various classes of the Order of the Bath
bestowed on them by His Majesty:--
Rear-Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey has crossed the Line on upwards of
200 occasions; in fact, for some time this officer is understood to
have supported himself on it. It is understood that he has been
strongly recommended for the order of the 'Old Sea Dog.'
Captain Dudley North has crossed the Line nine times, and has been
personally decorated by His Majesty.
Lieut.-Colonel Grigg and Lord Claud Hamilton have already crossed
the Line--the former twice, the latter four times. These officers
have, however, stated that owing possibly to some special favour,
or else to some serious preoccupation on the part of His Majesty,
they were not privileged to undergo the full ceremony of
initiation. They are all the more anxious, therefore, on this
account, to pay every respect to His Majesty, and not to presume on
his former graciousness. In expressing their humble duty to His
Majesty they await, with great humility, the verdict of his most
excellent Court as to whether they will be required to be initiated
or not.
The following members of H.R.H.'s staff have not yet crossed the
Line or had the honour of an audience with His Majesty:--
Sir Godfrey Thomas, Bart. Captain the Hon. Piers Leigh. The Bears
will, no doubt, attend to these gentlemen."
Each novice upon the ship meanwhile received a notice summoning him to
present himself at noon on the 10th April:
"Before our Court, at the Equator, in order that we may confer upon
you the Freedom of the Seas, and our permission to enter the other
hemisphere."
The proceedings began after dinner over-night when the Prince and his
staff accompanied the Captain to the Bridge. The lights were turned off
and in the darkness one could feel the presence of the entire ship's
company crowded upon every vantage point.
Out of the blackness from in front came the shout
"Ship-ahoy!"
with the Captain's deep
"Aye, Aye,"
in reply, as searchlights swept the sea.
_Neptune_: "What ship are you?"
_Captain_: "His Britannic Majesty's Battle-Cruiser _Renown_."
_Neptune_: "I wish to come on board."
_Captain_ (to Officer of Watch): "Stop both." (To Neptune, shouting).
"My engines are stopped. I am sending an officer to conduct Your Majesty
to my Bridge."
Rockets went up, and in a falling shower of sparks a procession of
strange figures climbed into the ship from over the side. Neptune,
Amphitrite, judge, barber, and doctor, with attendant imps, bears, and
policemen were there in the most realistic of scales, fins, mermaids'
hair and ursine fur. They carried brobdingnagian batons, razors, shaving
brushes and trident. Their appearance was terrific.
The party was escorted with much formality to the Bridge, where Neptune
and Amphitrite were presented to the Prince and drinks were stood to
Their Majesties and the Court party, neither were there any heel-taps.
_Pourparlers_ were exchanged in ceremonial verse, Captain Taylor making
the following frank explanation:
"Our business is to take a Royal Prince
To see a portion of our Empire's land.
The Prince of Wales, he is our passenger
Who hopes to meet your Bears and clasp your hand."
It seemed impossible for the spirits of the deep to communicate in
anything less metrical than this, and Neptune acknowledged his reception
and announced his intention to hold an Investiture as well as a few
other things, the following day, in the same fashion.
Next morning the circumstance was even more elaborate. Proceedings began
upon the quarter-deck, where the "Companionship of the Royal Order of
the Equatorial Bath" was solemnly conferred upon the Prince, and a
"Knight Commandership of the Ancient Order of the Old Sea Dog" upon
Admiral Halsey. H.R.H. responded in lyrical strains which concluded:--
"I know I'm for it, King; so, boys,
Don't let me keep the party waiting"--
a touch of _panache_ that was duly applauded. The Court-Martial of two
selected prisoners came next to a roar from Neptune:
"And if they drown I do not care a fig.
Arrest Mountbatten and the Man called Grigg!"
For the moment these unhappy persons were roped and bound, while the
Investiture went forward. Captain Dudley North was made a Knight
Commander of the Aged Cod in these terms:
"Dudley dear, I'm pleased to meet you
Once again. Now let me treat you
To the old established Order of the Very Ancient Cod.
Its privilege is this,
That you may daily kiss
The most beauteous of my mermaids if you catch her on the nod."
A move was finally made to the forecastle where was duly performed the
physicking, shaving and ducking of the novices, beginning with the
Prince and members of his staff and going down to the youngest seamen on
the lower deck. The novices were marched up and seated, one after
another, in the barber's chair, where a pill was squeezed into each
one's mouth, despite the most lively struggles; the lather was laid on,
a rough scrape with the wooden razor followed, the chair was upset and
the now seasoned novice was sent head over heels into the swimming bath,
where the Bears ducked him handsomely to the cheerful rhyme:
"Shave him and bash him,
Duck him and splash him,
Torture and smash him,
And don't let him go!"
The Prince underwent a full share of the horse-play; and that he took a
"three-times-three ducking" with the best, was the opinion of every one
of the thirteen hundred sailor-men who looked on, and would have been
candour itself if the ritual had been in any way reduced or evaded.
It was a spectacle impossible to imagine anywhere but in the British
Navy, and helped hilariously to relieve the monotony of the voyage. The
cost of the material employed was probably less than a hundred
shillings. The labour and artistry voluntarily bestowed by the ship's
Company to make it what it was, cost nothing at all; the preparations,
from the elaborate embroidering of Amphitrite's scales and the careful
scenting of her golden hair, to the fine turning and engraving of the
Insignia of the Equatorial Order of the Royal Bath, were all the work of
off-duty hours when the sailor ordinarily would have been asleep. We are
but children of a larger growth and happy are the traditions that keep
us so in His Majesty's Navy.
VII
FIJI
Fiji was the next place of call. Warm rain drove blusterously into our
faces, while dense grey mist enveloped the land and shut out the sun, as
the _Renown_ felt her way between wreck-strewn barrier reefs, over which
the surf was breaking heavily, and dropped anchor, to the tick of the
appointed time, in the sheltered water of Suva Bay. As the ship cleared
the harbour entrance, a fleet of sailing craft, including a number of
decked, outrigged war-canoes, with pear-shaped mat-sails and half-naked
crews, tore dipping through the waves to escort her in. These war-canoes
tacked, in the stiff breeze, by a simple expedient. The sail was
reversed. The rudder, a big movable oar, was then carried from one end
of the canoe to the other, so that what had just been the prow became
the stern, the floating log, that served as outrigger, remaining always
to windward--apparently an attempt at realizing the historic account of
the bow-sprit that "got mixed with the rudder sometimes."
The little craft were identical with those that Tasman may have seen
when his brig cast anchor off these islands three hundred and seventy
years ago. But everything else has changed. Generations of Wesleyan
missionaries have transformed snake-worship into universal Christianity.
Sixty thousand coolies from India have rendered it possible for the
sugar-cane to replace unproductive forest. The ninety thousand
fuzzy-headed Fijians who have survived successive epidemics of measles
and influenza have given up the savoury heresies of roast long pig and
have taken on trousers, education, and wealth. The substantial
maroon-coloured roofs of their dwellings upon the shore, which emerged
from a tumbled background of cloud-topped mountain when the mist lifted,
were indicative of the prosperity and civilization which have been
steadily growing in the forty-six years since the British Government
took over the administration from King Thakombau.
Sir Cecil Rodwell, High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, and Mr.
Scott, Mayor of Suva, representatives of the present system of rule,
came out by launch to the _Renown_, to pay their respects as soon as the
anchor was down. There was no official landing till the following
morning, when in hot sunshine alternating with warm, driving rain the
Prince went ashore at Suva. The entire population of the town, a place
of some six thousand inhabitants, was there to welcome him. In front,
the principal European residents, with a contingent of leading Fijian
chiefs, and representatives of the large Indian community, all in
western dress, were lined up to be presented. Behind stood a
well-drilled guard-of-honour of Fijians, in khaki, with heads protected
from the fierce rays of the sun by hair that might be the despair and
envy of the boulevards, twelve inches _en brosse_, and of a ferocity!
Further on were a number of European returned soldiers, with hospital
nurses, and other war workers, also returned members of a Fijian labour
corps which had done good service in France and Italy. The whole
assemblage was surrounded by a polyglot crowd of Islanders and Indians
in all the picturesqueness of Polynesian and Oriental garb. Municipal,
Fijian, Indian, and missionary addresses were afterwards presented, and
inspections, investitures, and receptions held, a state dinner and a
ball being amongst the functions provided.
Fijian national ceremonies took place in the afternoon, the principal
being the solemn presentation by the chiefs and headmen of "tahua" (the
whale's tooth) in token of fealty. This was celebrated, immediately
after heavy rain, on a meadow crowded with aborigines. The actors were
half a hundred well-fed, semi-naked Fijians, clad in nothing but sooty
face-paint, white cloth bustles, and loin-robes of green, pink, and
white fibre-ribbons. The general effect produced was that of an animated
contingent of frilled ham-bones that waved, leapt, swayed and chanted,
sometimes upright, sometimes squatting upon the sodden turf, a scene of
almost disconcerting gaiety. The whale teeth were handed to the Prince
by a white-robed hereditary courtier, and were the size and shape of
yellow cucumbers, strung together with coloured thread. The acceptance
produced a chorus of deep resonant grunts of "Daweha"--"It is taken."
There followed the no less solemn ceremony of preparing and drinking the
"Kava," the produce of the Yaqona root, to cement the bonds of
friendship. The emptying of the last coco-nut cup of this
sharp-flavoured, cloudy liquid was greeted with loud cries of
"Mada"--"It is dry."
The yaqona root, from a twig or two of which the kava drink was brewed,
might have been an enormous ash-tree stool, with partly-grown
ground-shoots, uprooted from an English copse. The stripping of the
bark, the pounding it with stones, the macerating it with water in a big
carved wooden bowl, and its presentation to the Prince and other guests
in coco-nut shells, was performed with solemn chanting. The ceremony
included the stretching of a coco-nut fibre string, strung at intervals
of a few feet with cowrie-shells, in token of Royal authority, between
the Prince's chair and the men preparing the kava. To cross this string,
in days gone by, while the proceedings were in progress, would have
involved nothing less than to be clubbed to death. Those were doubtless
days when such functions were less chronicled and more respected.
Timed clapping, which sounded like the thuds of successive buckets of
water thrown from an upper window upon the pavement, completed the first
part of the performance. A "meke"--dance--by three hundred gorgeously
caparisoned Fijian warriors, wielding each an ancient battle-axe, which
followed, was a marvel of well-timed movement. The muddy ground shook as
the men stamped in unison, their bodies swaying in perfect rhythm as
they acted the spirited paddling of canoes, the hauling at ropes, the
pointing at the enemy, the leaping from the boat to the attack, and,
after the fight was over, the sad breaking of the waves upon the shore.
Their deep "Dua-ho," or grunt of welcome to the Prince, might have been
the roll of many drums.
The final stage in the performance came with the marching up of some
hundreds of white-garbed bearers, each carrying a locally woven mat.
These mats, some of them of a texture that challenged the fineness of a
Panama straw hat, were deposited upon the ground in front of the Prince
in a heap that grew to the dimensions of a small haystack before the
last had been laid upon it, and this, although special steps had been
taken to reduce the number of the offerings by restricting the issue of
permissions to contribute.
The size of the haystack indicated the prosperity, as well as the
loyalty, of the Fijian chiefs, who still own much of the land in the
islands. The rule of these hereditary potentates dates through centuries
prior to the advent of the missionaries and the taking on of
civilization. Their dislike of live intruders, combined with their
appreciation of them dead and roasted, kept their own Papuan stock
remarkably pure-blooded. The race to-day thus presents characteristics
of its own not found in other Pacific island groups. The only other
outside races, in addition to a few thousands of Europeans, now found in
Fiji, are coolies, of mixed descent, from India. These coolies were
originally imported under a system of indenture requiring them to work
for a definite number of years for planter masters. They have been the
means of developing sugar and copra industries which would not otherwise
have been established upon anything like their present scale. Of late
years the indenture system has been discontinued, and some trouble has
arisen in connexion with the question of wage-rates, riots having
occurred in which several lives were lost. The gradual appreciation of
the possibilities of peaceful bargaining, however, combined with the
enlightened efforts of the present administration to understand
grievances and to remedy them, is reducing the unrest, which is, in some
ways, a healthy one, since it connotes conditions of prosperity
enabling the coolie to assert claims he was not previously strong enough
to press.
The rich soil of the islands, and the equitable climate, which is much
like that of the rice-growing districts of the south of India, promise
enhanced prosperity as the years go by, Fiji being a locality especially
suitable for the Indian immigrant. It is a place that, during the war,
sent a remarkably large proportion of its manhood to fight for the
allies, those who remained at home also keeping up their end with
spirit. The visitor is told a story, which has the virtue of being
authentic, of an occasion when Suva was without any naval protection.
Its wireless installation picked up signals sent out by the German
raider _Scharnhorst_, showing that this vessel was on its way to attack
the place. Sir Bickham Scott, at that time High Commissioner, rose to
the situation and sent a message into the air for the _Scharnhorst_ to
pick up. It was addressed to Admiral Patey, aboard H.M.S. _Australia_,
the only allied warship which, as the commander of the _Scharnhorst_
knew, might conceivably have been within call. It ran: "Thanks for your
message. Will expect you in the morning." The _Scharnhorst_ presumably
read this and pondered, for Fiji was left alone.
VIII
AUCKLAND
A still, sun-filled autumn morning, with crisp sharp air that made it a
pleasure to be alive, on wide, sheltered mother-of-pearl waters, bounded
by grassy hills, with frequent hummocks and white gleaming cliffs,
greeted the _Renown_ as she neared New Zealand on the morning of the
24th of April, 1920. Dotted over the hills, like sheep at grazing, were
numerous red-roofed country houses, which developed pleasant gardens
with green fields between as the distance decreased. Out of shadowy bays
and inlets crept motor-boats in ones and twos and threes, the numbers
growing as township and village each contributed its quota, so that, by
the time the _Renown_ was amongst them, there had assembled a fleet of
very considerable dimensions decorated with flags and filled with
cheerful men, women and children, soldiers in khaki, wounded in hospital
blue, pretty girls in smart frocks, all clapping, cheering, and laughing
in the most inspiring welcome imaginable.
The Prince climbed to his look-out above the bridge, and waved back a
cheery acknowledgment. Bands struck up in half a dozen of the boats.
Flags leapt up like wind-swept flowers in a herbaceous harbour. The
hubbub grew. Numbers of sailing yachts joined the assemblage. Rowing
boats chipped in, and, by the time the first harbour buoy was reached,
the _Renown_ was sliding along with some hundreds of small craft racing
beside her, in imminent danger of collision alike with her and with one
another. The last headland turned, Auckland itself came into view, a
red-and-white city climbing up the sides of a beautiful, sheltered cove,
with clear, deep water in front, and a green, conical extinct volcano
behind. Coloured bunting fluttered from the rigging of all the vessels
in port, and long vistas of greenery and flags led up the volcano from
the water's edge. One caught glimpses of wide wharves, black with
clustering crowds, and of dark masses of people on the slopes of
Rangitoto, all on the look-out for the arrival of the Prince from Mother
England.
We had arrived at the first of the island continents which had drawn us
all, battle-cruiser, Prince and passengers, half-way round the world.
The ports of call behind us faded into instructive entertainments by the
way. Here was another home of the race, another place in the sun where
the breed throve and multiplied, and developed, under conditions fresh
and far from the source, the man and womanhood we are proud to call
British.
Auckland was an appropriate starting point for the Royal tour. The city
was the capital of the Dominion until 1865 and now has over a hundred
thousand inhabitants. It was founded in 1840 by Captain Hobson, R.N.,
when he added New Zealand to the Empire, the British Government having
characteristically disavowed the action of Captain Cook who set up the
Union Jack in 1779. The place had its godfather in Lord Auckland, the
most distinguished First Lord of the Admiralty in Hobson's time, and
thus a suitable sponser for the second city of a Dominion which owes its
being to the Empire's sea-power. Auckland now has a fine harbour and a
shipping trade of 2-1/2 million tons per annum. It is a place to which
the prosperous sheep farmer looks forward to retiring, as it has
educational opportunities, social amenities, and one of the most genial
climates in the whole Dominion.
The _Renown_ was brought alongside one of the wharves, on which black
top-hats and brilliant uniforms guided the eye to groups which proved to
include the Prime Minister of the country, the Leader of the Opposition,
the members of the Cabinet, the General Officer Commanding, the Mayor of
Auckland, and the President of the Harbour Board. Thus New Zealand
waited to greet the Prince.
At the appointed moment the Governor-General drove up in a motor-car.
The ship was dressed. Bands played, guards on the quarter-deck presented
arms, His Excellency was duly conducted aboard, where the Prince as duly
received him. Later on, with more saluting, a full brass band for the
Governor, and bos'n's whistling for the Prince, the Royal party went
ashore, and New Zealand welcomed her future King. It was a little bit of
England that had gone on board to make a call of ceremony. It was the
whole of New Zealand, heart and hand, that took charge of His Royal
Highness ashore.
Out of a multitude of motors the procession to Government House was
formed. The cars proceeded through wide, well-built streets of stone
business houses, smothered in wreaths and flags. Crowds of cheering
people lined the pavement. Upstanding soldiers and cadets in smart khaki
uniforms kept the roadway. The Prince, by now, was standing on the seat
of his motor-car, waving greetings to the crowds, who responded
vociferously. Two equerries, on the front seats, clung to his coat-tail
to prevent his falling out of the vehicle. The Governor-General sat back
with a smiling face alongside. The route led through the city, and out
amongst solid residential houses, standing in gardens brilliant with
variegated chrysanthemums, flaming red salvias, purple bougainvilleas,
and the greenest of shaven lawns, with cedars and palms together
spreading the shade of the north and the south.
Old Government House, which still serves an Excellency from Wellington
on tour, where the Dominion's address was read by the Hon. Mr. Massey,
Prime Minister, with his Cabinet standing by, is a spacious, Georgian
building surrounded by an old-world garden of lawns, shrubs and flowers.
It has a homely charm and beautiful views; it made one think of Surrey,
and must have been left with regret when New Zealand changed her
capital. Thence the route led back through the city to the Town Hall,
which was packed to its utmost capacity with well-dressed people who
gave the Prince a rousing reception. Here more addresses were presented,
and an informal levée was held, everybody present filing past. Large
crowds, meanwhile, waited patiently outside for his reappearance.
Later in the day the Prince was taken to the Domain cricket-ground,
where he reviewed five thousand returned soldiers and cadets and again
received an ovation. This cricket-ground is at the bottom of a shallow
valley, grassy hills forming a natural amphitheatre. Looked at from the
central stand while the review was in progress, the slopes of the
amphitheatre were as if covered with a fine Persian carpet, so thick was
the crowd upon the ground. It was a carpet that had frequent spasms of
agitation, the cheering and hat-slinging, whenever the Prince came near
to it, being exceedingly lively. H.R.H. first went down the lines of the
troops and had a friendly word for every officer and a number of the
men. Later on every man who had been wounded or disabled was presented
to him individually, the Prince going round to search them out himself.
When this had been completed he presented war decorations to those who
had won them at the front. It was nearly dark by the time the last hand
had been shaken and the last word said. The cheering, when it was over,
was something to remember.
The following day was Anzac Sunday, and was taken up with religious
war-services, H.R.H. attending those at St. Mary's Cathedral in the
morning, and at the Town Hall in the afternoon. The Town Hall service
was especially impressive. The Prince, slender in the world-familiar
khaki, stood in the crowded gathering, and as the Dead March was played,
and the Last Post sounded in memory of sons who had fallen, the people
knew him the Empire's symbol of their sacrifice. Perhaps there, where
the women sobbed to see him, he touched the supreme height of his
mission.
The cricket-ground, on the following day, was again the scene of an
enormous gathering. Eight thousand children were here assembled and
went through pretty evolutions and drill. In the terminal figure some
two thousand little girls, attired respectively in red, white and blue
frocks, so grouped themselves as to form, first the word "Welcome," and
afterwards the Union Jack, which waved and rustled as the children bent
and swayed to time given by a mite mounted on an eight-foot stool in
front. The crowd which surrounded the enclosure, on this occasion, was
estimated at thirty thousand.
From Auckland the Prince went south on a train, every part of which,
from the engine to the brake-van, had been built in New Zealand
workshops.
The first thing one realizes starting for anywhere in New Zealand is the
thing that has been a geography wonder since the age of nine, the queer
inversion of the climate. The experience is curious, notwithstanding all
one's submission to the fact since that time, so potent a governor of
associations is a little word. We had arrived at the North Island, where
the climate was warm and sunny like that of Italy. People coming with
more permanent intentions had a way of settling in the South Island to
be under home conditions of temperature, many of them gradually moving
across the Strait to the North Island in pursuit of balmier airs. We saw
the late autumn apples of April here and there ungathered on the trees
about Auckland, and were grateful to escape the imaginative dislocation
of a midsummer Christmas, with sunstroke as the punishment of
over-indulgence. It would be interesting to know in what period of
residence New Zealand undertakes to change one's dreams.
A green, rolling land, homely turnip fields, orchards, pasture
containing fine cattle and sheep, pleasant, red-roofed farm-houses,
comfortable country residences, and thriving market towns at frequent
intervals, sped past the train. At Ngaruawahia, two thousand
brown-faced, high-cheekboned Maoris, in European dress, greeted the
Prince from outside the railway fence, men, women and children, hand in
hand, repeatedly bowing to the ground, to slow rhythmic soft-voiced
singing, as the train steamed by. At the same time, a dozen pretty Maori
girls, in flowing white frocks, bare feet, and raven masses of waving
fillet-bound hair, swayed, undulated and step-danced upon a mat upon the
side of the track. These folk were Maori, as often as not, by courtesy
rather than by strict racial description. Few pure-bred Maoris indeed
are now to be found in New Zealand, and it is said that the mixture of
brown and white is here more successful than anywhere else in the world.
At all events one received the impression of a people plastic to the
print of a new civilization, and developing happily in it.
At Hamilton, a town of ten thousand inhabitants, more formal ceremonies
were gone through. The whole place was decorated. The people assembled
in the streets, where they cheered most vigorously. Several hundred
returned soldiers, and a very large number of children, stood in lines
upon the racecourse where they were inspected by the Prince. Several
addresses of welcome were read, that from the local municipality being
presented by Mayor Watt, a prominent Hamilton solicitor and a man of
much influence, also of dramatic instinct it appeared, since he
discarded for this occasion the chains and ermine of his official garb,
in favour of the private's uniform he had worn at the front.
A few stations further on, five hundred children were upon the platform,
singing "God Bless the Prince of Wales," as the train went past. They
had come in from a neighbouring mining-camp to catch a glimpse of the
Royal visitor, who waved to them from his carriage. The flourishing
coal-mining centre of Huntley, where a valuable brown lignite, capable
of being coked, is being raised in large quantities from shafts, some of
which are only three hundred feet deep, was also passed, the inhabitants
assembling along the railway line and cheering as the train went
through. A large experimental farm, where the secret of converting
barren land into fruitful by means of basic slag has been discovered;
cold storage factories where incredible masses of New Zealand mutton are
being preserved for export; and extensive works where pumice, here found
in the scoria of long-extinct volcanoes, is turned into material for the
insulating of boilers, passed in procession before the train. We saw
also peat-swamps, in process of profitable reclamation by means of
drainage, in the valley of the wide Waikato stream.
Presently a second engine was attached to the train, which now crept
slowly upwards, through a tangled wilderness of dense-forested gorge and
mountain canyon, the scenery being of the wildest. The imported spruce,
oak, willow, and ash of the more settled region gave place to feathery
green _punga_ tree-ferns, and stiff brown _tawa_ of indigenous growth.
Clearings were seen at intervals where cultivation struggled with the
grey, bushy _manuka_ scrub; well-kept fields, in the hands of white
settlers, alternating with unkempt jungle, where the easy-going communal
_hapu_ tenure of Maori ownership is still in force.
Suddenly, the scenery opened up, and we saw, in the soft rays of the
setting sun, a wide panorama of blue lake, and olive-green headland,
round the dark, conical Mokoia island, famous in Maori tradition as the
trysting-place to which Princess Hinomaa and her lover Tutanekai swam
across the lake. Here, almost in the shadow of the Tarawera volcano,
which blew up with terrific results to the countryside thirty years ago,
we found the pleasant little station of Rotorua, where an address was
presented and the Prince shook hands with a long line of returned Maori
soldiers.
Visits to the wonderful spouting geysers of this famous neighbourhood,
with Maori receptions and national dances, occupied the next two days,
some of the party also taking advantage of the holiday to catch a number
of very fine lake-trout, creatures which have thriven and multiplied
amazingly since their importation from Great Britain a few years ago.
The Maori dances are a thing by themselves. They are performed by
warriors and maidens in phalanxes. The men, often stout and sometimes
elderly, who in ordinary life may be lawyers, landlords, doctors, or
retail dealers, put patches of black paint on their faces, array
themselves in tassellated _pui-pui_ mat loin-clothes and arm themselves
with slender feather-tufted spears. Then, bare-footed, bare-legged,
bare-backed, and bare-headed, they line up in battalions, and leap and
stamp, stick their tongues out, grimace, slap their knees, emit volleys
of sharp barking shouts, and thrust and swing their spears, in wonderful
time to the music of full string bands. The ladies, many of them
good-looking, with melting brown eyes, well-developed figures, and
graceful carriage, are more restrained in their performances. They are
bare-headed, with long waving hair down their backs, kept in place by a
coloured ribbon round the forehead. They may be dressed in voluminous
brown cloaks of soft _kiwi_ feathers, or in loose, embroidered draperies
of every colour, their feet and ankles, sometimes bare, sometimes
encased in high-heeled American shoes and black lace stockings. They
stand or sit in long lines, singing the softest of crooning songs, the
while swaying, posturing, undulating, or step-dancing in perfect unison,
to represent the movement of paddling, spinning, weaving, swimming, or
setting sail. At the same time they swing white _poi_-balls, the size of
oranges, attached to strings, which form in their swift gyrations gauzy
circles of light around each hand, a charming performance worthy of
Leicester Square.
In the case of Rotorua ceremonies, performances took place, first on the
lake shore, on ground which emitted clouds of steam in the very face of
the dancers, and afterwards, on a much larger scale, on a wide grassy
plain adjoining, where six thousand Maoris, brought from all parts of
New Zealand, the South Island as well as the North, were encamped in
military bell-tents, a legacy of the war. Here, battalion after
battalion, first of men, then of girls, and finally of the two combined,
performed in quick succession, at least a thousand dancers taking part,
while ten thousand spectators, about half of whom may have been Maoris
or half-castes, and the balance Europeans, looked on and applauded. Here
I suppose if anywhere we saw the pure-blooded Maori, though it seems a
distinction with little difference. Unlike most Orientals, the children
of mixed ancestry continue the traditions of the pure-breeds, put on
their clothes, speak their language and boast their ancestry. One of the
most striking of the figures was where the warriors stole out between
ranks of dancing maidens, to take an enemy unawares, who was supposed to
have been beguiled into believing that he had only women to deal with.
Sir James Carrol and the Hon. Mr. A. T. Ngata, both Maori members of the
New Zealand Parliament, and both distinguished speakers, took a
prominent part in the ceremonies.
The address presented to the Prince by these loyal and attractive people
was characteristically picturesque. It was read, first in English, and
afterwards in Maori, by one of the chiefs, an elderly gentleman of
reverend appearance in fine Kiwi robe, who spoke in a pleasant,
resonant, well-rounded voice. "You bring with you," he said, "memories
of our beloved dead. They live again who strove with you on the fields
of TU in many lands beyond seas. Your presence there endeared you to the
hearts of our warriors. Your brief sojourn here will soften the sorrows
of those whose dear ones have followed the setting sun. Royal son of an
illustrious line, king that is to be, we are proud that you should carry
on the traditions of your race and house. For it is meet that those who
sit on high should turn an equal face to humble as to mighty. Walk,
therefore, among your own people sure of their hearts, fostering therein
the love they bore Queen Victoria and those who came after her. Welcome
and farewell. Return in peace without misgivings, bearing to His Majesty
the King, and to Her Majesty the Queen, the renewal of the oath we swore
to them on this ground a generation ago. The Maori people will be true
till death, and so farewell."
The history of the Maoris is one long record of chivalry and courage,
and their promise is one they will perform.
IX
NORTH ISLAND
Among the telegrams which met the Royal train on its way from Auckland
to Rotorua was one of a character which differed from the rest. The
message was addressed to Rt. Hon. William Massey, that embodiment of
notable ability, kindly good sense and unquenchable spirit whom this
Dominion is so fortunate as to have as Prime Minister, who was on the
train. It announced a general railway strike unless certain demands of
drivers and men, some time pending, were agreed to by the Government. It
was in the form of an ultimatum which expired at midnight, an hour which
found the tour at Rotorua. Against the extreme and humiliating public
inconvenience of the moment thus selected must be placed the immediate
offer of the strikers, to complete the schedule of the Royal train, to
take the Prince in fact wherever he wished to go. While the offer was
declined in the main it was accepted as far as a return journey to
Auckland, where the Prince thus spent several unforeseen days while
matters were being adjusted. The time had to be cut out of later
dispositions. It was spent in private engagements, in the much qualified
sense of the word as it applied to any of the Royal arrangements. The
strike was ultimately settled through the efforts of Mr. Massey, who,
being denied the service of the railroad, drove several hundred miles
over sodden mountain roads, in the worst of weather, from Rotorua to
Wellington to discuss the matter with the men's leaders there. The
settlement did much credit to the forbearance of both sides. It did not
go into the merits of the immediate question, which was as to the rate
of compensation to be paid to the men in consideration of the increased
cost of living, but provided a tribunal, on which the strikers and the
railway management should be equally represented, with a co-opted
neutral chairman, to report upon the merits of the demand, and suggest
the best way of doing justice to all concerned. The acceptance of this
sensible arrangement was largely aided by the New Zealand Amalgamated
Society of Railway Servants, this important organization putting
pressure upon the drivers and firemen to return to work while the
tribunal was taking evidence. The incident afforded interesting proof,
not only of the confidence inspired by Mr. Massey himself, but also of
the reasonableness of the attitude of labour in this part of the world.
Industrial discontent is a more manageable thing in a country where the
great majority of the men own their homes and the half-acre that
surrounds them. The struggle for better conditions is sweetened by the
air of gardens, and every operative has the interest in the general
prosperity that comes of a private stake in it.
The Royal party left Auckland in three railway trains, a pilot, a main,
and an emergency, the Prince and staff travelling in the middle one. The
New Zealand Government was represented by Sir William Fraser, Minister
of the Interior, a Highland Scotchman from the South Island. Official
appointments to accompany the tour were happily made throughout, but
never more than in this instance, where the extraordinary kindliness and
charm of the Minister of the Interior enhanced the great volume of his
experience, to the pleasure and profit of every member of the party.
Another of those present was General Sir Edward Chaytor, commanding the
forces in New Zealand, a soldier whose world reputation has not in any
way interfered with the simplest manner and the most delighted
directness of mind. It was his function to present to the Prince the
military side of New Zealand life, a side which was represented at every
centre visited, alike by surprisingly large numbers of returned soldiers
from the forces which gave such splendid account of themselves in the
great war, and by considerable bodies of smartly turned-out territorials
and cadets. Accompanying General Chaytor was Colonel Sleeman, also a
remarkable personality, to whose initiative is largely due the system of
cadet-training now in force in New Zealand, a system which is doing
wonders in the matter of infusing the best public-school spirit into
previously unkempt national schoolboys and larrikins, teaching them to
play the game, giving them a pride in themselves, and interesting them
in physical culture, and in the duties of citizenship, so that their
parents have become as keen as themselves that they should go through
the courses. Another of the party was Mr. James Hislop, Permanent
Under-Secretary of the Interior, one of the ablest members of that fine
body, the New Zealand civil service, who organized the arrangements of
the tour, and whose irrepressible humour, good fellowship, and infinity
of resource, in disposing of what seemed to most of us an utterly
overwhelming burden of work, were a continual wonder to everybody upon
the train. No less important amongst those outstanding figures of the
New Zealand party, was Mr. R. W. McVilly, General Manager of the
railways of the country, a man who with his predecessor, Mr. E. H.
Hiley, has succeeded in doing in New Zealand what proved impossible, in
England and in the United States. Under their direction the railway
system of the Dominion was carried on throughout the war without break
in management and without making any loss. It did not take travellers
long to discover the affection and respect in which the Director-General
was held, not only by his colleagues, but by all who came in contact
with him.
The British pressmen with the tour were particularly happy in their New
Zealand newspaper associates. Amongst these gentlemen were Professor Guy
Scholefield, who holds the chair of English Literature at the University
of Dunedin and who knows New Zealand inside and out, from the historic
as well as the modern point of view; and Mr. F. H. Morgan, representing
that business-like organization the New Zealand Press Association, a
practical journalist, a helpful colleague, and one of the best of good
fellows.
Although the main train journey was only decided upon a few hours before
a start was made from Auckland, all the arrangements worked with
extraordinary smoothness, and the number of people assembled at even the
smallest wayside stations to cheer the Prince was astonishing. At
Frankton, the first stopping-place after leaving Auckland, the gathering
around the station consisted largely of the very railway men who had
just been on strike. Their reception of the Prince had the special
cordiality that carries a hint of apology. One of their number indeed,
acting as spokesman, explained in a speech which could not be considered
inopportune, how much they all regretted having been the cause of delay
to the Royal tour. At Tekuiti, another small station, a more formal
reception took place, in which some five hundred children, collected
from the schools in the neighbourhood, participated with characteristic
fervour.
Through the night the Royal train traversed the red-pine Waimarino
forest, mounted two thousand feet up the Raurimu spiral, passed the
still smoking summit of the Ngauruhoe volcano, and emerged at daylight
upon the rolling plains of the rich Taranaki dairying country. Here
pastoral land, though still dotted with the blackened stumps of bygone
forest, is worth to-day anything up to one hundred and fifty pounds
sterling per acre. Thence, passing beneath the snow-streaked cone of the
extinct volcano Mount Egmont, the train rolled out upon the open western
coast, and entered the gorse-encircled city of New Plymouth. Here the
Prince was given a picturesque reception beneath spreading _Insignis_
pines, in a natural grass-covered amphitheatre, of beautiful Pukikura
park. Conducted by General Melville, commanding the district, he
inspected a large gathering of returned sailors, soldiers, nurses, and
cadets. He also went through the ranks of masses of school-children, who
waved long wands topped with white and red feathery _toi-toi_ grass, and
sang patriotic songs. In the course of a reply, later on, to a civic
address, read by Mr. F. Bellringer, General Manager of the Borough, the
Prince referred to the splendid prospects of the north-west coast, also
to its fine war record, adding: "When I look at the development of this
wonderful dairying country, I am amazed at the enterprise and energy
which have achieved so much in little more than two generations."
It is indeed amazing. Taranaki does much with butter, sending to such a
competitive country as Canada nearly 12,000 cwts. in 1918, and even more
with cheese, producing a particularly delectable Stilton. There are
fifty-seven butter factories and one hundred and eleven devoted to
cheese. To carve these conditions out of virgin forest in two
generations is a feat that well deserved its recognition.
The route thereafter lay through a land of spacious, green sheep-downs,
overlooking a blue, sun-lit sea, as idyllic as a pasture of the
Eclogues. On the way, at Stratford, Hawera and Patea, the Prince
received and replied to addresses and inspected gatherings of returned
soldiers, sailors, nurses, and cadets, besides incredible numbers of
fat, red-cheeked children, assembled with their teachers to do him
honour. Speaking at Hawera, the scene of fighting in days gone by,
between _Pakeha_--white strangers--and Maori natives, "Nothing," said
His Royal Highness, "has impressed me more in New Zealand than the
evidence I have found everywhere that Pakeha and Maori are now one
people in devotion to the Dominion, the Empire and the King."
[Illustration: WELLINGTON: A CANOE IN THE PETONE PAGEANT]
[Illustration: "THE MAORI PEOPLE WILL BE TRUE TILL DEATH"]
Proceeding afterwards to Wanganui, a more imposing welcome awaited him,
ten thousand enthusiastic people being found assembled in a big
grass-covered stadium. Here, some of the territorials he inspected
insisted upon drawing his motor-car round the grounds. In the course of
a reply to an address read by the Mayor, the Prince put into words what
was so plain in his actions. "I value," he said, "more than anything the
opportunity this journey gives me of making the acquaintance of the
people of New Zealand, many of whose gallant sons I knew on active
service in the great war." A visit followed to the Wanganui college, a
fine institution where three hundred of the sons of the settlers of the
Dominion are receiving up-to-date education upon British public-school
lines. Later in the evening the Prince attended a concert, also a
democratic supper-party of the heartiest description, held in enormous
marquees, at which three thousand people were present. The Prince and
his staff were served at a table on a raised platform in the middle of
the biggest of the marquees, so that as many people as possible might
see him, a distinction which apparently caused His Royal Highness no
loss of appetite.
From Wanganui the Prince motored twenty-five miles through undulating
fields of grass, turnips and rape, alternating with patches of yellow
gorse, the last introduced from the old country by sentimental but
ill-advised settlers, and now a most troublesome field-pest, special
legislation having had to be introduced requiring owners of land, under
penalty, to prevent its spreading. Crossing the wooded valleys of the
beautiful Wanganui and Turakina rivers, the Ruahine mountains shining
through the morning mists upon the left, while spacious sheep-farms
sloped seawards upon the right, the Prince reached the township of
Marton, where the usual inspections and addresses took place. Thence
the party started by train to cross the country to the east coast port
of Napier. Receptions were held, _en route_, at the townships of
Feilding and Palmerston-North. In the course of the day the Prince
received a number of presents, including, from Maori chiefs, an ancient
and possibly unique greenstone _mere_ or battle-axe, and a fine
_Wharikiwoka_--a mat-cloak lined with feathers. At Palmerston-North
there was handed into his keeping the shot-torn colours actually carried
by the third British Foot Guards at the battle of Alexandria as along
ago as 1801. These colours had been handed down, from generation to
generation, by New Zealand descendants of Colonel Samuel Dalrymple, who
commanded this distinguished regiment in that engagement. They were
presented to the Prince by Mrs. J. H. Hankins, _née_ Dalrymple. The
colours were said to be the only ones, belonging to a Guards regiment,
hitherto preserved elsewhere than in the British islands.
Leaving Palmerston-North, the Prince proceeded through the gorge of the
rushing, turgid Manawatu river, alighting at the small wayside station
of Woodville, where a number of the inhabitants had assembled and where
he shook hands with a territorial officer, who, with the gay adventurous
spirit of the Dominion, had taken considerable risks in keeping pace
with the Royal train in a motor-car all the way from Marton, though part
of the route was along an unfenced winding mountain road on the side of
a cliff where the slightest obstruction or miscalculation might have
hurled the car and its occupants into the torrent below.
From Woodville the Prince went on, through wide grass-covered plains,
dotted with pleasant homesteads, standing amidst thousands of browsing
sheep, along the broad, shallow, shingly reaches of the Waipawa river,
and past sunny apple-orchards, and coppices of oak, poplar and pine, at
times skirting breezy uplands where he saw shepherds and their families,
often from long distances in the interior waiting to cheer the train.
The arrival at Napier, on the east coast of the island, was late in the
afternoon, in threatening weather. Yet the entire town of twelve
thousand inhabitants seemed to have assembled in the streets, and the
turn-out of returned sailors, soldiers, nurses, and cadets, at the
beautiful Nelson Park, on the seashore, where a reception was held and
an address presented by the Mayor, Mr. Vigor Brown, was most impressive.
In the course of his reply, in this centre, the Prince once more
referred to the quick coming prosperity of the land he had been
traversing. "It is amazing," he said, "to think that all the homely,
happy country I have seen on my journey here has been cleared,
cultivated and civilized in the life of two generations. The measure of
that splendid achievement is well reflected in this flourishing port and
town."
The following morning the Prince was early afoot, yet the inhabitants
made a fine showing in the streets, as the procession of motor-cars
passed through to the station, where the Royal train was waiting to
convey the party on the long run southwards to Wellington, the capital.
The weather had cleared in the night and it was a lovely autumn morning
as we skirted the waters of Hawkes Bay, which washed against the steep,
white cliffs of Kidnappers' Island, still the home of thousands of
strong-winged gannets the size of geese. Arrived at Hastings, a solid
market town of ten thousand inhabitants, the Prince was conducted,
through lanes of cheering people, to the racecourse. Here yet another
large gathering of returned men, also territorials, cadets, nurses, and
children, had assembled, and yet another civic address was presented and
replied to. Similar experiences awaited the party at further
stopping-places, including Waipukurau, Dannevirke, Woodville, and
Pahiatua--the "place of God"--the number of the motor-cars, drawn up in
the rear of the crowds, testifying to the prosperity of the farmer-folk,
many of whom had been making fortunes out of the high prices of the
mutton, wool and dairy-produce they raise. At Dannevirke--Dane
Church--the Scandinavian origin of the township was reflected, not only
in the name, but in the faces of whiskered vikings who were to be seen
amongst those who came forward to shake hands with the Prince. They
contrasted quite obviously with the conventional Anglo-Saxons around
them, and recalled in their persons the fact that the settlement of
Dannevirke was originally made by a ship-load of government-aided
immigrants from Schleswig, Holstein.
After leaving Dannevirke, the Prince took a turn on the foot-plate of
the engine of the train, which he drove at something like fifty miles an
hour to Woodville, where he had halted the day before. At Woodville the
track turned southwards through wilder country, including a certain
amount of still uncleared bush. Even here, however, the land is being
opened up, and I heard of farms changing hands at as much as seventy
pounds per acre. As the afternoon progressed halts were made at various
stations, including Featherston, where the Prince was received by
cheering crowds from a military training camp near by. At dusk the train
skirted the wide Wairarapa--lake of shining water--where wild swans
still breed in some numbers. Here we seemed to have reached the end of
the track, as high hills closed in on either side, and there was no sign
of a tunnel. The big single engine, however, was replaced by three
smaller ones of special make for mountain climbing, one of them being
attached at either end of the train and the third in the middle. A start
was then made up a zigzag track consisting of three rails, the third so
fixed in the middle, between the other two, that pulley wheels beneath
the body of the engines can get a purchase below it, thus completely
wedging the train and preventing its too sudden descent in case of
accident. Slowly then the train crawled up the gradient, which, in
places, is no less than one in fifteen. On the way we passed heavy
timber-fences erected to break the force of the wind, which has been
known so strong, at times on this part of the line, as to overturn a
train. In the darkness we crossed the Rimutaka--ridge of fallen
trees--and slid smoothly down to the other side into the rich Hutt
valley in which Wellington stands.
A fairy city of lights, outlining spires, roofs and street lines, lay by
reflection in the black water of a broad still harbour, as the train
skirted the low coast of Petone, landing-place of the first white
settlers, eventually passing through extensive suburbs and coming to a
standstill in the station of Wellington. Here the reception was a climax
to the demonstrations along the journey from Auckland. Mayor Luke,
supported by the city councillors, in ermine and gold chains, received
the Prince, as he alighted from the train. Mr. Massey, and other members
of the Dominion Government, were waiting at the entrance. Outside, one
of the smartest captain's guards-of-honour imaginable was standing to
attention, with band and colours. Beyond, restrained by a rope barrier,
an enormous crowd cheered and cheered. The eye travelled over the heads
of the nearer people, and then further away, and there was no thinning
off. One then began to realize that one was looking up a broad street
which climbed a hill, and that the entire hill was a palpitating mass of
shouting humanity, dimly seen in the half-light of the illuminations.
Eventually the Royal procession got off in motor-cars, which took an
hour to traverse the two miles of decorated route to Government House,
where the Prince was to stay, so dense was the crowd along the route, so
anxious were the people to get near him. There was no bad crushing,
however, and nothing could exceed the good temper of the shouting,
flag-flapping, clapping, laughing men, women and children, who pressed
upon the motor-cars, formed a solid mass to the walls of substantial
business houses on either hand, and crowded every window, balcony and
roof commanding a view from above.
Similar scenes marked subsequent days of the Prince's visit to
Wellington. Proceeding to Parliament buildings on the morning after he
arrived, the pressure along the route was extraordinary. The town hall,
where addresses were presented, on the way, was filled by all the most
distinguished people of the country. The platform was occupied by the
Members of the Legislature, headed by the Prime Minister, and including
the Leader of the Opposition, the Mayors of the principal cities, and
other representatives from all parts of New Zealand.
Proposing the Prince's health, at the official luncheon later in the
day, Mr. Massey, speaking in his capacity of Prime Minister, said
everybody in New Zealand took personal happiness and satisfaction in the
magnificent reception the Prince had had at all the centres in the North
Island. "And I want to tell him," he continued, "that his experiences in
the North Island will be repeated in the South."
One of the expeditions made from Wellington was across the harbour to
Petone, where a well-staged pageant was held representing the landing of
Captain Cook and his fellow adventurers from the barque _Endeavour_ in
1779, also that of the Reverend Samuel Marsden and other missionaries
from the merchant-ship _Tory_ thirty-five years later. Naked warriors in
war-canoes escorted each of the boat processions to the beach, and
painted Maori chiefs received the white strangers hospitably on the
sandy shore.
The occasion of the pageant was taken with happy appropriateness to
present the Prince with samples of the finished product of the great
industry with which the descendants of the early settlers have endowed
New Zealand. The articles selected were rugs of beautiful softness and
delightful warmth, made of wool grown in the interior, and carded, spun,
dyed, and woven in mills close to the beach where the original
missionaries landed. "A field which the Lord hath blessed" in every
sense of the term.
Petone is the parent of the capital city of Wellington where the
Governor, Legislative Council and elected House of Representatives
together make up the "General Assembly" which governs New Zealand.
X
SOUTH ISLAND
The still, crisp, autumn morning of the 22nd of May brought the _Renown_
into the silver inland sea of Charlotte Sound, with sunny hills sloping
to the water's edge on either side--a great grey bird she looked,
reflected in a jade-framed mirror. Rounding a steep guarding islet, the
big ship anchored in view of the inner harbour, the pleasant little
red-roofed whaling station of Picton climbing up the slope at the
further end, the houses gay with familiar flowers, and homely with
pecking fowls, amenities which one does not associate with the wild work
of the whaler. The industry as a matter of fact has declined from the
status of its early days, though last year the blubber of forty-eight
"humpbacks" was brought into port.
The entire population--typical British folk of any country town in
England--had assembled and gave the Prince a rousing welcome with the
usual address. From Picton the route was by train through a rich
pastoral plain, past Tuamarina, scene of a long-past tragedy in New
Zealand history, where a misunderstanding resulted in whites being
massacred by their Maori neighbours, one of those lamentable episodes
which the now united Dominion is advisedly engaged in forgetting.
At Blenheim, a prosperous township, eighteen miles from Picton, which
was the next stopping-place, the train was exchanged for motors, and a
visit was paid to the local racecourse, where the inhabitants of the
town of Blenheim and most of the surrounding country had come together.
Amongst them was a fine gathering of returned sailors, soldiers and
cadets, also some fifty Maoris with painted faces, dressed in
feather-covered mats, who gave one of their grave, shouting, stamping,
grimacing national _hakas_ in honour of the Royal guest.
From Blenheim the party started on a seventy-mile motor-drive to Nelson,
an expedition enlivened by similar scenes, though the solemn gaieties of
the Maoris did not occur again. The road, which was of macadam in
excellent repair, ran first through the green, open valley of the
Pelorus river, the fields dotted with sheep, with many a row of tall
poplar trees, yellowing in the still autumn air. Wooded hills closed in,
on either side, as the cars progressed, until we found ourselves
speeding along a winding, unfenced shelf on the side of a precipice,
primeval forest covering the sides of the gorge, to which the procession
clung, like a string of flies to a window-pane, as it swung round
corners, often with a wall of rock on one side and a sheer drop of
hundreds of feet upon the other, a few inches of macadamized shelf all
that interposed between the outer wheels and eternity.
The driver of the Prince's car, a grey-headed Anglo-Saxon, was descended
from men who had driven mail coaches along this road seventy years ago,
when the route was anything but the tourist trip it has become to-day.
The Prince was shown corner after corner where early settlers and their
vehicles had gone over the edge, to be gathered together at the bottom
in an advanced state of disunion. He heard also the oft-told tale of the
Maungatapu highwaymen, white desperadoes, who once made these Rai and
Wangamoa hills their home, until they were rounded up and hanged by
indignant gold-miners and settlers for iniquities which included the
murdering of a wayfarer, after stripping him of his purse, though all
that it contained was a solitary shilling. No allowance seemed to have
been made by his avengers for a certain natural disappointment. From the
Rai and Wangamoa highlands the road led downwards, through a gradually
flattening land of apple-trees, still laden with masses of enormous
yellow and red fruit, past hundreds of acres of bare poles, where hops
had recently been reaped, amongst fields of peach trees set in ordered
ranks, through villages of red-roofed, verandahed wooden houses, where
well-dressed women and extraordinarily chubby and sunburnt children
strewed the chrysanthemums of autumn as the Prince went by. The white
macadam of the country ultimately gave place to the dark asphalt of the
town. Tram-lines appeared in the track, and the procession found itself
amongst hurrahing crowds in Nelson city.
Nelson is built round a central hill. Driving up the main street, the
Prince was in a lane of people, a waving mass of union jacks extending
up the business street on either side, while in front was a natural
grand-stand surmounted by the Gothic windows of a pink, wooden structure
which rose out of the top of a variegated pyramid and was the
Cathedral. It looked as if balanced upon a hunched-up, gaily-coloured
Paisley shawl. As we approached, the base resolved itself into
school-children in white, soldiers and cadets in khaki, with a phalanx
of returned men in their habit as they lived. A grey stone platform,
with steps leading up to it, was occupied by Nelson's officials, one of
whom read an address of welcome. The remainder of the variegated colour
scheme seen from the bottom of the street was due to the costumes of
ladies who stood so close to one another that no peep of the green
background came through.
Here the Prince performed the usual ceremonies that awaited him. He
inspected guards-of-honour, clasped the hands of returned soldiers and
pinned on their coats decorations won at the front. He also expressed to
the Mayor and the crowd thanks for the reception and for the loyal
sentiments of the address, which would be communicated to His Majesty
the King, as well as hearty appreciation of the wonders of the country,
and of the good service of its people in the war, with sympathy for
those who had been disabled or had lost friends or relations. He
demanded a whole holiday for the school-children, with the immense
approval of the beneficiaries. The National Anthem was played and
everybody went off to dinner.
On the following and subsequent days very similar experiences were
encountered. The route from Nelson, after leaving the level country
where more receptions were held at wayside townships, was along the
steep rocky upper gorge of the Buller river, a clear stream which flows
in a series of cascades through a narrow winding cleft in the
mountains. The slope on either side is covered with dense forest of
tree ferns and birches, broken by areas where the undergrowth has been
cut down and fired. Quantities of blackened tree-trunks and half-burnt
logs, upon a carpet of newly sprouted grass, told of the conversion of
the impenetrable primeval forest into productive dairying
fields--grass-seed having only to be scattered broadcast over the ashes
after a shower to bring a quick and copious emerald crop.
The way grass develops in New Zealand is a continual wonder. The winters
are so mild, and the rainfall so abundant, that growth goes on right
through the year. Maturity comes so rapidly that it is said to be quite
a common thing for the farmer to plough up pasture and re-sow it simply
in order to get rid of weeds, a heavy hay-crop being reaped the very
next season. Large areas of permanent, original pasture were also seen,
especially in the Southern Island--tussock grass, which, as its name
suggests, grows in knobby tufts, but is not on that account to be
despised as fodder, enormous numbers of sheep and cattle growing fat
enough to kill for the market without any other nourishment. Turnips are
raised, to help out the grass in the winter months, but this is only on
a comparatively small scale. The greater part of the stock is entirely
grass-fed. Lambing, calving and milking take place in the open, and
steers go straight to the packing establishments, without previously
seeing the inside of a building of any kind. This accounts for the
profits that are being made out of sheep-farming, stock-raising and
dairying in New Zealand, in spite of the enormous prices paid for land
which, in good districts, is now changing hands at figures ranging up to
£170 per acre.
The Prince learnt, also, in his long drives through the forest, of the
nature of the timber; of the virtues of the tawny-foliaged _Rimu_, or
red pine, used for the interiors of houses; of the light, easily worked
_Kahikatea_, or white pine, for which such large demand has sprung up in
New Zealand and Australia for making packing-cases for butter, that
fears are felt lest forests, hitherto considered inexhaustible, should
become worked out; also of the _Matai_, or silver pine, which seems to
last for ever, even when exposed on such hard service as that of railway
sleepers, without any creosoting or other artificial protection.
About noon, the cars emerged upon an open valley, and the Prince was
given a public reception at Murchison, a village of wooden houses, which
were found in holiday array, the decorations including masses of holly
in the fullest Christmas glory of ripe scarlet berries, a curious
contemporary of the orchards, still loaded with unpicked apples, that we
had seen in the Nelson valley only a few hours before. In the Murchison
district alluvial gold-washing still goes on, but it is only a small
survival of what once was a flourishing industry, the yellow metal that
filled the west coast with diggers, fifty years ago, having almost
entirely given out.
Beyond Murchison, the gorges again contracted. The river became a white
torrent, rushing through a dark, winding channel, hedged with big, grey
rocks, above which rose sage-green, forested mountains. About six in the
evening we emerged on the Inangahua--"mother of whitebait"--tributary.
Here the valley widened out, and we saw a wonderful west-coast sunset.
The mountains took on vivid aquamarine blue and imperial purple, shading
into palest pink, as they faced towards the light or away from it.
Against this background, yellow-frosted poplars and scarlet-leaved wild
cherries stood out in sharpest contrast, the whole, with a pearly sky,
producing an effect of exquisite fantasy. A soft brown owl, fluttering
into our staring faces, recalled the fact that night had come, and that
shelter was still far off.
The Prince traversed the Inangahua marshes in the dark, reaching the
west-coast township of Reefton late at night. The streets, nevertheless,
were thronged with people. Illuminations and fireworks were in full
swing, and His Royal Highness had a reception in no way inferior to his
daylight greetings elsewhere. At Reefton he was in Westland of the warm
heart, the Wales of New Zealand, a land of collieries, lumbering,
gold-mining, and fishing, home of the late Richard Seddon, whose
eloquence did so much, in the long years of his Prime Ministership, to
bind New Zealand in that close alliance with Great Britain which bore
such gallant fruit when the great call came.
With Reefton I should class Inangahua, Greymouth, Westport, and last,
but most important of them all, Hokitika, head-quarters of the province,
which is represented in the New Zealand Government by Mr. Thomas Seddon,
son of the late Prime Minister, and one of the first members of
Parliament to volunteer for active service when the war began. In all of
these centres the Prince was most warmly received, Hokitika particularly
distinguishing itself by the size of its gatherings, and the good taste
bestowed on the decorations of its streets.
The Prince's journey from Reefton to Westport was by motor through the
lower gorges of the Buller river, where the scenery was again
magnificent. Much of the route was along a narrow winding shelf, a
precipice dropping to the water beneath, while above the rocks overhung
the road, sometimes, as at a spot appropriately named the Devil's Eye,
to the extent of completely over-arching. The steep mountain-sides
around were covered with dense vegetation, gaunt Rimu trees smothered in
the embrace of flame-flowered Rata vines, and green lance-leaved
_kiakia_ creepers, with a thick undergrowth of tree-ferns standing erect
like pirouetting dancers in stiff green skirts and long black legs,
amongst a lesser crowd of gorse and bracken. The silence of the gorge
was broken only by the ripple of water and the sweet flute-notes of grey
Tui birds, a delicate contrast with the clangour of the church bells,
rung in honour of the Prince's visit, when the procession of motor-cars
emerged upon the open coast, and reached the mining township of
Westport. Here the reception was on the level, within sight of an
inclined road down which is brought what claims to be the best admiralty
coal in the world. This coal is mined high up in the hills above
Westport, and was burnt upon H.M.S. _Calliope_ when she thrilled the
world by beating out of the hurricane off Samoa in 1899. The Prince
returned in the evening to Hokitika. In an open square in this city next
morning, where the snows of Mount Cook shone out on the horizon, he was
presented with a digger's leather bag containing nuggets of west-coast
gold.
[Illustration: WESTPORT CHILDREN: A TUMULT OF FLAGS AND FLOWERS]
[Illustration: DUNEDIN'S WELCOME]
From Hokitika the route was by train, via the labour-controlled township
of Greymouth, and up the fine Brunner valley, passing a number of
winding-shafts of mines producing good steam-coal, where miners were
making £2 5_s_. daily, and more of them were urgently needed. In the
afternoon Otira was reached, where New Zealand's longest railway tunnel,
which when finished will complete the hitherto broken connexion across
the island, was in active course of construction. Here the Prince left
the railway and travelled partly by a four-horsed coach, and partly on
foot, amidst heights and glaciers, over the magnificent Arthur's pass,
which overlies the tunnel, itself two thousand feet above sea level. The
tunnel is one of the big engineering achievements of the century. It is
five and a quarter miles long, and has been so accurately laid out that
when, a few months since, the excavations from the two ends met in the
middle, they were out only by three-quarters of an inch in alignment and
one and a half inches in level, a minuteness of error of which Mr.
Holmes, Engineer-in-Chief, and his technical staff may rightly be proud.
Cheers, every few minutes, from people it was too dark to see, broke in
upon the rattle of the Royal train speeding to reach Christchurch by
dinner-time. Jolts at intervals informed us that we were crossing
sidings in the suburbs of a considerable city. Presently light shone
into the windows from outside, and we came to a standstill in a railway
station that might have been that of Oxford. Upon a red carpet,
stretched from the entrance to where the Prince's saloon drew up, was
standing Mayor Thacker, with ermine, chain and cocked hat, also members
of the corporation, waiting to welcome the Royal guest. By the time one
could get through the throng upon the platform from the front of the
train, the Prince, who was in the rear where a lane had been kept, was
inspecting a captain's guard of men and colours in the presence of the
dense, cheering crowd that pressed on the rope-barriers. A procession
followed, through two miles of decorated, illuminated, cheering,
flag-waving streets, the route kept with difficulty by police and
territorials. The cars soon separated from one another in the press.
Those who were towards the tail of the procession lost sight of the
Prince. Small boys waved paper flags in their faces, and had to be
discouraged from climbing on the radiator. Larrikins decided that one
correspondent was the Prince's doctor and christened him "Pills."
Another, the substantial representative of the "Daily Telegraph," was
found to resemble Mr. Massey, and was cheered as "Bill." Presently the
procession came to a standstill altogether, the crowd being squeezed
tight up all round, in front, as well as on the steps and mud-guards.
Horn-tooting and endeavours to move forward an inch at a time, coupled
with the vigorous assistance of the police, gradually got us on the move
again, and amid a din of laughing and cheering we saw the Prince being
got out of his car and carried into the club where he was to stay, to
reappear a few moments later on the balcony and wave acknowledgments to
the people, by this time squeezed solid once more.
Similar scenes occurred on the following day, the same cheerful,
friendly, British crowd assembling in the streets and blocking the wide
Latimer Square, where the Prince received a number of formal addresses,
inspected a fine body of boy-scouts, and was serenaded, first in Welsh,
and afterwards in Gaelic, by groups of nice-looking girls in the
quaintness of chimney-pot hats and kilts. Proceeding afterwards to
Hagley park, the Prince reviewed some four thousand territorials, and
shook hands with two thousand returned men. Later in the evening he held
an informal levée at the civic hall, where he shook hands with another
two thousand people. By this time, if there is a scientific way of
accomplishing the gesture of friendship, His Royal Highness had probably
learned it.
Christchurch is the third biggest city of New Zealand. A larger
proportion of the inhabitants is said to be of English extraction than
in any other city of the world outside the British islands. Certainly it
is one of the most home-like places we saw upon the tour with its
well-paved, well-lighted streets, fine business quarter, and pleasant
residential suburbs full of comfortable houses, each standing in its own
grounds. In Christchurch clear water courses down the gutter on one side
of many of the streets. This is from subterranean springs, tapped by
artesian borings, by means of which the entire city is supplied. The
water is supposed to be derived from the snows of the southern New
Zealand Alps as they soak into the valley of the Waimakariri--"freezing
water"--river which flows into the Canterbury plain.
A fine harbour, with water so deep that even the _Renown_ was able to
lie alongside the wharf, exists eight miles off, at Lyttleton. Until one
goes over the ground it seems strange that a large city should have been
built so far away as eight miles from the harbour connected with it. The
lie of the hills explains this however. The harbour of Lyttleton is so
hedged in by steep slopes that it has been considered impossible to
build a city around it, and Christchurch occupies the nearest level
ground across the range. Connexion is facilitated by a mile-long
railway tunnel, one of the oldest undertakings of its kind in New
Zealand.
Although so close to the hills, Christchurch stands upon almost
absolutely level ground, a corner indeed of the big Canterbury plain,
_par excellence_ the farming country of the Dominion. The city contains
cold-storage plant, a biscuit factory, and wool and hide establishments,
all of which proved their Imperial value during the war. It also
possesses one of the best high schools in the country, run on the lines
of a British public school. Being also the distributing centre for a
large and flourishing farming community, Christchurch is going ahead
rapidly, and has an excellent future before it, its south-of-England
climate making it a favourite place of residence.
Farming is not in New Zealand an occupation penalized by the dread of
hardship or burden as one is apt to find it elsewhere, largely because
of the real love the New Zealander has for the land. The Mayor of one of
the larger cities we visited in the Northern Island, himself a
prosperous wholesale grocer, told me that neither of his two sons, when
they returned to New Zealand from France, would look at his business,
though he had kept it going longer than he would otherwise have done,
with the express purpose of handing it on to them, there being no one
else in his family to whom to leave it. They both insisted upon being
set up as farmers. The reason they gave was that farming life was
pleasanter and less exacting than any kind of business, and this
although they had, with farming, to begin all over again, whereas in the
wholesale grocery trade they had a long established and flourishing
concern ready to step into.
The fifteen-year-old son of a prominent official said to his mother,
who passed on the irreverent observation to me, "Isn't father a loony to
do office work when he might have a farm of his own?" The boy's mind was
typical. I met refined women who said they wouldn't live anywhere in the
world but on a farm, and never once did I come across anyone who was on
the land and wanted to get off it. This attitude of mind has the
qualification that it is sheep and cattle-farming that is referred to,
and not dairy-farming, which is infinitely more exacting, though, at
present prices, and especially since the discovery of the possibilities
of the dried milk-trade, definitely more profitable. This is because the
sheep and cattle-farmer is not continually tied, and, while he has to
work hard at times, can also often get away, whereas the dairy-farmer
must be on hand all the year round, to see that the milking is attended
to, and that the milk is promptly disposed of at the creameries, of
which numbers are springing up, mostly run, upon a co-operative basis,
by groups of farmers themselves.
This passion of the New Zealander for the land is a trait of the most
far-reaching significance. It accounts for the largeness of the rural,
as opposed to the urban, population in this Dominion. It has much to do,
also, with the splendid physique of the average New Zealander, and the
amazing healthfulness and longevity he appears to enjoy. This applies
especially to the middle classes, amongst whom there is extraordinary
immunity from such city diseases as consumption. The death-rate from
tuberculosis of New Zealand is less than half that of England and Wales.
It affects also the whole political outlook of the Dominion. The farmer
everywhere tends to be conservative in his views, for he has a stake in
the country. His farm may be small or large. The individual holding, on
the average, is probably not more than from thirty to eighty acres, an
area which even the most unskilled of labourers may hope, in the end, to
own; and one which, under the favourable agricultural and climatic
conditions prevailing, is sufficient to keep both the man himself and
his family. The number of holdings is therefore rapidly increasing, and
the effect which this has upon the whole political atmosphere is
incalculable. Nominally, the Government of the day may be Conservative
or it may be Liberal, but the voter's choice is one of men, rather than
of policy. Labour itself, as has already been pointed out, has become
conservative. It thus comes about that, in spite of the possession of
both manhood suffrage and womanhood suffrage, there is probably no
country in the world less open to subversive social theories than is New
Zealand.
XI
ENTERPRISE IN NEW ZEALAND
It is impossible to travel through New Zealand and to meet the men it
sends into public life, without being impressed by the high character,
moderation and conservativeness which characterize politics in this
Dominion.
There is no country where the spirit of live and let live is more fully
operative, none where charges of political corruption are less common,
and none where the spirit of co-operation for public ends is more
general. The "ins" at present call themselves Reformers, he "outs"
Liberals, but, so far as I have been able to make out, Mr. Massey's
Government retains its majority far more on account of the popularity of
himself and his colleagues than because the general policy for which
they stand differs very materially from that which would be adopted if
Sir Joseph Ward and his Liberal supporters were to return to power. In
consequence, again, of practically all voters having a stake in the
country, of one kind or another, whether in the form of house-property,
land or money, the administration they elect is intensely
individualistic, and probably there is no spot on earth where property
is more respected, or personal rights more secure.
The financial position of the Dominion is also relatively good, for
although New Zealand's public debt bears a proportion to its population
not far different from the corresponding proportion in England, there
are two factors which make the situation of the Dominion definitely more
favourable. One of these is the larger potential margin of taxability in
New Zealand, owing to the greater individual prosperity of its
inhabitants and the extent of its still undeveloped resources. The other
is that so much of New Zealand's public debt has been invested in
remunerative public works. Out of a total debt of £194,000,000 no less
than £40,000,000 has been put into the acquisition or construction of
the three thousand five hundred miles of railway existing in the
country, an investment which itself pays the whole of the interest
charges concerned. Indeed, at present rates for labour and materials,
this happy country possesses a property worth probably more than twice
what it has cost to obtain.
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 constituents 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 passengers 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 passing 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 passengers, 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 passenger rates, I understand that the
present New Zealand flat-rate is twopence per mile for "upper class"
passengers, and one and one-third pence per mile for "lower class,"
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 class 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 passed 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 passing. 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-class public school in England.
One of the features of the institution 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 assembled 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 passed 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 assembled. 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 participating 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 noble 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 shore, 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 grassy 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 passed, 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 assembled 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. Massey,
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. Massey, 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 passenger 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_ passed
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 foreshore.
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 sparsely 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 passed through its spacious thoroughfares. "Generous"
seemed to be the adjective most appropriate alike to the broad outlines
of the architecture, for Melbourne despises sky-scrapers, 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 levée
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 masses 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
attitude 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 sparse 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
institution 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 municipal 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 butter
and cheese, large quantities 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 passed 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 title of the "Café 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 assembled 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 shell-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 quantities 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 circumstances 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.
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 "God 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
passed, 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 passed 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 associated 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.
[Illustration: JUTLAND DAY AT MELBOURNE]
[Illustration: 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 attitude 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 constitution, 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 masses. 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 substitute 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 assertions 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 municipal 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 association 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 circumstances. 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 mass of
people who rushed up to say farewell, and assailed 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 space 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 shore 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 institution, which is well arranged and up to date. The
buildings include airy dormitories, comfortable study rooms, convenient
lecture halls, commodious laboratories, and spacious gymnasium and
gun-room, and are built round a roomy grass "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 spaces. 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. Brass bands banged out the
National Anthem, and the usual petition 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
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.
Addresses were presented, on the way, at the towns of Parramatta and
Windsor, while the residents, along fifty miles of the river traversed
by the Royal launch, assembled at the water's edge and waved flags and
cheered as the Prince went through what is probably one of the most
beautiful water-ways in the world. At Hawkesbury River Landing, where
the Prince rejoined the train and met a number of mothers and widows of
men fallen in the war, the entire station had been decorated by the
unpaid labour of those working upon the line. At Fassifern, which he
went through after nightfall, the entire valley was lighted up by
bonfires, and the station and wharf at the small township of Toronto,
where the Prince spent a night at the house of Mr. Duncan McGeachie, was
a fantasy of Chinese lanterns.
The following morning the Prince received and replied to an address on
the local pier which juts out into the beautiful Macquarie lake. Here,
waving over his head, was a Canadian flag, presented to this Australian
namesake by the capital city of Ontario. From Toronto the Prince was
taken by train past a number of the pit-heads of one of the richest
mining districts in Australia, at that time supplying coal at the very
reasonable price of seventeen shillings per ton f.o.b. on the seaboard.
Every heap of slack and every railway truck, as the Prince's train went
by, had upon it a contingent of miners who cheered in a way to warm the
coldest heart.
Newcastle, the second city of New South Wales, was reached at noon. The
Prince, on alighting, was received by the Mayor and Corporation,
supported by a smart guard-of-honour of naval cadets and an immense
crowd of spectators. He crossed the harbour by launch and landed on the
low marshy foreshore of Walsh Island. Here he shook hands with a long
line of returned men, employed in the shipbuilding yards, who gave him a
most cordial reception. Similar scenes were repeated, at least half a
dozen times in the course of the day, at the entrance to each set of
works. At Walsh Island, over which he was conducted by Mr. Estell, State
Minister of Works, and Mr. Cutler, General Manager, New South Wales
Shipbuilding, he launched a fine six-thousand-ton freight steamer, built
by state enterprise on behalf of the Commonwealth Government. The
launching was to have taken place at flood tide, but, owing to
postponement of the Prince's visit, had to be done at the ebb. A strong
west wind on the ship's quarter added to the difficulty of the
undertaking which was entirely overcome, the ship taking the water
beautifully.
These vessels are an interesting example of state enterprise in New
South Wales. They are designed to carry produce away from Australia, and
to bring British emigrants back. There was at the time plenty of demand
for their services, as thousands of would-be settlers were awaiting
passages in the old country, and wheat was rotting in Australian
granaries that was badly wanted to reduce prices of bread in Europe. The
claim was made for them that they were being built at rates materially
lower than those offering for the construction of similar vessels in any
dockyard in the world at the time the contracts were given out. The
cost, I was told, ranged from £31 per ton until the last rise in wages
took place, which brought the rate up to about £35. At the time of the
Prince's visit no workman employed in the yard was receiving less than
fourteen shillings and fourpence daily, the average being very much
higher than this figure. The vessel launched was the fifth of six
uniform steamers under state construction. The four previously completed
had been rated "A1" at Lloyds.
After leaving the Government dockyard, the Prince was taken over works
of private enterprise of even larger significance, the steel-furnaces,
rolling-mills and rod-mills of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company,
which are also located in Newcastle. Here he was conducted by Mr.
Delprat, general manager, and Mr. Baker, local manager, and saw the
whole of the processes, from the emptying of three open-hearth blast
furnaces, to the conversion of glowing molten steel into 72-lb. railway
rails, of which these works claim to have manufactured, last year, some
hundred and sixty thousand tons. The capacity of the works is very much
larger even than this amount, two separate strikes having reduced
out-turn in this period. The price paid for these rails by the various
state railways in Australia, which now depend almost entirely upon this
source of supply, was thirteen pounds per ton. I learnt also that the
average pay of the labour employed in the works was about one pound
sterling daily per man. The profit upon the £4,000,000 capital of the
concern is such that its one-pound shares were quoted in the Sydney
Stock Exchange the day the Prince went over the works at sixty-four
shillings apiece.
After seeing the steel-works, the Prince was conducted by Mr. MacDougall
over a neighbouring wire and nail factory, which claims to be now
filling the entire demand of Australia for plain-wire fencing. The firm
was preparing to set up additional machinery upon a large scale to make
barbed wire which Australia has hitherto bought in Europe. The
significance of this development is considerable, since barbed wire
forms the top, as smooth wire does the lower strands, of fences of which
hundreds of thousands of miles are already in existence in Australia,
and millions of miles more have still to be built.
After leaving the wire-works, the Prince drove in procession, through
decorated, crowded, cheering streets, to a sheltered park overlooking
the Pacific, where thirty thousand people had assembled and Mayor
Gibson read a civic address. In the course of his reply the Prince dwelt
upon the remarkable industrial development of Newcastle. "Your harbour,"
he noted, "your shipping facilities and your manufactures have greatly
enhanced the importance this district has possessed from the earliest
date on account of its rich deposits of coal."
Leaving Newcastle in the afternoon by train, the Prince returned to
Sydney through a pleasant land of tidy orange plantations and ragged
blue-gum bush. On the way he held a reception in the city of Gosford,
and saw further reaches of the beautiful Hawkesbury river. A record
crowd cheered him at Sydney railway station, and along the route to the
harbour where he rejoined the _Renown_.
XV
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
The Prince went from Sydney two thousand miles by sea to Western
Australia, a state as large as the combined areas of England, France,
Germany, Austria, Spain, and Holland, with a population of less than
half a million people to develop this stupendous territory.
On the way, in traversing the Australian Bight, that borders the
southern coast of the continent, the _Renown_ encountered weather
remarkably bad even for this region of frequent gales. Green seas swept
over forecastle and quarter-deck alike. The engines were slowed down.
The big ship strained, clanked, and groaned, but proved her
seaworthiness magnificently. The waves were still high in King George's
Sound outside Albany, where owing to shallow water the _Renown_ had to
lie four miles from land in a wide and but partially sheltered bay.
Where the shore could be seen it lay in rocky grass-grown hummocks, on
which the surf beat heavily. A picket boat conveyed the Prince and his
staff through a narrow entrance into the small landlocked harbour, where
they landed on a desolate pier, wet decorations flapping dismally in
cold wind and spray. The entire population had turned out, however,
despite the weather. The Governor of Western Australia, Sir Francis
Newdegate, the State Premier, Mr. Mitchell, and a number of other
members of the Government awaited the Prince upon the pier. The Mayor of
Albany read an address from a wind-swept platform in front of a town
hall prominently situated on a low hill facing a wide street that led
down to the harbour. The crowd here was a varied one. It included
traders, merchants, commission-agents, and manufacturers belonging to
Albany itself, also large numbers of fruit-growers and farmers from
stations in the interior of this prosperous land of orchards and
wheatfields. Gatherings of returned soldiers and school children, also
nurses and other war-workers flanked the general assemblage. A night
train journey followed through rolling country and bush, with arable
fields, apple orchards and orange gardens which looked most attractive
next morning in brilliant sunshine in the freshest of rain-washed air.
The Prince was cheered by gatherings at many wayside stations, including
Parkerville, where a number of children, in charge of gentle-faced
sisters in black robes, sang patriotic songs in the chill morning air as
the train went through. About noon he alighted at Perth, capital of
Western Australia, an extraordinarily beautiful city, with wide streets
and solid masonry houses, situated on the low banks of the picturesque
Swan River--here so wide as to be almost a lagoon.
The streets were decorated and lined with cheerful people. Those who
received the Prince included the Governor, the State Premier, the Mayor,
Mr. Lathlain, the Chief Justice, Sir R. MacMillan, the leader of the
State Opposition, Mr. P. Collier, the Chairman of the Reception
Committee, General Sir Talbot Hobbs, also most of the other members of
the local houses of Parliament and of the Perth municipal corporation.
The Prince went through the usual inspection of naval and military
guards-of-honour, and then proceeded by motor-car through the city,
which looked delightfully fresh in bright winter sunshine. The crowd was
lined up behind wooden barriers on either side of a lane kept by
blue-jackets from H.M.A.S. _Sydney_, also men of the Royal Australian
Naval Reserve, and returned soldiers, cadets and scouts. The route taken
was some two miles in length. It lay through the principal business and
residential streets, the crowd extending the entire distance, clapping,
cheering, laughing and flag-waving as the Prince went by. The procession
disappeared inside the shady grounds of Government House, a place of
green lawns and rose-bushes blossoming in the shade of banana-trees and
Insignis pines.
Later on H.R.H. visited the principal theatre, where he addressed
several thousand returned sailors, soldiers and nurses. He congratulated
them on their services, alike during the war and since their return
home, where they had shown that they stood for the maintenance of law
and order. From the theatre the Prince went on to a big civic luncheon
in the Town Hall, where Mayor Lathlain told an appreciative audience of
their guest's keen personal interest in the welfare of the people of the
Dominions. He also mentioned the fact that the Prince had come as
representing "the dear old Motherland, the heart of the Empire, the land
upon whose Navy so largely depends Australia's ability to carry on her
peaceful avocations." H.R.H. was loudly cheered when he rose to reply,
and his pleasant little speech evoked the greatest enthusiasm. He
felicitated Perth and Western Australia generally upon their wonderful
progress, of which much had been achieved within the memory of the
present generation. He said he knew Western Australia's record in the
Great War, and desired also to congratulate its women--alike those who
had gone abroad and those who had worked at home. An investiture at
Government House and a State ball completed the day's work.
The visit to Perth lasted about a week. It had several memorable
features, among them a review, when, in a wide thoroughfare bordered by
pleasant residences bearing such British names as Ilfracombe, Warwick
House, and St. George's Terrace, the Prince stood, framed in a
background of crowded grandstands, taking the salutes of a number of
thousands of Australians, including a solid contingent of blue-jackets,
a yet larger one of returned soldiers, some in khaki, some in mufti,
cohorts of cadets and boy scouts, both naval and military, phalanxes of
red cross nurses in smart white dresses, and girl guides in a dense
column of blue, followed by what seemed an endless procession of
children, every school within ten miles of Perth being represented.
From the review the Prince went to Mayor Lathlain's "people's
garden-party" in the National Park. Here upon a dais beneath a statue of
his great grandmother, Queen Victoria, in the shelter of big
timber-trees, commanding a magnificent view of the city and the river,
he stood for an hour while the people of Perth streamed past in column.
Babies were carried pick-a-back on their fathers' shoulders, men doffed
hats, mothers and daughters waved hands, handkerchiefs or flags, as
they passed. One old lady delayed the line to shake hands with him, but
accepted the Admiral's clasp as a makeshift, the Prince being too busy
taking off his hat and returning eight smiles at a time to have a hand
to spare. Everybody was so engrossed gazing at the visitor, every head
turning on its neck for a long backward glance after the dais had been
passed, that hardly an eye was drawn off when a noisy aeroplane, which
had been stunting unnoticed in the Prince's honour overhead, suddenly
swooped out of intolerable oblivion to within a hundred feet of him.
A further notable function was the State banquet at Perth Government
House. Here were present all the leaders of thought and enterprise in
Western Australia, politicians, administrators, squatters, settlers,
traders, naval and military commanders, ministers, judges, ten V.C.'s,
and everybody else who counted. Grace was said by that soldierly
episcopal, Archbishop Riley, who, as a Chaplain-in-Chief of the
Australian forces in the field, is known and loved from one end of
Australia to the other. The Prince's health was proposed by Premier
Mitchell. After it had been drunk with the usual cheering and waving of
napkins, H.R.H. made a speech. "Your policy," he said, "is to draw
settlers from the old country, at the same time ensuring that they shall
not suffer from lack of experience when they are first put upon the land
of their adopted country. I am delighted to hear that you are giving to
Imperial ex-service men the same chance of starting life upon the land
when they arrive in this state, as you give your own diggers. I can
think of no more admirable way than this of continuing the splendid
traditions of the war and maintaining our united British spirit." It
was a note which has often been sounded since to appreciation and
applause throughout the Empire.
One of the expeditions made from the state capital was by launch down
the wide placid reaches of the Swan River, still the haunt of the black
swan, emblem of Western Australia, to hold a reception at the port of
Fremantle, some ten miles distant, where the river joins the sea. No
black swans graced the occasion, only an occasional porpoise leapt
alongside the launch as it entered the estuary. The entire population of
the countryside lined the banks as the vessel went past, every village,
settlement, and factory _en route_ contributing its quota, which in the
case of saw-mills, cold-storage plant and electricity works, consisted
almost entirely of workmen.
Arrived at Fremantle the entire city was found awaiting the Prince,
crowding the pier and lined up along the streets. Naval and military
guards-of-honour, with bands, saluted. The chairman and members of the
Harbour Trust and the Mayor and members of the city council stood
bare-headed as he made his landing. From the pier he was conducted in
procession, first to a picturesque display by thousands of children, and
afterwards to the big "Anzac" military hospital where convalescent
patients were drawn up with doctors and nurses outside, and where the
warmth of the cheers that came from the wards, where he went round the
beds of those too ill to move, was more than touching.
Speaking later at a civic luncheon, the Prince looked forward to
Fremantle's eventually becoming one of the leading harbours in the
Empire, the importance of its position as the first port of call on the
western seaboard being emphasized by the completion of the
trans-continental railway. Returning to Perth later in the afternoon by
motor-car, he was taken through the magnificent National Park, a
well-kept forest upland, full of fine timber, including a whole avenue,
each individual tree dedicated to some West Australian soldier fallen in
the war. Just before entering this park, the Prince passed some
thousands of children drawn from schools in the Cottesloe, Claremont and
Subiaco municipal areas, who stood hardily in the rain in the open to
wave their flags and sing their patriotic songs.
Still another rewarding expedition was by car to some of the fruit
gardens near Perth. Orange groves in the dips and apple orchards on the
rising slopes made odd neighbours. The apple-trees were bare, but
oranges hung in the golden profusion of Malta or Seville. Fifty acres of
this fruit in some cases meant a clear income of over a thousand pounds
per annum to the fortunate owner after paying for all labour other than
his own. The orchard zone was near the coast. Further inland is one of
the wide wheat-belts which feed Australia and furnish a surplus for
Great Britain. Beyond this again begin the cattle-stations of the Great
North-West. Perth was buzzing with the Great North-West. A commission
composed of parliamentarians and publicists had just returned, loaded
with information and optimism, from a two-thousand mile expedition
through it by motor. In addition the highways were blocked and the views
were obscured by mountainous men, full of deep cocktails and deliberate
conversation, who had descended from this region for the occasion of the
Prince's visit. Some of these genial giants worked, as private pasture,
areas ranging to over two million acres. They seemed in themselves a
sufficient indication of what the country could produce, and an adequate
reason for railway enterprise in their direction. In this state land
nationalizes may note the character of the movement towards small
holdings. It has recently been laid down that no peasant or other
proprietor shall obtain a fresh grant of more than one million acres.
Not a long step toward communistic property, but possibly a beginning.
XVI
WHEAT, GOLD, AND LOGGING
The state saw-mills and logging-camps of Pemberton, about a hundred
miles southward along the coast, made an important fixture from Perth.
On this occasion the Prince was accompanied by the Premier and other
members of the West Australian State Government and was conducted by Mr.
Humphries, state saw-mills manager. He was taken over mills where the
enduring Karri trees in trunks sixty feet long and seven feet through
were being sliced by revolving saws into uniform railway sleepers for
export. He also made his way, in heavy rain, partly by railway and
partly on foot, up gorges of great natural beauty in the heart of a
dripping forest, himself took a hand with sinewy axe-men and sturdy
sawyers, in the felling of these giant trees, and saw their subsequent
extraction from swampy thickets by teams each comprising, in some cases,
twenty-four splendid locally bred Clydesdale horses, in others a score
and a half of equally fine Australian bullocks.
In the presence of a gathering of the entire logging force and their
wives and children, who gave him the most cordial reception, the Prince
afterwards presided at a local log-chopping contest in which champion
woodmen from all parts of Western Australia competed. The excitement of
the forest community of onlookers was intense, and considerable sums
changed hands upon the result. The men were given trunks of as nearly as
possible equal thickness and hardness to hew through. The less
proficient received a certain number of seconds' start. Axes fell with
marvellous rapidity and precision, slices rather than chips flew
incredible distances in pre-ordained directions--it was a remarkable
exhibition of muscle rivalling machinery. One of the long-handicap men
eventually won from the scratch competitor, a magnificent young giant
who was about a second behind. The logs cut through were about fifteen
inches in diameter. Most of the axes used bore the names of American
manufacturers, and had edges still razor-like after the contest was
over.
A fine exhibition of table-vegetables, grown in pockets in the
neighbouring hills, was also shown to the Prince. Rich land close to the
railway suitable for market-gardening and already cleared is to be had
in this region, it seems, at £25 per acre. It is claimed to produce per
acre from six to nine tons of potatoes, which were fetching on the spot
£12 per ton. The principal prize-winner was a Scotch gardener, who told
the Prince he had come but six years previously without any capital
whatever, and that his holding was now clear of debt and valued at
£1,300.
On the way back to Perth the Prince had his first and only experience
during the tour of a railway accident. Speaking of it in a reply to the
toast of his health at a public dinner at Perth, a few days after it
occurred, Premier Mitchell expressed thankfulness that the Prince had
escaped unhurt. His Royal Highness in reply treated the matter from a
humorous point of view. He did not regret, he said, to have been able to
add a harmless railway accident to his Australian experiences. The
mishap was very much nearer to being a disastrous one, however, than
this would suggest. It occurred on a single-track, three-foot-six-inch
line, in swampy Westralian forest, some ten miles from the township of
Bridgetown. The Royal train was a heavy one, consisting of some nine
corridor sleeping coaches. It had passed over the spot, which was on a
curve, the same morning on the way to Pemberton. Heavy rain fell in the
course of the day, and on the return journey at about three o'clock in
the afternoon, the track had become so soft that the rails gave way.
The train was, fortunately, only going at about fifteen miles an hour at
the time, having had to slow down owing to cattle on the lines. The rear
saloon, which was occupied by H.R.H. and Admiral Halsey, seems to have
been the first to leave the line. The saloon immediately in front, which
contained the remainder of the Royal staff and most of the state party,
afterwards followed it. The derailed wheels then bumped along over the
sleepers, which they cut up in the most complete manner, the line for
two hundred and thirty yards being converted into a tangled mass of
twisted rails and broken splinters. The engine-driver felt the jolting
and applied the brakes. This happily took the way off the train, for a
moment later the two derailed vehicles rolled over the soft embankment,
here a couple of feet high, and lay on the ground below, all their
wheels in the air. The train came to a standstill, the coupling between
the wrecked and the unwrecked portions remaining intact. The Prince and
his staff were still inside. Heads quickly appeared through windows now
pointing to the sky, and the occupants of the front saloons, who had
hastily jumped out, learnt to their relief that nobody had been
seriously hurt. One after another the members of the Royal party,
including the Premier and other state ministers, were extricated through
the windows, now the only means of egress.
While this was happening smoke began to issue from the first of the two
overturned saloons. Investigation showed that this was from the cooks'
galley, which, in falling, had set the saloon on fire. The flames were
promptly extinguished with water brought from the portion of the train
still upon the rails. Ten minutes later the Prince, who had declined to
move till he had collected his overturned papers, cheerfully climbed
out, being thus, sailor-like, the last to leave the wreck. He had been
talking to Admiral Halsey when the derailment took place, and was pinned
between overturned pieces of furniture when the coach rolled over, thus
escaping falling through the plate-glass window, a thing which occurred
to several members of the party, including the Premier. The only person
at all materially hurt, however, was Surgeon-Commander Newport, the
Prince's doctor, who cut his shin rather badly when he went through the
window, an incredibly small casualty list for the nature of the
accident.
All the fittings that were movable flew through the air when the upset
took place. A large mirror in the Prince's compartment was amongst the
articles which crashed to the ground. The mix-up and disorder of broken
furniture, crockery and luggage inside was most complete.
The Prince himself, at the time as later, made nothing of the matter. He
caught up a cocktail-mixer as he climbed through his overturned dining
saloon, and waved it out of the window by which he extricated himself.
He congratulated the Chief of the Staff, with mock seriousness, at
having at last arranged something for him that was not on the official
programme. He laughed away the anxious expressions of regret of the
railway and other state officials responsible in the affair, and did his
utmost to convey the impression that the overturning of the Royal train
was an occurrence so trifling as to be hardly worth mentioning.
The party were soon transferred to the front portion of the train which
was still upon the rails. The wreckage was cut loose, and the journey
was continued to Bridgetown, the next halting place on the programme.
Here the Prince carried through, in the most undisturbed manner, the
whole of the prearranged ceremonial of inspecting guards-of-honour,
shaking hands with returned soldiers, greeting relations of the fallen,
receiving war-workers, reviewing assemblies of children, and replying to
a municipal address. He made no mention of the railway accident in his
speech, but excused himself for having arrived late, as if this had been
due to a fault of his own.
It was not possible, however, to prevent the circulation of news of the
occurrence, and it made a sensation throughout Australia. Telegrams of
congratulation at his escape poured in from every state and principal
town. Thanksgiving services were held in the leading churches, and
everywhere it was recognized that what might have been a disaster had
been very narrowly avoided, and that the Prince had shown much spirit
in a situation of no little danger. His return to Perth was a triumphal
procession. Every wayside station was crowded with cheering people as
the train ran through. Perth received him with open arms. A bigger
assemblage than ever welcomed him as he drove from the railway station
to Government House, and the crowd plainly showed its impression that he
had taken a bit of rough luck in the best Australian manner.
Finally departing from Perth, a few days later, the Prince was sped on
his way by large cheering crowds which not only lined the streets as he
drove to the railway station, but every wayside platform as well. The
route soon left the plain by the seashore and entered foothills clothed
with shady _jarrah_ forest. Thence it mounted to the spacious uplands of
the green rolling wheat-zone, where the young crop carpeted the expanse
for a hundred miles along the way.
West Australia raises some twelve million bushels of wheat annually, of
which nine millions are exported. It is estimated that the out-turn could
be increased to forty million bushels if more population were available,
as thirty-four million acres have been reported suitable for wheat
growing in this state, and eleven bushels per acre are looked upon as an
average yield. A thousand acres, which can be secured on very easy
terms, is an average holding. Such a farm worked by one man would
ordinarily have three hundred acres under wheat, and would also support
two hundred and fifty sheep. Many properties of this kind are in the
hands of owners who began without either capital or education, yet have
paid off all mortgages and are living in very substantial comfort. The
children start under infinitely more favourable circumstances than
their parents, for not only are savings usually available to establish
them in business on their own account, but they have the advantage of an
excellent system of state-aided education which provides a school
wherever a minimum of ten children can be brought together. Public help
is also given to pay for qualified resident teachers in localities too
isolated to enable the minimum school to be assembled. A mileage
allowance is paid by the State for children who have to travel any
considerable distance to school. Education department correspondence
courses are also conducted with surprisingly satisfactory results for
the benefit of youngsters on farms out of reach of any of the other aids
to learning. It is not only the children who benefit. Their parents
often learn much themselves in endeavouring to help their families to
assimilate the lessons that the correspondence teacher at a distance is
sending by post to the schoolroom under the hayrick or by the evening
fire.
An hour after leaving Perth the track picked up the Kalgoorlie water
main, which thereafter ran beside the rails, a half-buried steel conduit
thirty inches thick, all the way to the goldfields. This water main is
one of the most wonderful in the world. It daily delivers at the mines
five million gallons of pure water, after conveying it 350 miles from
the Mundaring Reservoir. This reservoir has a masonry weir a hundred
feet high, which has been built right across a river-valley, thereby
impounding the water and forming a lake seven miles long, holding four
seasons' supply. The difficulty of building the works was much increased
by the height up which the water has to be forced in the course of its
journey. In all, the pipe-line climbs 1,290 feet between Mundaring
Reservoir and Bulla Bulling, the highest point upon the circuit, a lift
which requires some of the most powerful pumps in the world to
negotiate. The installation is essential for the people of Kalgoorlie,
whose city is in the midst of the desert, with no other source of supply
fit for human consumption, as the water that accumulates in the mine
workings is definitely brackish, though cattle will drink it in some
cases.
Fine rain shaded off into showers as the train proceeded eastward.
Further on grey skies were replaced by brilliant sunshine. The country
grew continually drier; wheatfields changed into scraggy forest. The
forest thinned out and was succeeded by vast expanses of nondescript
scrub and desolate bluish salt bush, through which the train sped
throughout the night. When the Prince awoke the following morning he was
in desert country. Coolgardie, his first stepping-off place, proved to
be a dying city. Its original sixteen thousand inhabitants are now
represented by only a few hundreds. The majority have moved to the still
active mines of Kalgoorlie. Many lie in France, for no community
enlisted more freely or fought more bravely than did the men of this
far-off town. All that were left had turned out to meet the Prince. It
was a curious assemblage, largely consisting of men past work and women
and children, who still cling to wooden shanties fast falling into
decay, amidst spoil heaps and ruins of fine public buildings, a great
place once but a sad spectacle now. The big water main enters
Coolgardie, and is sparingly tapped there, but its contents are too
precious to be used for irrigation by the way, and without water for
this purpose it was impossible for Coolgardie to follow the example of
Ballarat in turning its miners into cultivators when the gold gave out.
The shy buzzard of the desert now perches fearlessly where once was
heavy traffic. The wild dingo has come in from the plains, and makes its
home in what were once busy crushing mills and palatial business houses.
Soon sand will cover what remains, and the salt bush will be supreme as
aforetime.
Kalgoorlie, where the Prince next alighted, proved to be a very
different place. Here twenty-four thousand people were living in
prosperity, and are likely to continue in this position so long as their
reef goes on yielding its harvest of yellow ore. The visitor was
welcomed by a big crowd, including a large body of returned soldiers, of
whom two wore the Victoria Cross. He was given a cheerful luncheon by
the Chamber of Mines, at which the large company present were waited on
by daughters of the principal residents, who prepared, cooked and served
a banquet which could not have been surpassed anywhere. In the course of
his reply to a civic address later on, "I am looking forward," the
Prince said, "to my stay in this wonderful goldbearing area. I have
heard with admiration of the pioneering pluck and engineering skill
which have enabled this great city to be built and provided with all the
necessary services of a large population in country where water is so
scarce. I particularly prize the opportunity of making acquaintance with
the people who have placed this miracle of development to the credit of
British industry and enterprise. I am also much interested in the
terminus of the great Trans-Australian Railway which links you with the
eastern States of the Commonwealth."
Before leaving Kalgoorlie the Prince visited workings on the forty-foot
thick reef of the "golden mile" which is being gradually nibbled away.
This reef, since its discovery a quarter of a century ago, has produced
seventy-four million sterling of gold. The profit of working it has not
kept pace with the increased cost of labour and machinery, but continues
to be appreciable, and large masses of paying quartz are still in
sight.
XVII
THE NULLARBOR PLAIN
At Kalgoorlie the Prince left the simply equipped three-feet-six-inch
gauge of the West Australian State Railway, and continued his journey,
at forty miles an hour, on a luxuriously fitted and smooth-running train
on the standard gauge of the Trans-Australian line.
In charge of the train was Mr. Norris Bell, the eminent engineer who
controlled the construction of the line, and is now running it in such a
way that, despite almost total absence of local traffic, it is nearly
paying its working expenses, a remarkable achievement considering the
desolate nature of the country through which it passes. The railway
connects the populous States of Victoria, New South Wales and South
Australia, with the vast and potentially rich, but presently
undeveloped, western territories. It is one of those imaginative
national enterprises undertaken by young countries, and is bound to be
justified by the generous policy of land development which usually
accompanies, though at present it draws its dividends from the future.
The Nullarbor plain through which it passes is so devoid of rain that it
not only possesses no streams, but its level expanse is unscarred by
even a dry water-course. It is almost absolutely flat for several
hundreds of miles, after which it undulates slightly, the folds being in
some cases occupied by lakes or tanks, most of which are so salt that
they are useless for either drinking or irrigation. Their banks form
desolate patches of gleaming white on the horizon, owing to the
crystallization of masses of salt upon them. In places where fresh water
is obtainable, it has usually to be pumped up from some depth below
ground. Wells are so far between that the train has to carry tanks large
enough to water the engine for two hundred miles without replenishment.
The portion of the plain in which the Prince found himself, the morning
after leaving Kalgoorlie, was of red earth thickly sprinkled with white
stones of irregular shape, shaded by bunchy grey salt-bushes the size of
cabbages. These salt-bushes, dry and dusty as they appear, afford quite
good fodder for sheep. The plain, therefore, almost entirely rainless as
it is, only requires the provision of drinking-water to enable it to be
put to profitable use. Sheep-stations already exist upon it, wherever it
has been found possible to tap subsoil water sweet enough for the sheep
to drink, and with growing knowledge of this remarkable region, and
improved methods of purifying saline springs, it is hoped gradually to
convert much of what is now unproductive into sheep-raising areas.
As the train rushed onward through the day, the stones became smaller
and eventually disappeared, and the salt-bushes grew gradually larger.
One lost the impression of moving through an interminable cabbage patch,
and felt as on a ship. The salt-bushes rippled over a calm expanse of
ocean extending on all sides to a far horizon.
In the afternoon a halt was made and the Prince alighted and paid a
visit to a rude encampment of aborigines, who had travelled a hundred
miles on foot to meet him. They performed a number of weird ceremonial
dances before him, and gave an exhibition of their skill in the throwing
of boomerangs and spears. The performers were almost completely naked
men and boys, painted all over with red and other brilliant patches on a
whitish ground, whose only garment was a scanty rag of dirty cotton
cloth that could hardly be said even to encompass the waist. The dances
were slow, the performers sometimes stealing in single file round a
circle, sometimes springing as if to the attack, the while incantations
were chanted by miserable bundles of savage humanity, feminine as well
as masculine, who squatted upon the ground. The boomerang-throwing was a
much more lively affair. The air hummed with sharp wooden blades the
size and weight of reaping-hooks. About a dozen performers operated
simultaneously and each threw quite a number of these blades in quick
succession to immense heights, where they hovered like hawks, eventually
to descend with uncanny speed in a series of crooked swirls and
side-long rushes. The circles described were such that quite a wide area
was swept by flying blades each of which travelled on a complicated
orbit of its own, of extraordinary speed, the sharp edge continually
leading. It was explained that these boomerangs were of the hunting
type, and were used in practice chiefly against flights of duck, the
birds taking them for hawks and keeping low and thus within range
when they were in the air. The spear-throwing was also interesting. The
spears consisted of straight wooden shafts, like slim but heavy
bean-sticks, with a tapering charred point sharpened to acuteness, and
tail winged with a thin wooden slip the size of a biggish paper-knife.
These spears were thrown with marvellous force and precision, with an
action like that of overhand bowling, a sack stuffed with salt-bush
branches and crudely painted to represent a human face, being transfixed
again and again, in the centre, at sixty yards. These wretched people
appear to be rapidly dying out despite liberal grants from the
Commonwealth and State Governments to educate and feed them. In the
south they seem to be entirely incapable of learning even how to cook or
wash or build themselves shelters. In the north they are less degraded
and find employment on cattle-stations where some of them make excellent
stock-drivers, learning to ride well and handle animals.
[Illustration: CROSSING THE NULLARBOR PLAIN]
[Illustration: ABORIGINAL DANCE]
The camp visited by the Prince was typical of the lowest amongst them.
It was being looked after by a cultivated Australian lady who was
devoting herself to the services of these poor creatures, who seemed to
be entirely dependent upon her, so incapable were they of fending for
themselves in any practical manner beyond that of adding to the larder
by the killing of a limited number of small animals. When left to
themselves, we were told, they seldom had more than twenty-four hours'
food supply within sight. Their intelligence does not even extend to the
keeping of provisions when supplied with them in any quantity beyond
what they can devour upon the spot.
Another picturesque incident occurred about sunset, when the train
stopped at an artesian boring to take in a fresh supply of water. Here
some twenty well-conditioned camels were grazing upon the salt-bushes,
in charge of two intelligent natives of Rawalpindi, India. These
turbaned Punjabis, who spoke Hindustani with a distinct Australian
accent, so long had they been in the country, were marching the camels
overland to Western Australia, where they hoped to sell them at a good
price for transport work in the bush. The men had evidently prospered.
They said they had found Australia a good country, though they looked
forward to retiring eventually to their own land. Several Eurasian
children were with them. It was a reminder of those racial problems of
which the people of Australia take constant thought when they determine
to develop the natural resources of their wonderful land, as far as may
be, by white labour alone. It is no disparagement of the Oriental to say
that he is at his best when he is entirely of the East, just as the
white man is at his best when he mates with those of his own country and
race, a point upon which Australia, at all events, is thoroughly
convinced.
XVIII
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The Prince alighted at sundown at the shipping centre Port Augusta, at
the head of Spencer gulf, and was welcomed to South Australia by Mr.
Barwell, State Premier, and other members of the Cabinet. A civic
reception was held, and the party changed over from the standard gauge
train of the Trans-Australian Railway, into a train on the narrow gauge
of South Australia, which was standing in the station profusely
decorated for the occasion. A start was then made on the two hundred and
sixty miles that lay between that point and Adelaide, throughout the
whole of which distance, we afterwards learnt, a guard had been placed
on every bridge and culvert. The people of South Australia were in no
mind that the Prince should run the risk of further accident.
Civic receptions, at which numbers of returned men and other war workers
were drawn up, and all the inhabitants turned out, were given at various
places _en route_, including Quorn, Peterborough, Terowie, and Gawler.
The first part of the way was over the picturesque Pichirichi pass,
thirteen hundred feet above sea level. After descending on the other
side the narrow gauge gave place to the broad five-feet-three-inch
track, which connects Adelaide with Melbourne. Sir Archibald Weigall,
Governor of South Australia, soon afterwards joined the train. The
latter part of the route was through flat and extraordinarily fertile
farming country.
Adelaide was reached about noon. Here a large proportion of the
inhabitants of the province had assembled to welcome the Prince. A
procession was formed at the railway station, where guards-of-honour
were drawn up. The Prince shared a motor with Sir Archibald Weigall. Mr.
Barwell and other members of the South Australian Government occupied
cars behind. A well-mounted escort of light horse, in khaki, jingled on
either side. The entire route, some three miles in length through the
principal streets, had been elaborately decorated, and was lined ten
deep the whole way with cheerful crowds. Entering the spacious and
solidly built King George's Street, where magnificent bodies of Flying
Corps, Engineers, Naval Reserve, and other returned men kept the
barricades, the Prince was greeted by numbers of lady war-workers, in
fresh white uniforms, who had public-spiritedly reopened, for the
benefit of the blue-jackets and marines on the various visiting
war-vessels, the "Cheer-up club" which did such good service during the
war. Cadets, red cross workers, and masses of medalled returned men
lined the space opposite the town hall, where Mayor Moulder read a civic
address, to which the Prince replied, describing his now nearly
half-completed travels in the Commonwealth as a most memorable
experience, a statement heartily endorsed by all who shared them. From
the town hall the procession went on to the working-men's quarter,
where the reception was as enthusiastic as anywhere. It was also
noticeable that although only school-children, of whom there were
incredible numbers, lined the route for at least half a mile in this
part of the city, order was as well kept as in thoroughfares elsewhere,
where regulars or volunteers were lined up.
Outside the big market in Rendal Street, beneath a wide arch built on
one side with vegetables, and on the other with apples and oranges, a
pretty function occurred, a little girl, daughter of the oldest gardener
doing business with the market, presenting the Prince with a bouquet,
and a small boy, the son of the oldest packer, with a basket of fruit,
offerings that symbolized pleasantly enough the very considerable
business done in South Australia in garden produce.
Further on, in North Terrace, a more touching spectacle was presented
where hundreds of beds from the hospitals, each with a nurse in
attendance, lined the route, and the Prince paused for a word of
greeting with the patients. Medical students, apprentices, and yet more
cadets, were lined up near the fine stone buildings of the Art Gallery,
the University and the Exhibition, which are here grouped together. The
procession ultimately entered and ended in the quiet gardens of
Government House, where H.R.H. was to spend the week of his visit.
Amongst functions which took place at Adelaide during the next few days,
was a state dinner at the leading hotel, at which three hundred sat
down, including everybody of importance in the South Australian
Government. Mr. Barwell proposed, and Mr. Gunn, spokesman of the Labour
Party, and Leader of the Opposition in the State Legislature, seconded
the toast of the Prince's health. The Prince replied and the proceedings
throughout were of the usual cordial nature. A climax was reached after
the dinner was over, and it was time for the Royal guest to get home to
bed. It was then discovered that the streets outside were so solidly
packed with people that it was quite impossible either for the
motor-cars to reach the door or for the party to walk to where they were
posted. The Prince was brought back into the building, whence he
addressed the crowd, at first from an upper window, and afterwards from
a roof on which he climbed so as to be nearer the throng. In the end, a
way out was found through a side street, by a door much affected by
bridal couples.
In the course of his speech at this dinner, the Prince referred
sympathetically to the recent death of Premier Peake. He went on to
express appreciation of the welcome given him by Adelaide, "the garden
city of the Commonwealth," and dwelt upon the fine war-services of South
Australia, and the magnificent opportunities which this State offers for
development. He also mentioned the extent to which the future of
Australia, as a whole, depends upon a broad far-seeing railway policy, a
railway policy in fact "that is continental in scope." Continuing he
expressed regret at having been compelled to omit his originally
proposed overland journey from South Australia to Queensland, and
announced that, to make this up, it had now been decided, in
consultation with the Queensland Government, to substitute at least one
week in the back-blocks or interior of Australia, for the proposed visit
to the new mandated territory at Rabaul. "I am very sorry," the Prince
added, "to have had to cut out Rabaul, but as I had to choose between
the two I am delighted to think I shall now be able to spend some days
in seeing bush and station life for myself in the real heart of
Australia." This decision met with general approval. Rabaul stands for
the mandated territory of tropical New Guinea, formerly in German
possession, and now allocated to the Commonwealth. It is a territory
bigger than England and Wales but only sparsely inhabited, partially
developed, and with no specially outstanding features. No interest it
offers could compare with that of Australia itself.
The next few days were busy ones, public functions succeeding one
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 £700
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 £625, 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.
In the Albert Square Mayor Maxwell read an address of welcome. At the
University pretty girl-students, in black caps and gowns, raced one
another across the grounds to get a second view of the Prince after they
had stood demurely at attention as he went past. On the grassy slopes of
the wide Domain beside the river, backed by an assemblage of ten
thousand delighted school-children, the Prince reviewed the men who had
been keeping the route through the city. To render this possible every
detachment had closed up and followed the procession after the cars had
passed. In this way were gathered some two thousand men representing
every arm of the service. The designations of the First, Second, Third,
Fourth, and Fifth Australian Divisions were in evidence on the flags
carried past the saluting point.
Another interesting occasion during the visit to Brisbane was the local
agricultural exhibition, which never, in the long history of this
popular institution, had been so crowded, the principal stores and
other business establishments having all been closed in honour of the
occasion. The proceedings began with a procession through the wool,
wheat, sugar-cane, fruit, butter, cheese, pig, and cattle exhibitions
halls, the Prince and members of the committee making slow progress in
the crowds of cheering spectators. The afternoon was devoted to a parade
of prize-winning cattle and horses. This was held in a big
amphitheatre--seventy years ago the crude "Bora," sacred initiation
ground, of Queensland savages, now the beautifully turfed show-ring of
the National Agricultural Association. Here, in the presence of some
seventy thousand spectators, the Prince saw some very fine jumping, not
devoid of minor mishaps. He himself ran to help to pick up a girl whose
mount came down at one of the fences. By this time it will be noted that
it was impossible to keep H.R.H. out of any kind of incident not
strictly arranged for. He also assisted at an attempt, not the less
interesting because it just failed of success, to lower the mile
trotting-record of the track.
Leaving the show in the afternoon, the Prince proceeded, in company with
the acting Premier and the Lieutenant-Governor, to Farm Park, where he
took tea upon the grass with the Mayor and Aldermen of Brisbane, in the
midst of thousands of spectators. So closely was the civic tea-table
surrounded that the red cross nurses, to whom fell the duty of waiting
on the Royal party, scarcely had room to perform their functions. The
number of cups and spoons and other articles that became heirlooms in
1920 for the benefit of Australasian posterity must be considerable. The
Prince was eventually extracted from the crush, and embarked, amidst
much cheering and hand-clapping, upon one of numerous decorated
motor-boats which took him, attended by a flock of yachts, across the
wide Brisbane river, in the yellow sunset, on a visit to invalid
soldiers in the fine "Anzac" Hospital on the other side.
Another notable function in Brisbane was the state dinner, at which
representative men from every part of Queensland were present, some four
hundred sitting down. The Prince was between the acting Premier and the
Lieutenant-Governor. The Papal representative, Monsignor Cattaneo,
occupied a seat on the other side of the Lieutenant-Governor. Others
present included the Anglican Bishop, the members of the State Cabinet
and the Legislative Council, and the Chief Justice. The streets outside
were densely packed with people, who became so insistent in cheering
after the Prince had got inside that he left the banquet to wave to them
from the balcony. Mr. Fihelly, in proposing the toast of the evening,
emphasized that their Royal guest had endeared himself to all with whom
he had come in contact, and had been found to be "a man of parts, a man
of ability, able to take his place amongst men, and one who would carry
away with him the goodwill of all the people of Queensland."
Mr. Vowles, Nationalist Leader of the Opposition, spoke in similarly
loyal tone. The Prince rose to reply amidst cheers, and developed his
points in a voice which his hearers noticed had now recovered its
clearness and resonance. In the course of a long and enthusiastically
received speech he dwelt upon the wonderful reception he had had, the
pleasure his visit had given him, and especially on the large part taken
in the receptions by returned sailors, soldiers and women war-workers.
Referring to the soldier settlement he had visited on his way to
Brisbane, he congratulated the Queensland Government on the foresight
and energy with which they had tackled the repatriations problems. "You
cannot do too much," he said, "for your diggers, who played such a big
part in saving the Empire, and who should be looked upon as the backbone
of the Commonwealth.... My tour in Australia, alas!" he continued, "is
nearly over. It is particularly to the future of the Commonwealth that
my thoughts turn. My visit to Australia has taught me that the spirit
wherein your diggers volunteered, and fought and won, is not something
unique or out of the way, which will never happen again, but the natural
outcome of a national spirit which is going to make Australia one of the
great progressive nations of the world. Their free and gallant services
in the war have shown to yourselves, to the Empire and to the world what
you are and what you can do. With such a spirit in its men and women
Australia has a splendid future in its grasp. I came to Australia
already feeling a strong bond of comradeship with your troops: I shall
leave it feeling even a stronger bond of comradeship with the Australian
people as a whole, and my heart will always be with them in their mighty
task of building up the solid British fabric of freedom, justice and
security with fair play for all upon this vast continent."
Another of the Brisbane functions was a popular reception in the public
gardens overlooking the river. Here some thousands of people passed
before the Prince, who stood upon a dais, the acting Premier beside him.
Girls presented bouquets of flowers. Men and women stopped to wish him
good luck on his homeward voyage, or to photograph him at close
quarters. Here and there an old-fashioned curtsy would be dropped, or
cheering or hand-clapping started. The great majority of the people
expressed themselves in a simple nod or smile, or waved hand or hat or
handkerchief as they went by. One could not help recognizing, not only
that they had taken the Prince to their hearts, but that while paying
him the great compliment of ceasing to treat him with formality, there
was no diminution in the deference that was shown. When he left the
reception he went back to his quarters in Parliament Buildings, where,
marching up and down, were armed cadets in full service kit, volunteers
from districts it had not been possible for the Prince to visit, their
expenses all paid by local subscriptions. There was no serious necessity
for the services of these young warriors, but they represented the
universal determination of North-Eastern Australia that "our Prince," as
by this time he had begun to be called, should lose nothing of pomp or
Royal circumstance while he remained the guest of their State.
Before the Prince left, Monsignor Cattaneo, Apostolic Delegate, and the
Very Reverend M. Duhig, Catholic Archbishop of Queensland, asked and
obtained an interview at which they formally presented "the homage and
devotion to the throne of the whole Catholic community of Australia."
They dwelt upon the deep loyalty of this community and declared that the
Prince had won all their hearts.
In the course of his visit to Brisbane H.R.H. was shown State factories,
State shops, State insurance offices, and State markets in full
operation, a class of enterprise under experiment in natural conditions
so favourable as to give it at least a sporting chance. He also heard
much of the sugar-cane, coco-nut-palm and banana plantations, and the
enormous cattle ranges of the northern territories where Queensland
rolls away into the tropics and there is rich land and to spare for a
population as large as that of France.
Leaving Brisbane one day during his visit to that city, the Prince
proceeded by train through a well-wooded country of rich black soil,
just then a quagmire from heavy but welcome rain. He touched at a number
of centres, including Ipswich, head-quarters of woollen mills and
coal-mines, and Harrisville and Boonah, country towns where farming and
pastoral communities predominate. Every stopping-place had been
converted by unpaid local labour into a beflagged forest of greenery, in
the midst of which the inhabitants of the entire neighbourhood, also
many from far distant stations, had assembled. At Ipswich the streets
were lined by operatives and miners, and the welcome of this important
place included a car procession through decorated streets, a popular
reception, a mayoral address, and a civic luncheon served to the strains
of one of the largest and best trained choirs in the State. Vocal music
as the accompaniment of food was an unaccustomed luxury to many of those
present, but it did not appear to interfere with the general appetite.
At Boonah the proceedings were simpler but not on that account less
impressive, although they took place in a pelting rainstorm. The Prince
waded through an ankle-deep stream of flood-water to an exposed
platform, where, surrounded by a crowd of squatters, stockmen, farmers
and their families, including large numbers of women and children, all
standing in the downpour with streaming mackintoshes and umbrellas, he
unveiled a fine marble war-memorial bearing three hundred names. He also
shook hands with relatives of the fallen, and with numbers of returned
men, nurses and other war-workers.
On the way back to Brisbane further centres were visited. Amongst them
were Maryborough, a manufacturing and coal-mining city, where the steel
skeletons of two twelve-thousand-ton steamers, under construction for
the Commonwealth Government, towered amidst the decorations. One of the
arches was surmounted by a group of blacks in native costume, armed with
bows, arrows and spears, which they wielded realistically. Another
carried a dozen diggers in uniform. Other places visited were Tiaro,
where the assemblage that greeted the Prince consisted chiefly of
agriculturalists; Gympie, where the returned men, assembled in a
war-memorial park, included gold-miners as well as farmers; Cooroy,
where the Prince made the acquaintance of a large logging community;
Landsborough, where sugar-cane planters, and banana and orange-growers
preponderated, and Beerburrum, Queensland's biggest soldier settlement,
where he shook hands with a large number of returned men engaged in
growing pineapples.
The Prince finally left Brisbane amidst unforgettable scenes of national
enthusiasm and emotion. The entire population of the city seemed to be
in the streets. The neighbourhood of the railway station was blocked by
masses of cheering men, women and children. The railway station
buildings were besieged, the more influential folk, including the
members of the State Government, and their families, thronged the
platform. The general public crowded windows, balconies, culverts,
overbridges, and fences, wherever a glimpse of the train could be
obtained. The start had to be three times postponed, so many were the
Prince's personal farewells. After the train got into motion, motor-cars
raced beside the track, school-children were found lined up at wayside
crossings, stumps and telegraph poles were perching places for daring
climbers. Everybody waved something, if it were not a handkerchief, a
flag or a hat, it was the nearest thing to hand. I saw a vegetable
hawker wildly flourishing his biggest cabbage, a housewife excitedly
using a tablecloth as a signal of affection, a company of railway
carriage-cleaners throwing their dusters upon the wind. Workmen in
overalls, carters with teams of horses, stockmen riding to their duties
stopped and doffed hats as the train went by. "Old Lang Syne" was taken
up, again and again, by thousands of voices, to be itself drowned in a
chorus of shouted "Goodbyes." All the Members of the Cabinet travelled
upon the Royal train as far as the border of the State. The acting
Premier had to stay behind for urgent public reasons, but was so
determined not to be left out of the proceedings that he attempted to
follow the train in an aeroplane, and was only stopped by crashing
heavily. The demonstration was so remarkable that even the Queenslanders
themselves were astonished at it. Enthusiasm had taken possession of
this democratic people, and there seemed to be no length to which they
were not prepared to go. Here was a country where the people are as
sovereign as anywhere on earth. Yet wayside villages and towns on the
southward journey, one after another, took up and repeated Brisbane's
farewell demonstrations. The crowds at the railway stations, where
addresses were presented, included in many instances definitely more
people than the entire population of the immediate centre, this being
due to farmers, squatters, and settlers bringing their families
incredible distances by train, by motor, in buggies, or on horseback, so
that they might not miss the occasion. In one case four well-mounted
girls galloped astride nearly a mile, keeping abreast with the train,
and arriving at the next station, where an address was to be read, just
as the Prince alighted. Their spirited ride secured them a handshake and
a compliment.
The train halted for the night at Toowoomba, in the heart of a wonderful
agricultural region, which was found smiling under splendid crops. Here
the countryside had long been preparing for the Prince's coming, and the
celebrations were of the liveliest, everything, including decorations,
gathering of returned men, civic banquet, and ball, being planned to
create a record.
The following morning the Prince recrossed the border, over a carpet
woven of yellow wattle flowers. It was a pretty thought and offered him
much.
XXI
THE JACKAROO AND OTHERS
When the Prince left Queensland he had practically completed his
official tour of the Australian States. There remained for him the
improvised series of visits to the back-blocks of New South Wales, which
took the place of the abandoned journey to New Guinea. Here he stayed in
the houses of squatters, some of them controlling sheep-runs hundreds of
thousands of acres in extent, and mingled in the most informal manner in
country life and country pastimes. In the wonderful air of this region
he regained much of the spring and energy he had lost in the preceding
months of strenuous official touring. The Government officers on the
Royal train meanwhile returned to Sydney.
The route taken by the Prince after leaving Wallangarra for the interior
lay through beautiful scenery across the famous Blue Mountains. One
looked out, as the train climbed upwards, across vast stretches of
green-forested gorges and grey crags of fluted limestone, with purple
and aquamarine ridges on the far horizon--a land filled only with the
colour and the form of wild nature. The Prince started on the foot-plate
of the engine, which he drove himself up a one-in-thirty-three grade
slope. Although his journey was now entirely unofficial, numbers of
people assembled and cheered him at the principal stations. At Lawson he
alighted and shook hands with returned men, including Private Duncan
Allan, the oldest soldier in the Australian forces. Later on, crossing
the open Bathurst sheep-downs, a halt was made at the wayside station of
Kelso, where horses were in waiting and he took, in the rain, a brisk
ride across country, rejoining the train that evening at Bathurst.
[Illustration: THE BACKBLOCKS: AN UNOFFICIAL FIXTURE]
[Illustration: HIS FAVOURITE MOUNT]
The following morning the train reached Coonamble, terminus of the
railway, a township of wooden houses, situated on a vast grassy plain,
in the heart of sheep-raising country, two hundred and sixty miles from
Sydney. Here Mr. Oliver, President of the Shire, accompanied by the
local mayor and members of his council, received the Prince upon the
platform, and conducted him in a motor-car procession to a grassy park
in the middle of the town, where he found awaiting him a large
assemblage of people, including the usual contingents of returned men
and school-children, also nurses and other war-workers. An address was
presented, and thereafter the procession was continued to the
racecourse, where horses had been collected. The Prince and his staff
mounted and set off across recently flooded country for Wingadee, thirty
miles distant, where the week-end was to be spent at one of the stations
of the Australian and New Zealand Land Company. Lunch was served in the
open at one of the artesian bore-holes that furnish this country with
water, even the severe drought which preceded the recent floods not
having affected the supply. The Prince here visited a typical bush
saloon and in bush fashion called for drinks for all the settlers he
found there. Later in the afternoon he reached Wingadee, where he was
received by Mr. McEwan, General Manager of the Company. He spent the
afternoon riding about this up-to-date station and going over the
wool-sheds. The host of his visit was Mr. Fechan, the Superintendent.
In the next few days the Prince rode a number of horses, inspecting the
wool-sheds and flocks, chasing kangaroos and emus, and had the
opportunity of forgetting the formalities of public receptions. On the
day of departure from Wingadee he rode thirty miles back to the little
country racecourse at Coonamble, where he remained throughout the
afternoon watching the racing in the casual mud-splashes of his own
ride. The enclosure was crowded with squatters from all parts of
Northern New South Wales, who gave him the most cordial reception, and
followed him afterwards to the railway station to cheer the train by
which he left for Myowera, another small station sixty miles distant in
the same great plain.
Here the Prince stayed on the Canoubar run in the house of Mr. and Mrs.
McLeod, Mr. Niall, managing director of the company, supervising the
arrangements for his entertainment, which were on the most hospitable
scale. At Canoubar he saw the working of a big sheep station in full
operation, including shearing, sheep-drafting, wool-packing, and the
driving of flocks by wonderfully trained dogs, also the handling and
breaking-in of station horses. One of the merino rams shown to him had
recently been bought for two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. As
to the performances of the dogs, the confiding correspondents were told
that they could drive a fowl into a jam tin, but I am not aware whether
H.R.H. was asked to believe this. On the afternoon of his arrival he
rode nine miles, much of it along natural avenues of gum-trees, to the
country town of Nyngan. His host accompanied him, mounted on his fine
steeple-chaser Bullawarra, once sent to England to run in the Grand
National.
At Nyngan the entire countryside was found assembled and the Prince met
a large company of returned men, besides relatives of those who would
not return, nurses and other war-workers. All the school-children of the
neighbourhood were also there. The programme included the laying of a
foundation-stone, after which he rode home escorted by a bodyguard of
light-horsemen, who gave a display of bush-galloping a mile outside the
station.
Next day H.R.H. was made acquainted with the Jackaroo. The Jackaroo is
neither a crow nor a parrot nor any kind of quadruped. He is a young
gentleman of Australia who desires to become a squatter, and who gives
his services on a sheep-run for the opportunity of picking up the
business. He was living, where the Prince encountered him, with, half a
dozen of his fellows, in a comfortable building with roomy sleeping
quarters and an old soldier in charge of the mess. His food is plain but
substantial and appetizing, a leading feature of it, the slab of
"brownie" bread, full of currants, which tells its own tale of his age
and digestion. The Jackaroo spends most of his day in the saddle, riding
long distances to outlying parts of the run, on the hunt for bogged
sheep, or in supervising lambing or moving flocks from one paddock to
another. Often he will not see a living soul from the time he starts out
in the morning until he returns at night, and he may even lose his way.
He then makes a bee-line in the likeliest direction until he comes to
the wire fence of the boundary, which he may follow for miles before he
reaches a landmark he knows. The speedometer of one car which had been
out on fence inspection the day before the Prince arrived, marked 120
miles, travelled in a single day, so it may be presumed that the
Jackaroo's bump of locality develops early. The squatter is generally
glad to take on likely boys, as he finds them, when the first
fecklessness is worn off, on the whole more conscientious than paid
labour, an important point for work that has to be so largely delegated.
The life is healthy and interesting, and on up-to-date runs like the
ones seen, looked exceedingly pleasant. The young fellows come as a rule
from families of good class and generally have means of their own--a
combination which should make the life history of the Jackaroo not
unrewarding to the student of the fauna of these parts. His own point of
view would have been worth obtaining, but being young he was modest and
said little. He rode buck-jumpers for the Prince. He buck-jumped rather
specially well, as might be expected of a Jackaroo. His name is a
felicity that will outlive much topography. One wonders who invented it.
The Prince on several occasions shared in the sport of kangaroo chasing,
which leaves fox-hunting standing. On one occasion he rode all day
guided by sons of his hosts through vast paddocks fenced with wire, over
an even carpet of young green grass, which was then just springing up
after floods following three years of drought, and took many a jump over
fallen trunks of trees killed by systematic ringing to make way for
fodder raising. On the way thirty or forty kangaroos were seen and five
of them were chased over formidable obstacles which the "old men"--the
male kangaroos--cleared with extraordinary ease in their long hopping
stride, at a pace that took greyhounds all they could do to overtake.
These kangaroos eat sometimes by no means an inconsiderable amount of
pasture needed for the sheep, and some years ago were being so
extensively shot down that they were in danger of being exterminated. A
close season was introduced and now they are increasing to the extent,
in some localities, of again becoming troublesome. They are much the
colour of the tree trunks, and until startled are easily overlooked in
the bush. They are off with most wonderful grace and agility the moment
they are disturbed and can even clear the high barbed wire fences by
which the runs are bounded provided they approach at a right angle. When
running parallel to the fence they cannot get the necessary foothold for
a big enough spring. This is sometimes taken advantage of by the rider,
who, being of course unable to put his horse over so formidable an
obstacle, endeavours to head off the kangaroo in such manner that it may
reach the fence at a slanting angle. In this case the chase continues
alongside instead of being finished by the kangaroo's escape over the
fence. When overtaken by dogs, which are often used in the chase, the
kangaroo makes a gallant fight for life, and many a hound has been
ripped open and killed by a well-directed kick from its powerful hind
feet, before it can be shot.
The emu also lent itself to the excitement of the chase during the tour.
The big brown wingless bird much the size and shape of the ostrich, is
quite unable even to jump, but runs as fast as a horse can gallop, and
when pursued will charge a barbed wire fence so hard as to break its way
through, its feathers protecting it from being seriously torn. It is on
this account not beloved by the squatter, but it is seldom shot. The
Prince brought away with him two newly hatched emu chickens, creatures
the size of ducks and prettily marked in shades of black and fawn. Their
quarters on the _Renown_ were in a roomy cage on the superstructure,
where they soon established a reputation as quiet, sober and
well-behaved members of the ship's company.
On several of his expeditions the Prince was given a meal in the bush
camp fashion. One of these was on the shady banks of a stream
twenty-five miles from a station, from which he had ridden out in the
morning accompanied by sons of his hosts. Here quantities of dead
gum-tree trunks were quietly burning, and were made use of for grilling
chops and making billy tea. The latter is quite unlike and, to the
hungry rider, infinitely preferable to the teapot variety. A tin-can is
filled at the nearest water-hole and is carried to a burning tree trunk,
on which it is gingerly balanced, usually with the aid of a stick, the
tree trunk being as a rule too hot to reach without one. The water boils
with extraordinary rapidity and the pot is quickly hooked off the fire.
A generous handful of tea is thrown into the water before it ceases to
boil and the resultant brew is drunk from any utensil that happens to be
handy. Nobody inquires what becomes of the tea leaves.
One of the sights on the Canoubar run was sixty thousand sheep recently
returned from stations in well-watered districts, in one case five
hundred miles distant by rail, whither they had been sent to stay over
the years of drought. These sheep had all been carried by the state
railways of New South Wales, at extraordinarily low rates, and with
surprisingly few casualties. They offered a concrete example of what had
been done on a very large scale throughout the State, where the railways
were able to save for the squatters hundreds of thousands of valuable
sheep, which must otherwise have perished when the fodder supply gave
out. The Prince was so interested in what he saw that there was no
getting him away before dark. By the time he was back in the station he
had ridden over sixty miles without leaving the run.
XXII
AMONGST THE SHEEP
Within the memory of men who have not yet reached middle age,
sheep-rearing in Australia was a gamble. At one time large fortunes
might be made, at another the fruits of long years of thrift and labour
might be swept away by causes which appeared to be outside human
control. Now the industry has become a science. The settler may make
more or he may make less, according as the world price for wool is high
or low. He has his welfare in his own hands, however, and has only to go
the right way to work to make certain of a living.
The removal of the rabbit-pest has been particularly complete. The
Prince saw wire fencing, extending in some cases in unbroken stretches
for thousands of miles, which is at once so high and so deeply embedded
in the ground that rabbits can neither burrow beneath nor climb over it.
Once a paddock, fenced in this way, has been cleared it remains
permanently free. The principal measures for clearing are the systematic
ploughing of every warren, which effectually stops the burrows, and
thereafter the driving by dogs and horsemen of such rabbits as are above
ground to the fences, where covered pits, led up to by long converging
lines of wire netting, have been prepared in advance. The rabbits
follow one another through drop entrances into these pits, thousands
being sometimes captured in one night on a single run. The operation has
only to be repeated, in one paddock after another, to free an estate
completely. The value of the rabbits and their fur covers most of the
cost involved. One may meet gigantic crates on wheels, each drawn by a
dozen horses and sometimes containing twenty thousand rabbits, _en
route_ to factories where the skins are cured and the flesh prepared for
export. By these means many runs have been completely cleared, while
others are in course of being similarly dealt with.
As regards methods of fighting drought, in addition to the help given by
the railways in moving sheep from drought-infected areas, to regions
where the grass has not dried up, the storage of fodder in good years to
make up for deficiency in bad ones, is a further measure adopted.
Artesian borings, even where they are inadequate for irrigation
purposes, will water millions of sheep where the surface supply is
defective.
It was at one time feared that the tapping of the subsoil water over
tens of thousands of square miles in New South Wales, where the
geological formations are such as to render this class of enterprise
remunerative, would gradually exhaust the supply. Experience over a
number of years, including prolonged periods of drought, however, has
not confirmed this apprehension. The Prince was shown wells which had
been running for twenty years without intermission. In some cases, it is
true, fresh borings have had to be made, but it has been discovered
that the failure of the old ones is almost always due, not to any
deficiency in water-pressure below ground, but to the silting up or the
corroding of the pipe itself. Fresh bores yield full supplies, close
alongside those that have given out. Restrictions are rightly imposed by
Government upon the sinking of more than what is considered a reasonable
number of wells in any one area, and up to the present, in the entire
sheep region visited by the Prince, this arrangement has allowed
sufficient supplies to be forthcoming for the watering of all stock,
even in such periods of prolonged drought as that from which this part
of Australia had very recently emerged.
Minor enemies of the squatter are the black carrion crows, creatures
justly execrated by every back-block man. They are not unlike English
rooks, but have the diabolical habit of attacking sick sheep and
newly-born lambs, not infrequently pecking out their eyes. They are also
charged with poisoning the wounds they make, so that a sheep may die
which appears to have been only very slightly pecked. The harmless
looking galahs, white parrots with pink breasts, make themselves only
one degree less objectionable by eating the grain. Both of these pests,
however, are being got under, with the growth in the number of sportsmen
with scatter guns in each district. The Prince shot several galahs, and
if his bag did not include any carrion crows this was chiefly because
the good work of shooting them had already been so efficiently done.
Another trouble of the squatter, the silting up of his fences with
leaves and dust in the hot weather, until they disappear and sheep and
cattle stray over them unimpeded, is also being successfully overcome.
On one estate enormous machines like snow-ploughs were shown, which were
periodically pulled by horses along the windward side of fences subject
to this mishap. Floods come only occasionally, but the squatter has
declined to allow himself to be defeated by them. The Prince saw the
bones of many a stray sheep that had been drowned in the last visitation
of this kind. It is indeed extraordinary that such a thing should occur
upon a table-land two thousand feet above sea level, where rain is
ordinarily so scanty that drought is continually feared. The very rarity
of heavy rain, however, makes the conditions such that the water-courses
may be inadequate to carry off any sudden downpour, with the result that
the flooding, when it does occur, may easily be very extensive, as the
country for hundreds of miles on end is almost absolutely level.
Motor-cars have been used successfully to convey thousands of sheep,
three or four at a time, from flooded areas to banks where they could
exist until the water subsided. In other cases boats have been brought
from incredibly distant rivers to carry stock to safety. Much has also
been done upon men's backs, for the squatter does not allow his sheep to
perish if anything within human strength can help them.
In this part of Australia the grass is so thin that from two to five
acres are required to support each sheep. This accounts for the immense
size of the runs, which extend in some cases to hundreds of thousands of
acres. One of the results of so much grazing space is that epidemics are
almost unknown. On one of the runs the Prince took a hand, with
power-driven clippers in sheds, where one man shears, on the average,
more than a hundred sheep in a single day, the wool fetching up to
twenty-two pence a pound. Fleeces so ticketed indicate the neighbourhood
of the wool millionaire, and he was to be met in all stages of opulence.
A run carrying fifty thousand sheep, each yielding a profit of ten
shillings in the year for wool alone, is by no means uncommon in this
part of Australia, men who had established themselves in pre-war days,
in quite a modest way, upon land leased from the State, not infrequently
finding their incomes multiplied a number of times over as the rates for
wool increased. The greater part of these profits has remained in the
country, and much of it has been put into the development of the runs,
and the improvement of the breeds of sheep, horses and cattle on them.
In one of the stations a five-thousand-pound bull had recently been
bought, and cows were valued at a thousand pounds apiece. On another,
three rams were shown to the Prince which were considered to be worth
six thousand pounds, being an average of two thousand each.
The methods of development adopted varied according to the financial
position of the owners. A squatter with a long-established run who had
paid off his mortgages, and had money in hand, would ordinarily keep
more sheep upon a given area than his less prosperous neighbour, for the
reason that he could afford to move them by rail in years of drought.
The man more recently established, with whom money was not so plentiful,
would keep his land more sparsely stocked. In one case only six thousand
sheep were being raised, though the run would have supported twice that
number in an ordinary season. Here the owner did the whole of the
routine work of the place, with the assistance only of his two eldest
sons, lads in their 'teens, and occasional hired hands for shearing and
fencing.
The run possessing the five-thousand-pound bull was worked upon more
expensive principles. It employed highly paid managers, overseers and
stockmen all the year round, and was regarded as so up to date in its
methods as to be quoted as a state model of efficiency and a sort of
competitive Elysium for jackaroos. Both methods of working seemed to be
successful, and both estates were making money.
The heavy drop in wool prices that is now taking place will no doubt
reduce the amount of the profits presently to be made. There is no
reason to apprehend, however, that the industry will not adjust itself
successfully to the new state of things. Fortunes in the future may be
harder to make than in the past, but the necessaries of life are assured
to all engaged in an industry so self-supplying as is that of
sheep-farming. The area suitable for it is still practically unlimited,
and the open-air life it offers will continue to attract young fellows
anxious to get away from the confinement of the town and the office.
As regards the climate, all that I can say is that as far north as the
Prince's travels extended, the winter conditions then prevailing were
delightful. The nights were sharp, and the days full of sunshine, and of
a temperature that induced to outdoor work of every kind. Never have I
seen healthier looking people than those who make this part of the world
their permanent home. The children that the Prince found assembled in
surprising numbers at every stopping-place, were sturdy and well
developed. That the summers on these breezy uplands are sometimes hot
was testified to by occasional underground chambers constructed so as to
afford shelter in the middle of the day. Every one agreed, however, that
the nights were cool, and the health and longevity of the community
phenomenal. The interesting claim was also made that the very warmth of
the sun in summer was itself an important factor in keeping down disease
alike in men and sheep.
The lowlands along the coast of Northern Queensland, where such tropical
staples as sugar-cane, plantains and coco-nuts are grown in quantity,
were hardly reached, though Brisbane, the most northerly seaport visited
by the Prince, was upon the outer fringe of this important region. In
Brisbane the climate was distinctly hot, though the inhabitants looked
strong and full of health. Further north, where the temperatures grow
higher, we were told that numbers of Italians are settling in and doing
well. They have found conditions not altogether dissimilar from those of
their own country, and are developing labour able to deal to some extent
with the difficult problem of sugar-growing.
On leaving Myowera the Prince proceeded by train to Sydney. On the way
civic receptions were held in his honour at a number of centres. He
stopped off at Dubbo, where white-dressed V.A.D.'s, each with a wand of
yellow-flowering wattle, made a bower over his head as he passed from
the railway station on the usual inspection of returned men. At
Wellington he found a crowd waiting to cheer him beneath flowering
orchards shivering in wintry rain. Blayney, although situated upon the
chill slopes of the Canobolas mountains and said to be the coldest place
in New South Wales, produced amongst its guard-of-honour a cavalry
officer from India in the turbaned uniform of the Fifteenth Lancers, who
had returned to his home in Australia when peace was declared. Another
place visited was Bathurst, where a procession through the town took
place, and where the decorations and receptions were on a very extensive
scale. In the course of his reply to a civic address, presented in this
city, the Prince said his visit in the interior had given him a glimpse
of real Australia. He had seen the richness of the country and had
learnt the desolation that drought and floods could produce. "Many," he
added, "have suffered losses, and while sympathizing with their hard
fortune, I trust the next few years may be years of plenty and bring
them all they desire."
On arrival at Sydney the Prince went at once to the _Renown_. Later in
the day, his official tour having ended, he drove unescorted to the
races, which he enjoyed like any private individual. The courtesy of the
large gathering of race-goers was such that, although everybody wanted
to see him, and much cheering took place, the stewards had no difficulty
in preventing any inconvenience.
Before finally sailing, the Prince spent four days in Sydney, saying
good-bye to his friends, and receiving them in the _Renown_, which he
made his home. Amongst those he entertained were the Commonwealth
Governor, the Prime Minister, the New South Wales Governor, the State
Premier, and the principal Commonwealth and State Officials. His staff,
meanwhile, was kept busy receiving and dispatching his replies to a
mountain of warm-hearted farewell messages, of which the following, from
M. Fihelly, acting Premier of Queensland, and head of the most advanced
Labour Government in Australia, may be taken as a sample:--
"Your Royal Highness's visit will always be gratefully and
affectionately remembered by the Government and people here, who
found the greatest delight in your presence amongst them, and who
will henceforward regard you as a new link uniting the British
peoples. We hope your Royal Highness will have a safe and pleasant
homeward voyage, and that long life and uninterrupted happiness and
good health will be yours. You came to our land as His Majesty's
most effective ambassador to us and we ask you to be our envoy to
him, bearing renewed assurances that the lofty ideals which inspire
our race are a living active force in Australia to-day."
Amongst the individual replies dispatched by the Prince perhaps one of
the happiest went to the Royal Australian Navy, which, after expressing
thanks for escorts and other services, and wishing good luck to all,
ended with the characteristic request that the main-brace might be
spliced.
In his general farewell message His Royal Highness said:--
"I am very sorry that my first visit to Australia is at an end, and
I wish on leaving to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to
the Government and people of the whole Commonwealth for the
pleasure and happiness which they have given me during my all too
short stay. I have been deeply touched by the open-hearted
affection shown to me everywhere, and I hope that Australians have
realized how much the warmth of their welcome has meant to me. It
has made my first visit an experience which I can never forget and
which will always bind me to Australia as a real southern home.
"Throughout the Commonwealth I have been impressed by the fact that
the Australian people as a whole have just the same free and
gallant British spirit at home which the Diggers showed so
splendidly during the war. Australia has appealed to me
intensely as a land where British men and women may make a new
nation as great as any nation of the past, and I shall be heart and
soul with them in their aims and efforts all my life."
[Illustration: EMU ON A SHEEP-RUN]
[Illustration: GOOD-BYE TO SYDNEY HARBOUR]
"I refuse to say good-bye. I have become so fond of Australia now
that she can never be far from my thoughts, wherever I may be; and
I look forward most keenly to the time when I shall be able to
return."
"My affectionate best wishes to her people, one and all."
The last official function attended by the Prince in Australia was an
investiture at Government House, Sydney, at which he conferred the
following decorations on behalf of the King:--
On Major-General Sir C. B. White, Commonwealth Organizer of the
visit, and Rear-Admiral Grant, Senior Officer of the Commonwealth
Naval Board, the K.C.V.O.; on Brigadier-General F. H. W. Lloyd,
Brigadier-General Dodds, Commonwealth Assistant Organizer, and
Commodore Dumaresque, commanding the Australian Fleet, the C.V.O.;
on Captain the Hon. B. Clifford, Military Secretary to the
Governor-General, the M.V.O.
The following officers, who were in attendance during the Royal
tour, also received the M.V.O.: Colonel F. B. Heritage,
Lieutenant-Colonel Lionel Robinson, Captain J. G. Duncan Hughes,
and Captain R. James, and it was also conferred upon the following
organizers of the Prince's visit in various States: Mr. Clifford
Hay (New South Wales), Mr. Whitehead (Victoria), Mr. Blinman (South
Australia), Mr. Steer (Queensland), Mr. Shapcott (West Australia),
and Mr. Addison (Tasmania).
Royal Victorian medals were also conferred upon seven motor-drivers
who had been in attendance throughout the tour.
Every newspaper throughout Australia meanwhile made the Prince's
departure its leading theme, the illustrated journals teeming with
pictures connected with his going. The Sydney "Daily Telegraph," on the
day of his leaving, said: "At high water the _Renown_ will carry the
Prince through the Heads, on the first stage of his homeward journey.
The Prince himself goes away on another high tide--of popularity and
goodwill."
"If ever there was danger," the Sydney "Morning Herald" said, "of
Australian opinion being misinterpreted through the utterances of a few
noisy and churlish malcontents, it has been dissipated once and for all
by the Prince's experiences."
On the 19th August the _Renown_ weighed anchor in brilliant sunshine, to
the sound of music, cheers, and salutes, every headland lined with
people. Flotillas of crowded steamboats raced alongside her as she made
her way to the Heads where the Prince's letters overtook him in a fast
Australian destroyer, which had picked them up from aeroplanes
dispatched especially from Adelaide. As a final courtesy it was a happy
touch, and if the _Renown_ had been a sailing ship would have cheered
her on with airs from home.
The Prince's visit was over. The unanimity and cordiality of his welcome
everywhere had been a revelation even to the people of the land, who in
the clash of local political creeds had hardly realized before how deep
and universal was their feeling of citizenship in the Empire, or how
warmly this feeling would manifest itself towards one who came to them
standing for that Empire and asking only to learn the glory of
Australia's part in it.
XXIII
EASTWARD HO
After leaving Sydney the _Renown_ made a record run, much of it at
twenty knots an hour, to catch up time. The Prince thus arrived at Fiji
punctually to his programme, in spite of having been delayed at Sydney
waiting for the mail. He landed at Suva, where he was received as
cordially and by as large and picturesque a gathering as had greeted his
first arrival at this port. His visit was informal, but he attended a
civic reception in the beautiful Botanical Gardens, followed by a ride
across country which was not without excitement. The party at one point
were on a narrow hill road, with a bank on one side and a steep drop on
the other. The Prince was in front when they reached a tree-trunk which
had fallen across the way, leaving no room to get past. H.R.H.
dismounted and scrambled over with his horse in lead. The Secretary to
the Governor, who was immediately behind, endeavoured to get across
without leaving the saddle, but his animal slipped in landing and went
over the edge. Its rider, although crippled by the loss of one leg,
managed to throw himself off upon the brink, where he clung precariously
while his horse went crashing through the bushes thirty feet beneath
him, rolling over and over as it fell. The Prince was the first to get
hold of his companion and help to pull him back unhurt into safety.
Oddly enough, the horse was able to carry him home, when eventually it
had scrambled back to the road.
The Prince rode for some hours after this incident, dismounting on the
way back, and doing the last eight miles on foot at a swinging pace. A
dinner and dance at Government House finished up the day.
The _Renown_ sailed from Fiji the following day. On reaching Samoa she
lay in the open roadstead, facing misty hills, among which rose steep
green cones of long-dead volcanoes. In the middle distance white-crested
waves flicked their tails with a vicious curl in a leaden rain-flogged
sea, which ended in a white line of breakers where the red roofs of the
town of Apia met the beach. The Prince went off in a bounding launch,
accompanied by Colonel R. W. Tate, the administrator. A mile of rough
and tumble brought the friendly shelter of the reef. Here a number of
long low Samoan canoes, with some forty semi-naked paddlers apiece, met
the launch and escorted it with shouting and beating of wooden drums, as
big as bath-tubs, past the rusty skeleton of the German _See Adler_,
wrecked upon the bar in the hurricane of 1899, to a quiet wharf, where
the Prince landed in a bower of greenery and bunting. He was received by
the principal people of the island, including the Chief Judge and other
officers of the New Zealand administration, also a number of
missionaries. Addresses of welcome were presented and the Prince was
conducted on foot over carpets of brown mulberry bark to the reception
by the Islanders themselves. Lines of smiling Samoans, naked save for
loin-cloths of mat and bark and necklaces of crimson pandanus pods the
size of fingers, lined the route and brought deep cries of
"Aue!"--"Welcome!"--from the bottom of their lungs. The procession was
slow and imposing. It ended in a grassy space beneath green coco-nut
palms and white-flowering leva trees. The Prince took the seat of honour
in a decorated booth, surrounded by thousands of Samoans, many of whom
had travelled long distances from their homes by canoe. The ceremonies
began with the presentation of a series of Samoan chiefs, including the
"High Intercessor," Malietoa Tanumafili, brother of the late King
Malietoa Laupepa, and the venerable Tuimale Fana, friend of Robert Louis
Stevenson. He is a sturdy, upstanding figure in the photograph in
"Vailima Letters," broad-faced and well covered and content. That was a
quarter of a century ago. Now the years have bent and dulled him. The
years, and perhaps the loss that dulls the world, for Tusitala tells no
more tales to any of us in this South Sea Island where he lived and
where he knew so well he would die. One thought, if he had been living
now, how glad a hand and how rich a memory would have been added to this
journey, and how brimming a cup of Imperial romance the _Renown_ would
have lifted to Stevenson's lips. But Tusitala could not come to the
Prince; so the Prince went to Tusitala, where he lies on the hill-top
that meets the winds from the sea, and stood there for a while beside
him.
This was later. The Samoan ceremony of welcome was long. The
presentations extended to a bevy of island ladies garbed in frilled
creations of bark, relieved with hibiscus blossoms, as scanty at both
ends as a ball dress out of Bond Street. The High Chief Intercessor
afterwards read an address of welcome in which he declared that God had
been the Prince's helmsman in bringing him to Samoa. A move was
afterwards made--there is no other way of describing the respectful
suggestion, the start, the progress to an official fixture--a move was
afterwards made to a thatched hut where the Prince tasted Samoan
dainties spread out upon mats upon the floor. He also saw articles of
Samoan manufacture, including delicately carved wooden Kava bowls, mats
so fine that some of them were valued at a hundred pounds, and _tappas_,
lengths of soft mulberry-bark cloth painted with many patterns, worn by
the men, quite decorative in effect though not exactly pliable enough to
suit a West End tailor.
Returning later on to the booth further ceremonies were successfully
encountered, including the preparing and drinking of King's Kava.
Semi-naked warriors, in head-dresses like hay-trusses ornamented with
variegated Berlin wool and pieces of looking-glass held in place by
skewers, chopped and pounded white Kava root, macerated the resultant
pulp in a beautifully carved hard-wood bowl the size of a foot-bath,
with water brought up in solemn procession in a galvanized iron
housemaid's bucket, strained the concoction in a Samoan mat, and carried
it to the Prince in a carved cup of coco-nut. National dances,
participated in by both men and women, followed and a one-legged chief
from one of the neighbouring islands read a further address of welcome.
Offerings were here presented, green coco-nuts, pigs roasted whole,
masses of bark _tappas_ and mats.
The sea had gone down when the Prince re-embarked, and except that the
war-canoes accompanied the launch right out to the _Renown_, the
ceremonies of departure were much like those of arrival.
The visit occurred opportunely at a time when these rich islands of
coco-nut and banana plantations were slowly settling down under New
Zealand administration after a long period of uncertainty during the
war, followed by a much-dreaded influenza epidemic, which had swept away
a terribly large proportion of their attractive and easy-going
inhabitants. European residents said the Prince's coming was having an
excellent effect. It was already looked upon as fulfilling the Samoan
prayer that Great Britain should "remember this small branch of the
great tree of Empire." It was treated as an omen. "Healthy are the
travellers," declared one of the addresses, "We now meet with
success"--and in islands so swayed by emotion, picturesque expressions
of this kind no doubt indicate some corresponding reality in feeling.
After leaving Samoa the _Renown_ called at Honolulu, where the Prince
spent three days quietly, surf-riding and golfing, his experiences being
largely a repetition of those of his visit to the island on his outward
voyage, except that there were no official ceremonies. He stayed at the
Moana Hotel as an ordinary visitor, dividing his time between the
beautiful Waikiki beach and the country club. Nothing could exceed the
kindness, hospitality, and consideration extended not only to the
Prince, but also to the entire ship's company of the _Renown_ by
Governor McCarthy and other Hawaiian residents, who, while scrupulously
respecting the Prince's desire that the visit should be without
functions, did everything imaginable to render it as enjoyable as
possible. The arrangements included drives around the island and other
entertainments for every officer and man of the _Renown_.
On leaving, the Prince issued a press note expressing his appreciation.
"I was delighted with Honolulu on my outward voyage," he said, "and most
grateful for the kind welcome and generous hospitality given me by the
Governor, Mr. McCarthy, and every one. I always feel happy amongst
Americans and in American territory, because American life appeals to me
greatly, and I have many American friends--especially since my short
visit to the United States last year, when I was deeply touched by the
most friendly reception accorded me."
The whole white population of Honolulu assembled on the wharf when the
_Renown_ cast off. Before leaving the Prince had been presented with the
usual farewell offering of ropes of flowers, which he duly flung
overboard, in accordance with immemorial Hawaiian custom, as the ship
left the shore, in token that his friendship remained with this pleasant
island though he himself was compelled to depart. As the ship cleared
the harbour searchlights were played upon the Waikiki beach where so
many enjoyable hours had been spent.
Crossing the northern Pacific the _Renown_ touched Mexico, where
Acapulco harbour, a deep, sheltered pool amongst hills of ferruginous
rock and verdant jungle, held the ship for a day. On one side were the
square, flat-topped bastions of the fort, with ancient muzzle-loaders
pointing black mouths out of stone embrasures, muzzle-loaders which were
fired quite recently at the late President Carranza's gunboat, the
_Gerriro_, when it was shelling revolutionaries ensconced in the
red-tiled city that climbs up the steep slope behind the wharf.
The fighting was described to us in broken English by Mexican traders
doing business in dark verandahed houses opening out of the narrow
streets. It had surged up and down the town in the form of desultory
rifle-fire between the followers of Carranza, who were in occupation,
and those of the insurgent rebel leader, Avaro Obregon, who eventually
drove them into the interior. Carranza's gunboat simultaneously
disappeared to sea. No great damage was done in the town. All that we
heard of was the looting of shops, which did not appear to have been on
any very considerable scale. After the firing had ceased, the civilians,
who had mostly hidden themselves in the hills, returned and reopened
their places of business.
At the time of the Prince's visit the walls of Acapulco were plastered
with rough zincograph prints of Avaro Obregon, a soldierly looking
Mexican, whose election for President was voted upon the Sunday before
the _Renown_ put in to that port. Nobody doubted that he would be
declared elected (as has since been the case) for the excellent reason
that no other candidate had been even heard of at Acapulco. In the
disorder so long in the ascendant the entire port has fallen into decay.
Dark-skinned loungers, in white cotton shirts and trousers, bare feet,
and gigantic straw sombrero hats, smoked cigarettes upon benches beneath
plantain trees in the central square. In the market-place were tethered
mules with high-peaked saddles, also doing nothing and enjoying it. A
couple of small bells rang out intermittently from a big Catholic
church with corrugated iron roof, but the only worshipper inside this
draughty place of worship was a guide, who seemed to be returning thanks
for unaccustomed profits brought to him by the royal visit. The planks
of the empty wharf were so rotten that one had to walk warily to avoid
mischance.
On the beach were a few light fishing boats, one of which was engaged in
taking out three of the Governor's A.D.C.'s through the fine but
deserted harbour to pay his respects to the Prince. The Governor, these
gentlemen explained, was ill or would have been with them. The British
and United States consuls came to the ship, where they were entertained
to lunch.
The Prince afterwards landed and went for a walk ashore, while the
_Renown_ took in oil-fuel. Bumboats with scarlet sails, presided over by
dusky ladies in black robes and tumbled hair, hawked bananas, melons,
earthen pots, sombrero hats, Mexican swords, coloured blankets, and
other locally manufactured articles, to the blue-jackets.
An old missionary in the faded uniform of a captain of the Royal Navy, a
rank he once had held, also visited the _Renown_. He had recently
arrived by mule from Mexico City, some six hundred miles distant. The
road is steep and rocky, but by no means unsafe. The railway, which is
ultimately to connect Acapulco with Mexico City, though partly torn up,
is still in working order for nearly half the way. It may some day
shorten the mail route materially between Europe and Australia. The bags
would be carried overland from some American port on the Atlantic and
re-shipped at Acapulco for the trans-Pacific voyage. Business had not
been altogether suspended in Mexico City, banks remaining open and
motor-cars plying in the streets.
Little was known in Acapulco of the personality of Avaro Obregon, except
that he had been a successful revolutionary leader. It was hoped he
would prove strong enough to hold his own and put down disorder, thereby
enabling prosperity to return to this much-vexed country, but fighting
in Mexico, as in Ireland, is a temperamental gift and hard to lose.
The _Renown_ put out to sea in a sharp electric storm. Warm tropical
rain came down with insistent hammer, and lightning from all sides at
once threw up the coast in brilliant outline, and illuminated an
enormous crucifix upon one of the headlands, by which Drake may have
steered in his pursuit of Spanish galleons three hundred years ago.
The passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, on the return journey, was
quickly accomplished. The _Renown_ arrived at Panama at daylight, after
an uneventful voyage from Acapulco. She was received by the American
authorities, who fired a salute of welcome. The Canal was entered
without a stop, and was traversed smoothly and in record time for so big
a vessel. Every lock was clear and every possible facility was afforded.
Dredgers were still at work at the slip which had delayed the _Renown_
on her outward voyage, but an almost magical change had been effected in
the interval by the removal of a million cubic yards of rock and earth.
What had been a narrow, tortuous channel in June, had been converted by
September into a spacious pool, where to the casual glance six _Renowns_
could lie side by side. The hillside above looked as unstable as ever,
but no fresh land-slips were visible, and even if they occur hereafter,
as is to be expected, the canal has space to accommodate considerable
subsidence without interfering with vessels getting through.
At the Gatun locks the Prince went off by launch, in company with Mr.
Markham, the pisciculturist of the Canal, who succeeded in showing him
some Tarpon fishing. He got back at a late hour, muddy but radiant, with
quite a catch, and re-embarked upon the _Renown_, which was then moored
alongside the Christobal wharf at Colon, taking in oil. H.M.S.
_Calcutta_ was also there, and the two vessels put out to sea the
following morning.
XXIV
THE WEST INDIES
An epidemic in Jamaica abridged the West Indian part of the tour, but
the _Renown_ visited several of the other islands, beginning with
Trinidad, where the flotilla anchored three days after leaving Colon in
the quiet roadstead off Port of Spain. Here Sir John Chancellor,
Governor of the Island, came on board to pay his respects to the Prince,
who shortly afterwards landed.
The entire city of Port of Spain had been effectively decorated.
Sugar-cane-stalks, cocoa-pods, and coco-nuts, were worked in cleverly
upon arches, spanning its substantial streets, to represent the
agriculture of the Colony. The other main Trinidad industries, asphalt
and oil, were well in evidence in the smooth surface found upon the
roads along which the Royal procession passed. The crowds lining the
route were made up in fairly equal proportions of negroes, East Indians,
and persons of mixed or "coloured" race. Few Europeans were seen until
the Legislative Council building and the Town Hall were reached, where
they were in considerable numbers. Those presented to the Prince
included Messrs. De B. Best, Colonial Secretary, H. B. Walcott,
Controller General, A. G. Bell, Director of Public Works, L.
Elphinstone, Solicitor-General, Colonel Mui, Commandant of the Local
Forces, Major Rust, acting President of the Civic Council, Rev. Dowling,
Catholic Archbishop, Dr. Ansley, Anglican Bishop, Sir Alfred Smith,
Chief Justice, also Justices Russell and Deane, and Father de Caignai,
Head of the Tunapuna Monastery.
The official address, read by the Governor, made special mention of how
much the island owes to the British Navy, and the Prince in the course
of his reply also dwelt upon this matter: "You have well referred," he
said, "to the security enjoyed by Trinidad during the Great War, in
which the people of this colony contributed in worthy measure to the
victory of British arms. I am particularly glad to have this opportunity
of congratulating the colony upon its fine services, and of meeting some
of the gallant men whom it sent overseas. I am also much pleased to hear
the colony appreciates how much it owes to the Royal Navy for its
tranquil prosperity during those terrible years." Touching upon more
local matters, the Prince said the colony had given a high measure of
prosperity to those whose forbears had made it their home. It had also
provided new opportunities for progress and well-being for a large
immigrant population from His Majesty's Indian Empire. "I feel sure," he
added, "that all its people, not only long established but recently
arrived, will do all in their power to maintain its good traditions of
law-abiding progress and loyalty to British ideals."
The Prince spent several days in Trinidad, driving through its thickly
wooded hills, past shady cocoa plantations, well-ordered coco-nut
groves, and fields of sugar-cane. He also visited the old-time Spanish
capital of St. Joseph, where an address was presented to him. He
attended in Port of Spain a state dinner and various other official
functions, besides inspecting a big gathering of children. In the course
of his remarks, replying to the toast of his health at the state dinner,
he said, "I saw a suggestion, before I left England, that the British
Empire might be willing to part with one or more of the British West
Indian Islands to a foreign power, and I should like to say here again
what I said in Barbados in March, that British subjects are not for
sale. I can assure you that the King and all of us in the old country
have very much at heart the welfare of Trinidad and all the British West
Indies, also of all other British possessions," a statement which cannot
be too often repeated in sentiment or exemplified in fact.
Visits were paid to some of the oil-wells, which are already a source of
much wealth to Trinidad, and promise to become still more important in
the future. The famous pitch lake was a sight along the coast,
forty-five miles out. It is a semi-solidified deposit, lying in a
shallow hollow, a quarter of a mile in diameter, close to the sea, where
men have been digging out black slabs of asphalt for years without
making a perceptible hole. The lake is so near the coast that ships sail
practically up to it to carry away a product which is ultimately spread
over the streets of the world. Fifty thousand tons have been taken out
of it every year for a generation, and the level is estimated to have
sunk only about nine inches. Oil underlies the pitch in the vicinity and
a forest of derricks rises a quarter of a mile away.
From Trinidad the Prince made a side trip to Demerara, British Guiana,
in the _Calcutta_, the _Renown_ being too big to cross the bar into
Georgetown harbour. All the sunny richness of this steamy sugar and
rice-growing corner of South America was in evidence when he landed at
Georgetown, immediately after the ceremonial visit of the Governor, Sir
William Collet. A fine West Indian guard-of-honour saluted him upon the
pier, and mixed crowds of Anglo-Saxons, negroes, East Indians and
Portuguese cheered in the decorated streets as he proceeded to the
Government buildings. Here more guards-of-honour were inspected,
including armed constabulary and militia. The Prince also shook hands
with a long line of returned men. Entering the building he found the
leaders of the local community assembled, including the principal
officials and their families. An address of welcome was read by Mr.
Brown, a coloured West Indian, senior elected member of the Court of
Policy. Archbishop Parry and General Rice were amongst those presented.
In the course of his reply the Prince referred to the great potential
wealth of British Guiana and to the determination of its inhabitants to
develop their inheritance to the full. It was essential, he added, that
all parts and sections of the community should pull together loyally, in
order that their future might be assured, and particularly that the
great inland wealth of the colony might be laid open for the benefit of
all. He hoped their ex-service men would prove themselves as
public-spirited and useful citizens in time of peace as they had on
active service in the field.
Two days passed in Demerara in the enjoyment of the hospitality of
the Governor and other leading residents. Visits were paid to a
largely-attended race meeting, to sugar and rice estates in the
swampy flats around the city, and to some very beautiful botanical
gardens, where the schools of the colony were assembled, and the Prince
passed down dense lines of negro, East Indian, and European children.
[Illustration: SAMOA MAKES MERRY]
[Illustration: TRINIDAD: IN THE DRAGON'S MOUTH]
As the _Calcutta_ put out to sea ten thousand musical West Indian voices
on the Georgetown wharves joined with the light cruiser's band in the
strains of "Auld Lang Syne." Probably never in the history of this
important British outpost in South America has patriotic sentiment held
more undivided sway or the fact been made more clear that the hearts of
its flourishing inhabitants still turn faithfully to the old country.
Its people are looking to England at the moment with some hope, as well,
of that co-ordination of Imperial resources of which British Guiana
stands so much in need. The labour question has never before been so
acute. The recent abolition of the long-established Indian indentures
system, and therewith the cessation of immigration from India, has
synchronized with enormous increases in world prices and world demand
for the sugar which Demerara is so pre-eminently qualified to provide,
and for this more labour is wanted.
The same question arises in connexion with new industrial developments,
now on the eve of fruition, which must add enormously to the position
that agricultural produce has already won for this colony. These will
come with the exploitation of vast deposits of bauxite-alumina, that
promise expansion of world-wide significance in connexion with steel
manufacture, into which this comparatively new mineral is entering
increasingly. The position, at the time of the Prince's visit, appeared
to be that a million sterling had been spent by an American Company upon
machinery and shipping and railway facilities for handling the ore, and
that its effectual arrival upon the market was only a matter of time.
That an American Company should be spending such a large sum in the
development of natural resources in British territory, was not the least
interesting feature of the situation. It is to Anglo-American
co-operation that Demerara and also the British West Indies must look
increasingly for brains, initiative, and capital for the development of
natural resources which are as yet by no means fully utilized.
The Prince returned to Trinidad through still steamy seas. Dawn on the
day after leaving Demerara found the _Calcutta_ passing the rocky
portals of the narrowest of the three channels which make up the famous
"Dragon's Mouth" entrance to the roadstead of Port of Spain. The shore
on the landward side of this entrance was dotted with pleasant
verandahed villas and fresh-tilled fields, signs of the civilization
which is pushing back the forest in all parts of the island.
On reaching Port of Spain the Prince visited H.M.S. _Calliope_, a light
cruiser just arrived from the north. He also paid a farewell visit to
the Governor, and inspected the local fire brigade. In the evening he
returned to the _Renown_, which shortly afterwards heaved up her anchors
and left harbour for Grenada.
At St. George's, the principal town of Grenada, the Prince landed on the
sheltered cove of Carenage, upon a decorated wharf on which was drawn up
a guard-of-honour of the West Indian regiment beneath the stone bastions
of an old French fort. He was received with every formality by the
principal officials, headed by Sir George Haddon-Smith, Governor of the
Windward Islands, Mr. Joyce Thomas, acting administrator of St. Vincent,
Mr. Herbert Fergusson, Colonial Secretary, Mr. E. Laborde, Colonial
Treasurer, and Sir Thomas Haycroft, Chief Justice, also the heads of the
local Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and Catholic Churches.
Thereafter, up steep streets decorated with flowery arches, beneath the
clanging bells of numerous churches, through smiling, bowing, cheering
crowds of cheerful West Indians and their gaily dressed women and
piccaninnies, he was taken by car to the colonial Court-House, where the
leading residents were assembled. He entered through a shaded courtyard,
where he shook hands with a number of returned men and officers. The
address was read in a low-ceilinged legislative assembly room, with wide
French windows commanding a wonderful view of city and harbour.
In the course of his reply the Prince said the strength and spirit of
the British Commonwealth could not be fully grasped by anyone without
first-hand knowledge of the British Dominions and Colonies. "The more I
see of the King's world-wide possessions," he added, "the more deeply I
am impressed by the strength of the sentiment which binds them to the
Empire and the throne"--the truth of which was testified to by every
street he had passed through.
The Prince was afterwards taken by motor into the interior, through some
of the most luxuriant vegetation in the world, past cocoa and nutmeg
plantations, up two thousand feet into the mountains, about the
forest-shaded depths of the circular lake of Grand Etang, the crater of
an extinct volcano. An official lunch and a garden-party at Government
House filled up the day, which ended with a reception given by the
Prince on the _Renown_ to the principal residents of the island.
Leaving Grenada at daylight the _Renown_ threaded her way through the
clustering Grenadine Islands and past the steep twin green cones of the
inaccessible Piton peaks, and anchored near the Pigeon Rock--Admiral
Rodney's eighteenth-century naval base.
The Prince, accompanied by Sir George Haddon-Smith, who had come on with
him from Grenada, landed at Castries at noon, where he was received by
Colonel Davidson-Houston, Administrator of St. Lucia, supported by Mr.
Anthony de Freitas, Chief Justice, and other members of the Executive
Council. St. Lucia's special arch was of coal, token of the colony's
importance as a West Indian coaling-station. From under it His Royal
Highness proceeded through decorated streets, the entire population of
which had assembled to welcome him. The first stopping-place was in
Columbus Square. Here, in the warm shade of big coco-nut palms and mango
trees, a thousand children were drawn up, each school flanked by
teachers, many of whom wore the black cassock of the Catholic Church.
The Prince afterwards climbed a hill overlooking the town, and wandered
through the deserted barracks of historic fort Charlotte, where his
great-great-grandfather, the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria,
hoisted the British flag in 1797, after the capture of the island by
forces under Sir Charles Grey and Sir John Jervis. Here, standing amidst
luxuriant tropical vegetation, he looked northward to the rocky Vigie
promontory, on which he could descry lines occupied by Sir William
Medow's thirteen hundred British, who in 1778 hurled back invading
enemies twelve thousand strong. Westward he looked over the muddy
Cul-de-sac Bay, where Sir Samuel Barrington, in the same year, fought a
desperate engagement with the French fleet under Count Destaing.
Eastward also the scene was full of historic interest, for here, beyond
the red roofs of Castries city, was visible a distant palm-shaded beach,
where Moore and Abercromby effected their landing in 1796.
Descending the steep grassy Morne, the Prince afterwards attended a
popular reception at Government House, and thence went back to the
_Renown_.
The still hot dawn of the following day found the ship passing the green
hills of the island of Martinique, birthplace of the Empress Josephine,
also the bare sea-girt Diamond Rock off its coast, where, a hundred
years ago, for eighteen lurid months, gallant Lieutenant Maurice and a
hundred and twenty men with five guns from H.M.S. _Centaur_ beat off
attack and themselves threatened all approach to the important harbour
of the enemy in Fort-de-France. Here also, towering into the clouds,
were visible the dim slopes of Mount Pelee, the eruption of which,
eighteen years before, had brought death in a few hours to forty
thousand people.
Thereafter, through summer seas, crossing the place of the decisive
battle of the Saints, the _Renown_ pushed on, anchoring before noon off
the pleasant town of Roseau, capital of Dominica Island, and
head-quarters of the lime-juice industry of the world. As she neared the
shore, the ship was met by the sound of cheerful bells, reflected out to
sea from church towers backing upon green hills that rose into peaks,
extending tier beyond tier in the interior, in such tumbled form that
Columbus, describing it to his Queen, compared the island to a fistful
of crumpled paper. Here the light cruisers _Calcutta_ and _Cambrian_
joined the _Renown_, the three vessels making a fine show as they lay
together, decked with bunting, in the brilliant sunshine of the
roadstead.
The Prince landed at a decorated pier jutting out into the harbour. He
was welcomed by Sir Edward Merewether, Governor of the Leeward Islands,
Mr. Robert Walter, a descendant of the founder of "The Times,"
Administrator of Dominica, Dr. Nichols, Senior Member of the Senate, and
other leading residents. A guard-of-honour of the local defence force
was in attendance, and a crowd of gaily-dressed West Indians. A little
group of yellow Malay-faced Caribs, representing the survivors of these
now nearly extinct aborigines, stood on one side. Their chief, an old
man in top-hat and black coat, was one of those with whom the Prince
shook hands. The scene as the Prince proceeded inland from the wharf,
with cheering West Indians racing alongside his car, was one of much
quaint excitement and enthusiasm. He was taken in procession through
decorated streets, masses of coloured Dominicans and their womenfolk
clapping, shouting and laughing as he passed. "Than' God I not die las'
week," was one pious cry, to the accompaniment of the widest grin.
Some beautiful botanical gardens, containing big trees, all grown in the
space of twenty-seven years, were inspected, and a visit paid to
Government House, which stands in pleasant, shady grounds. The Prince
re-embarked in the _Renown_ at sunset.
Unlike most of the other West Indian islands, which did well out of
sugar during the war, Dominica, when the Prince visited it, was
recovering only slowly from war depression which had hit its previously
flourishing lime industry hard. This very depression, however, had
increased the available openings for newcomers, good land offering at
very reasonable rates. As the result, we were told, increasing numbers
of returned men were settling there, with bright hopes of making good
amongst beautiful surroundings and in a climate which is one of
perpetual summer.
At Monserrat, a small island with open, cultivated fields contrasting
with the dense tropical jungle of Dominica, the Prince was received by
Mr. Condell, the Commissioner, and other leading inhabitants of the
colony, which is prospering in the good prices at present offering for
its sea-island cotton. Boiling sulphur springs, in a vast rocky cauldron
of steam, upon a mountain-side covered with aromatic cinnamon gardens
and flourishing fields of sea-cotton and potatoes, were things to see if
not to smell. The Prince was cheered by crowds of coloured folk, who, in
their broken English, still retain distinct traces of a brogue inherited
from one side of an ancestry which dates back to 1664, when Irish
immigrants were taken to the island by Sir Thomas Warner. It was a
quaint mixture.
The _Renown_ put out to sea in still murky weather, with a yellow ring
round the moon, signs significant to all sailor eyes, and not rendered
more cheerful by the knowledge that a wireless message had reached the
ship, reporting one hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and another off the
coast of Texas.
The _Renown_ slipped through a smooth sea, however, to Antigua,
completely escaping bad weather. Antigua proved to be another open
island, not unlike Monserrat. The ship anchored five miles at sea off
St. John's, a small sheltered harbour in which, three centuries ago,
Prince Rupert successfully attacked two of Cromwell's ships. Here a
number of wooden fishing boats, of half a dozen different nationalities,
formed a lane of many-coloured bunting through which the Prince's
picket-boat was conducted to a decorated wharf.
Sir Edward Merewether, Governor of the Leeward Islands, who had come on
in the _Renown_, Mr. Johnston, Colonial Secretary, Mr. Griffith,
Colonial Treasurer, Very Rev. Shepherd, Dean of Antigua, and members of
the local Executive and Legislative Councils welcomed the Prince at the
landing-stage. Thereafter, through decorated streets of dazzling white
wooden houses, reflecting back the tropical sun, and alive with cheering
coloured folk, the Prince went in procession to the old colonial
Court-House. Here, in the presence of an assemblage of the leading
citizens and their families, an address of welcome was read by Mr.
Griffin, Chief Justice of Antigua.
The Prince replying, referred to Nelson's having refitted his ships in
this island before the Trafalgar campaign. He once again testified that
his own travels had been a wonderful experience and that he hoped to
have many opportunities of repeating and extending them in the future.
A pretty function followed on the breezy cricket ground, where a
surprisingly large gathering of white school-children, besides masses of
coloured mites, cheered the Prince enthusiastically. A state luncheon
was afterwards given by the Governor, followed by a popular reception in
Government House Grounds. The _Renown_ then sailed for the Bermudas, and
the Royal visit to the West Indies, during which the Prince's cheery
presence had produced the happiest impression, was over. The pleasure of
the Europeans at seeing him in their isolated corner of the globe was
almost pathetic. For those of West Indian blood the occasion was also a
memorable one. It certainly revived feelings of solidarity with Great
Britain which have sometimes been strained by that preaching of
race-prejudice from which no people situated as these are can ever be
completely exempt, be the white administration never so tactful.
Never, perhaps, has there been greater occasion for tact, as well as
strength and sympathy, in the political guidance of the Islands than
exists to-day. At the moment the West Indians are exceedingly prosperous
on the whole, owing to the phenomenal war-prices their sugar, cotton and
other produce have been fetching in the markets of the world. But the
quarter of century or so of lean years that preceded the last half-dozen
fat ones, have limited their outlook and retarded their development in
all directions. They have become isolated. They lie between two worlds,
with a tendency to take their ideas from their neighbour the United
States rather than from the distant Mother Country or from Canada.
The only public information of any interest reaching them by cable of
happenings throughout the world is supplied through New York. American
capital is displacing British for the development of their mineral and
other resources. Their agricultural produce tends more and more to find
its way to the United States. Their visitors from Great Britain and the
Dominions are few compared with those arriving from America; yet that
this state of things can be changed is proved by the partial revival in
relations with the British Empire that has followed the conclusion of
the recent admirable West-Indian-Canadian Agreement.
This agreement, however, is only one step in the right direction, and
requires to be followed by many more. Direct steamers and direct cable
communication with Great Britain are specially needed. The growing
demand of the West Indian population for progress towards
self-government, within the Empire, is also a matter of which the
importance cannot be too strongly emphasized, though self-government
cannot be realized without local readiness to face additional taxation
and expenditure.
The splendid colonial Civil Service, sent out from London, has governed
the British West Indies faithfully and well for many years, despite
inadequate remuneration, and often discouraging deficiency in
recognition from public opinion at home; but the day when rectitude in
administration and efficiency in maintaining security and justice were
sufficient by themselves to satisfy the imagination of a coloured people
is passing away. The time is coming for new developments, in the
interests alike of the West Indies and of the Empire as a whole.
The direction these developments must take is indicated by the nature of
the situation that stands so plainly in view. Its evolution upon
practical lines, in relation to the all-important question of the
raising of funds necessary to pay for direct steamers and cable services
and the attraction of settlers and capital from the British Empire, is a
matter that, though difficult, is no longer impossible as in the past,
for the reason that the recent growth in material prosperity in the
islands has removed the bar hitherto existing to proposals for new
taxation. In all consideration of the matter, of course, the fact has to
be envisaged that the post-war conditions, which are affecting the
world as a whole, are potent also in the British West Indies, and that
no policy which does not take them into account can remain at all
permanently in force in these important islands.
The position of the negro population in the United States necessarily
reacts upon that of the corresponding people under British rule.
Propaganda is undoubtedly passing from negro organs in the Republic to
all the British islands. This propaganda takes into consideration the
political conditions in Cuba and Puertorico, which differ
constitutionally from those obtaining in the British West Indian
colonies. It has also to be remembered that the constitutions of the
various individual British islands differ amongst themselves, and that
the formulation of a uniform policy for their development may reasonably
be looked for in the near future. Such a policy must recognize the
interests of the labouring classes as well as of the old planter
families. It would seem, at present, that the Governments have some
difficulty in reconciling these two points of view, towards which they
have equal responsibilities.
XXV
THE BERMUDAS
The picturesque islands of Bermuda, in the North Atlantic, the last
halting-place upon the Prince's tour, put up a brave show in honour of
the Royal visitor. The _Renown_ anchored at daylight on 1st October in
the open sea off what is known as "Five Fathom Hole," where the cobalt
of the deeper sea shaded into greenish patches above treacherous coral
reefs. Through tortuous channels the _Calcutta_, to which the Prince had
transhipped, felt her way, skirting on her left a prominent rock
celebrated as the "Ducking Stool," testing-spot of seventeenth-century
witches and place of punishment of scolds, where a battery of artillery
fired a salute. A little inland of the Ducking Stool a green hummock
rose, topped by Government House. Admiralty House also stood out
pre-eminent amongst smaller villas. On the right, as the _Calcutta_
passed on, curved a long sickle-shaped arm of rock forming the other
side of the harbour, and terminating in the white sheds and
fortifications of the naval dockyard. In the middle were tiny rocky
islets between which the _Calcutta_ steered with margin only of a few
feet on either side. Upon the way the U.S.A. battleship _Kansas_, under
Rear-Admiral Hughes, a vessel sent to Bermuda by the United States
Government in honour of the Prince's visit, fired a welcoming salute.
Coral-rock houses are a characteristic feature of Bermuda. They are
built of squared blocks sawn out of the hillside, and have sloping roofs
of similar stone rendered watertight with cement. One finds them
everywhere. In the country their grey walls and roofs are surrounded by
wildernesses of brilliant flowers, including purple bougainvilleas, the
aptly named "flamboyants," and pink oleanders, with smooth lawns,
terraced vineyards, and overgrown vegetable gardens sheltered by sombre
conifers. In the city one finds sky-scraper hotels and substantial
offices, workshops of Bermuda's principal industry, which is that of
catering for the American tourist, who flies to this sunny spot to
escape the New York winter, and dine where he may still drink.
The Prince's visit took place in the off-season of hot weather when the
principal hotels are closed. The entire city had nevertheless been
decorated, and a large proportion of the twenty thousand inhabitants the
islands boast, assembled along the Club Wharf in Hamilton City, where
the landing took place. They consisted, for the most part, of cheerful
negroes and coloured folk, with a considerable proportion of
well-dressed whites, including many Americans. A guard-of-honour of the
Royal Sussex Regiment, in familiar khaki, stood to attention on the
landing-stage, rifle-barrels gleaming in the fierce sun. Here also
waited Sir James Willcocks in white uniform ablaze with war medals, also
Admirals Hughes and Everett and their staffs, and the principal civilian
officials in the perspiring black morning dress of more temperate zones.
The Prince and his staff landed unostentatiously in white naval kit
from a brass-funnelled steam picket-boat. The usual procession of
carriages was formed, after the reception formalities, each drawn by a
fine pair of horses, and the Prince was taken through decorated streets
to the House of Assembly, where he inspected a guard-of-honour composed
of seamen from H.M.S. _Calcutta_. Within were assembled members of the
Executive and Legislative Councils and other leading residents and their
families, in the garb with which civilized ceremony defies temperatures
the world over.
The Governor read an address of welcome, in the course of which he
reminded the Prince of their having met in France, where he, Sir James,
was in command of the Indian Army Corps. The Prince, in the course of
his reply, referred to the celebration of the tercentenary of the
establishment of representative institutions in Bermuda, then taking
place in the island, having been postponed for a month to coincide with
his own visit. He also acknowledged the courtesy of the United States
Government in sending the U.S.S. _Kansas_ to meet him. In conclusion he
touched upon the impressions left upon himself by his tour and its
lesson of the unity, strength and devotion which bind all parts of His
Majesty's dominions to British ideals.
Later on in the garden of the public buildings the Prince laid the
foundation-stone of a war-memorial, the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps
and Militia artillery furnishing guards-of-honour, and relatives of
fallen men being presented.
On the following day the Prince inspected the Royal Navy dockyard, and
placed a wreath upon the grave of the late Admiral Napier, until
recently in command of the Royal West Indian squadron, who was one of
the victims of an outbreak of typhoid in these islands. He also paid a
farewell visit to H.M.S. _Calcutta_, Flagship of the Royal West Indian
Squadron, which had been his escort throughout the tour in these waters,
and said good-bye to its officers and men, at the same time conferring
the Knight Commandership of the Victorian Order upon Admiral Everett,
and the Companionship on Captain Noble, R.N.
The final day of the Prince's visit to Bermuda found him at St. George,
the quaint coral-built old capital, to which he drove himself from
Government House, Hamilton, in a high-seated mail phaeton, with two
horses, Sir James Willcocks beside him. The drive was twelve miles along
the coast, through most beautiful country, a fresh sea-breeze mitigating
the heat, which had previously been trying. Much of the way the road was
shaded by feathery Lignum-vitæ trees, here known as cedars, which have
deliciously scented wood and were once a rich asset for shipbuilding.
Flowering groves of pink oleander, dense thickets of scarlet, pink and
yellow hibiscus, purple masses of bougainvilleas bordered the way, which
was past garden after garden of the wonderful rich red loam which has
won for Bermuda potatoes, Bermuda onions and Bermuda bananas a
reputation almost world-wide.
_En route_ the Prince alighted to look into the shadowy depths of the
Devil's Grotto, a deep rock-bound pool of clearest water connected with
the sea, in which big fish of brilliant colours swim lazily. He also
wandered hundreds of yards underground, through an extraordinary rift in
the coral formation known as the Crystal cave, from hundreds of
thousands of semi-transparent stalactites, many of them reaching from
floor to ceiling, in some cases overhanging still pools of clear salt
water, or forming grotesque figures, with which the electric lamps, that
light the place, played the most fantastic tricks. The cave is one of a
number in different parts of the islands, and claims to be of
extraordinary antiquity, the stalactites growing at so slow a rate that
a hundred thousand years are believed to be represented by a mere
fraction of their length.
The entire route from Hamilton to St. George had been decorated, the
arches representing an immense amount of willing labour. One of them had
been solidly constructed of square blocks of sawn coral rock by coloured
volunteers, who had built it at night after their ordinary working hours
were over. Another, which had been put up by members of the garrison,
was a wonderfully worked-out reproduction of the sailing ship _Patience_
built near by, over three hundred years ago, by which the shipwrecked
crew of Sir George Somer's ship _Sea Venture_ made their way to
Virginia. This arch was entirely constructed of the local cedar, which
was the wood used in building the _Patience_.
At St. George the Prince was entertained by Mayor Boyle and members of
the local town council, the Mayor's tiny but very self-possessed
grand-daughter presenting a bouquet, the last local attention of the
tour. He was given a great send-off when he finally embarked by launch
to rejoin the _Renown_ waiting for him beyond the reefs with the end of
her mission in sight and her blunt grey nose pointing toward home.
Eight days later, on the 11th October, early in the morning, the heart
of England turned for a moment to her old harbour of Portsmouth, where,
through one of her own October fogs, her great battle-cruiser was
drawing majestically into port, bringing home from his second journey to
kinsfolk the eldest son of her Royal House. Perhaps the heart of England
felt a certain pride....
XXVI
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TOUR
This Chapter is, by kind permission, largely reproduced from an
article by the writer published in the "Nineteenth Century" of
December, 1920.
"The tumult and the shouting dies," and what, now that it is over,
remains to Britain of the enterprise? What treasure came back in the
_Renown_ to make this Royal adventure worth while?
The word may be disputed. The nation's heir, it may be said, does not
adventure in travelling to the hearths of kinsfolk. There is no
adventure in a voyage surrounded by every means of safety and comfort
that modern science can devise, a voyage backed by the blessing and sped
by the hope and pride of this sound old Mother Country. Yet in the fluid
state of social and political emotion to-day it was an adventure, a
challenge in the very teeth of those unbridled forces that are so
blatant and busy in the disservice of the British Empire, and a
challenge before which not one of them raised its head.
The constantly recurring scene of the Prince making acquaintance with
overseas audiences is long since familiar. It has been depicted in the
columns of hundreds of newspapers and actually thrown before the eyes
of thousands in cinemas. It is far more than a twice-told tale that His
Royal Highness was everywhere received with enthusiasm which was
altogether phenomenal, that he was everywhere able to draw the whole of
the inhabitants of the places he visited away from their business, their
occupation or their pleasure, to concentrate during the time he was
amongst them, the whole of their attention and interest upon himself,
and the idea of race, Empire and loyalty for which he stands. In so far
as the hackneyed words of newspaper reports can produce that effect,
their reiteration must by now have turned the remarkable scenes of his
progress into a kind of Royal commonplace, and retired them into the
back of the popular imagination as matters to be taken for granted. It
is difficult to put into terms of flags and decorations, patriotic songs
and calculated multitudes, however gay and hoarse and unexampled,
anything of the fine essence discharged from men's hearts and minds that
made the soul of these occasions. Only perhaps to those who actually saw
them will they survive conventional description, as experiences of the
rare sort that baffle it. It did not seem to matter who his audiences
were. Keen, sharp American business men with square jaws and shrewd
eyes, to whom a Prince would necessarily hover somewhere between a
figure of mediaeval romance and a comic anachronism, proved no less
susceptible to the something he has to offer than the crowds of our own
family in New Zealand, Tasmania or New South Wales. Queensland, with its
advanced Labour Government, its public ownership of utilities and
enterprises, its schedules of progress in which at least no conspicuous
place is allotted to Royal personages, proved just as enthusiastic as
did conservative New Zealand. Centres of culture, learning and wealth
like Sydney and Melbourne, showed exactly the same spirit as did rough
mining and logging camps, and lonely sheep stations in the far interior.
Cornish gold diggers of Bendigo and Ballarat rivalled the cordial
welcome of the Welsh coal-miners of Westport and Greymouth. Catholic
Irishmen newly arrived in cattle stations in Northern and Western
Australia mustered as keenly in honour of the Prince as Presbyterian
farmers in settled Tasmania. Fuzzy-headed Fijians, dignified Samoans,
Polynesians of Honolulu, negroes of Demerara and Trinidad seethed and
bubbled with like enthusiasm.
There was more than the personal factor in an appeal so widely honoured,
more than the touch of romance upon imaginations untravelled along Royal
roads, yet recollection harks back irresistibly to the spectacle of the
human equation as between the Prince and his audiences. There is no
other way of explaining their quick pleasure at the sight of him and
their instant and unerring formulas for his relation to themselves and
to the world. Anything mechanical, anything perfunctory, would have worn
out with the first gratification of curiosity; but a point which struck
the onlooker was that enthusiasm grew instead of cooling off, as the
Prince's visit to each place continued and as acquaintance with him
ripened. "Yes, but only once," was a little Australian girl's wistful
answer when asked if she had seen the Prince. Nor were children of a
larger growth content with only once. Their eyes could not be too well
filled with this young symbol of their race and Empire, whose person
pleased them and whose negligence of the pomp and privileges their
minds had given him upset their preconceptions with a thrill of delight.
To be of the Imperial present, with its dignity and untarnished
splendour, to come of the Royal past with its long discipline of duty
and decoration of anointed names, and to let it all sink as the Prince
lets it sink into the simplest background of his personality, is an
achievement--or should it be called just a habit--which makes at once
the happiest appeal to human nature, the world over. He does not even
appear to be aware that these things should do anything for him. He is
as diffident as, say, the naval officer who blocked Zeebrugge harbour or
the flight-lieutenant who brought down the first Zeppelin over London.
The touch is British and of the essence. It is an odd inconsistency of
race consciousness which makes us recognize and take pride in it, but we
do. Another characteristic almost as immediately perceived by an
audience is the Prince's plain delight in giving pleasure, his obvious
satisfaction in doing the thing that he has to do and doing it well.
There are endless stories of his disregard of physical fatigue in the
desire to take out of himself every ounce that could be given to the
gratification of public gatherings. There is never a hint of boredom in
his face or bearing. Thus the bond of sympathy is complete. The people
are there and he is there for the same purpose, and nothing breaks the
circuit of goodwill. There was something naïve and touching in the
constantly possessive note that hailed him "ours" from the wharfs of
Sydney to the string-bark avenues of Perth; and to this claim also
something in the Prince responds with an unselfishness that might be the
supreme lesson of kings.
The Prince's personality is greatly deepened and broadened by his
speeches, which in their simplicity and directness are perfectly the
expression of himself. They never exaggerate, and they never fall short.
They are pervaded by a sincerity that is perhaps more than anything the
secret of their instant appeal. There is no forcing of the note, no
effort at elaboration, no sacrifice to rhetorical points. Withal he says
the things that people instinctively expect and want to hear, and he
says them with a happy grace and a plain belief in the message that
underlies them all, the assurance of the strength and solidarity of the
Empire for which he speaks.
The whole projection of this Royal personality upon the world is
extraordinary. Look at the circumstances under which it is made. The
passionate under-trend of society towards the dogmas of democracy, the
tragic extinction, within the last five years, of more than one dynasty,
the perpetual tendency of privilege, royal as well as any other, to
liquesce into the common stream of human rights, are all against him.
One would have supposed that roses strewn in the path of a Prince, at
this point of the world's history, if strewn at all, would be none of
nature's growing. Yet this Prince seems to prove that the King and the
King's heir are far more a part of the people and bred from the nation,
than any president. The Prince stands for the people. His character has
been formed, his ideals fostered by healthy English training. It may
possibly not be far-fetched to say that he is the product of intensive
cultivation along national lines. Thus he appeals to the nation's pride
of possession, and his place in their hearts is ready before he occupies
it.
It is no depreciation of the personal magnetism of the Heir to the
Throne to say that he brought to light and stimulated Imperial
enthusiasm already existing below the surface, and waiting only to be
evoked, rather than that he created anything not already in being.
Nevertheless, it must be remembered that the idea of the Empire as a
union of sister nations co-operating and sharing ideals and hopes in a
future they are bound together to bring about, is a young idea, as young
as the Prince. It is not long since the Dominions and India had little
beyond domestic affairs to exercise their powers of administration upon;
their share in the Imperial idea was largely commercial, and chiefly
concerned with the attraction of capital for the development of their
natural resources. They had no voice in the world policy of the
Anglo-Saxon race, and no apparent prospect of getting it. The Prince and
his youth happily blend in the new partnership and the new prospect,
making for all of us a very potential figure. Beside the charm, the
buoyancy of youth, he has the romance of an epoch of world history full
of possibilities for the peoples who live under the British flag. To
this romance he contributes all that he is, and he contributes it in the
most whole-hearted manner.
The Prince was never tired of referring in his speeches to the bond
created by common service in the great war. Wherever he went it was the
returned soldier that he must see and greet, wounded or whole--how often
has this chronicle had to dwell upon the long lines of them. "Returned
sailors and soldiers, relations of the fallen, nurses and war-workers,"
backed by the shouting school-children--they have risen perhaps with
some iteration before the eye of those who have followed the tale. But,
looking back, the splendour fades out of the tropic sky and the opulence
out of the great city, the whole panorama of sheep-run and factory,
orchard and mine rolls up into a decoration; and the meaning of all we
saw abides in those men and women and children working out their lot and
their lives far from the home of the race, but standing, and ready to
stand again, for its flag and its ideals.
"One heritage we share though seas divide," declared the citizens of
Sydney with the emphasis of a triumphal arch. The claim rang true.
Distance cannot weaken this tie, nor oceans wash it out. No one
undervalues the picturesqueness of the emotion the Prince has evoked
amongst members of other races living under Anglo-Saxon tutelage and
protection, but the real significance is in what it has drawn from
peoples of our own stock. Supreme among the values that come out of it
is the enduring quality of the British portion in the things of the mind
and of character, in ideals, and standards. It is no vague sentiment
that binds together the various branches of our people, but a unity that
lives. The part of the Prince of Wales has been to waken a new
consciousness throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. He stands for all that
joins us and for all that we can do when we are together.
INDEX
Acapulco, 216
Adams (Sir Hamilton G.), 178
Addison (Organizer, Tasmania), 209
Adelaide, 164
Albany, 140
Allan (Pte. Duncan), 193
Allardice (Sir Wm.), 170
Allen (Captain M. C.), 129
American Kindness, 26, 215
American-West-Indian Relations, 233
Amiens, 179
Anglo-American Co-operation, 226
Ansley (Bishop, Trinidad), 222
Antigua, 231
_Anzac_ (H.M.A.S.), 101
Arthur's Pass, 81
Ashburton, 94
Atkinson (Mr. Robert), 31
Auckland, 47
_Australia_ (H.M.A.S.), 46, 176
Australian Bight, 140
Avaro Obregon, 217
Baker (Broken Hill Co.), 138
Balboa, 19, 23
Balclutha, 97
Ballarat, 109
Barbados, 9
Barton (Sir Edmund), 125
Barwell (Premier, S. Australia), 163, 164, 165
Bass Strait, 176
Bathurst, 193
Beerburrum, 189
Bell (Mr. Norris), 158
Bell (Mr. A. G.), 221
Bellringer (Mr. F.), 63
Bendigo, 110
Bennett (Brig.-General), 130
Bennett (Mr. Percy), 15
Bermuda, 236
Berry (Sir Graham), 105
Best (Mr. de B.), 221
Bethell (Major-General), 15
Black (Mr. Stuart), 108
Blake (Captain, R.N.), 15
Blayney, 206
Blenheim, 74
Blinman (Organizer, S. Australia), 209
Blue Mountains, 192
Board (Director Education, N.S.W.), 127
Boonah, 188
Boyle (Mayor, St. George), 240
Bridges (General), 132
Bridgetown, 10, 152
Brighton, 174
Brisbane, 182
Brisbane River, 183, 185
Broken Hills Proprietary Co., 137
Brown (Mayor, Napier), 67
Brown (Member, Court of Policy), 224
Brunner Valley, 80
Bulla Bulling, 155
Buller River, 76, 80
Butler (Architect), 108
_Calcutta_ (H.M.S.), 10, 223
_Calliope_ (H.M.S.), 80, 226
_Cambrian_ (H.M.S.), 230
Camperdown, 107
Canadian-West-Indian Agreement, 233
Canberra, 119, 132
Canobolas Mountains, 207
Canoubar, 194
Canterbury Plain, 94
Carroll (Sir James), 57
Carruthers (General), 24
Carter (Lady), 11
Casino, 187
Castlemaine, 110
Castries, 228
Cattaneo (Monsignor), 185, 187
Chancellor (Sir John), 221
Charlotte Sound, 73
Charlotte Bay, 95
Chaytor (General Sir E.), 61, 98
Christchurch, 81, 83
Christian (Brig.-General), 130
Claremount, 146
Clifford (Capt. Hon. B.), 209
Colac, 106
Collier (Mr. P.), 141
Colon, 220
Condell (Commissioner, Monserrat), 231
Cook (Sir Joseph), 112, 118
Coolgardie, 155
Coonamble, 193
Cooroy, 189
Coronado Beach, 25
Cottisloe, 146
Culebra Cut, 18
Cullen (Sir William), 128
Cutler (N.S.W., Shipbuilding), 136
Dalrymple (Colonel S.), 66
Dannevirke, 68
Davidson-Houston (Colonel), 228
Deane (Judge, Trinidad), 222
de Caignai (Father), 222
de Freitas (Mr. Anthony), 228
Delprat (Broken Hills Co.), 137
Demerara, 223
Dodds (Brig.-General), 112, 209
Dominica, 229
Dragon's Mouth, 226
Dubbo, 206
Dowling (Archbishop, Trinidad), 222
Duhig (Archbishop, Queensland), 187
Dumaresq (Commodore), 121, 209
Duncan-Hughes (Capt. J. G.), 209
Dunedin, 95
Duntroon, 131
Eden, 176
Elphinstone (Solicitor-General, Trinidad), 221
Estell (Minister of Works, Commonwealth), 136
Everett (Admiral), 237, 239
Farm Park, 184
Farm Cove, 121
Fassifern, 135
Father of the Ship, 36
Featherston, 69
Fechan (Australian New Zealand Co.), 194
Feilding, 66
Fergusson (Mr. Herbert), 227
Fihelly (Acting Premier, Queensland), 178, 185, 190, 208.
Fiji, 41, 211
Frankton, 62
Fraser (Sir William), 61, 98
Fremantle, 145
Galbraith (Mayor, Ashburton), 94
Gatun Locks, 15
Gawler, 163
Geelong, 105
Georgetown, 223
Gibson (Mayor, Newcastle), 139
Gisborne, 100
Gore, 97
Gosford, 139
Grand Etang, 227
Grant (Rear-Admiral), 112, 118, 209
Great Dividing Range, 110
Great North West, 146
Grenada, 226
Greymouth, 79, 80
Griffin (Ch. Justice, Leeward Is.), 232
Griffith (Colonial Treasurer, Antigua), 232
Grigg (Lt.-Colonel Sir E.), 37
Groom (Minister Works, Commonwealth), 133
Gunn (S. Australian Labour Party), 165
Gympie, 189
Haddon-Smith (Sir George), 226, 228
Hagley Park, 82
Halsey (Admiral Sir Lionel), 36, 150
Hamilton, 53, 240
Hamilton (Mr. Gavin), 98
Hamilton (Lord Claud), 37
Hankins (Mrs. J. H.), 66
Hapa Tenure, 54
Harding (Engineer-Colonel, Panama Canal), 16
Harrisville, 188
Hastings, 68
Hawaii, 30
Hawera, 64
Hawkes Bay, 67
Hawkesbury River, 135
Hay (Mr. Clifford), 209
Haycroft (Sir Thomas), 227
Heritage (Colonel F. B.), 209
High Street, 177
Hinemoa (Princess), 55
Hislop (Mr. James), 61, 98
Hobart, 170
Hobbs (General Sir Talbot), 142
Hobson (Captain, R.N.), 48
Hodgson (N.S.W. Railways), 178
Hokitika, 79
Holmes (Otira Tunnel), 81
Holloway (Mr. E. J.), 113
Honolulu, 27, 215
Huntley, 54
Hughes (Rt. Hon. William), 103, 112
Hughes (Rear-Admiral), 236
Humphries (W. Australian Saw Mills), 148
Hutt Valley, 69
_Hygeia_ (S.S.), 102
Inangahua, 78, 79
Invercargill, 97
Ipswich, 188
Jackaroo (The), 195
James (Capt. R.), 209
Jellibrand (Major-Gen. Sir J.), 170
Jervis Bay, 118
Jobson (Brig.-Gen.), 130
Johnston (Admiral), 16
Johnston (Colonial Secretary, Leeward Is.), 232
Kaahumanu (Queen), 34
Kaitangata, 97
Kalgoorlie, 156
Kamshamcha (King), 34
_Kansas_ (U.S.S.), 236
Kawananakoa (Princess), 32
Kelso, 193
Kennedy (Colonel), 16
Kidnappers' Island, 67
King's Kava, 44, 214
Kyneton, 110
Laborde (Mr. E.), 227
Landsborough, 189
Lascelles (Messrs. & Co. etc.), 106
Lathlain (Mayor, Perth), 141, 142, 143
Launceston, 173
Lawson, 193
Lee (Sir Walter), 170
Lefevre (Señor), 15
Legge (General), 131
Leigh (Capt. Hon. Piers), 37
Lennon (Hon. Mr.), 178
Liliuokalani (Queen), 28
Liverpool (Earl of), 98
Liverpool Hills, 182
Lloyd (Brig.-General H. W.), 112, 209
Lockyer Plain, 182
Loma Point, 23
Lucas (Messrs. & Co.), 108
Luke (Mayor, Wellington), 69
Lyttleton, 83
McDougall (Sergeant, V.C.), 170
MacDougall (Wire factory), 138
McEwan (Australian and N.Z. Land Co.), 193
McCarthy (Governor, Hawaii), 30, 215, 216
MacDonald (Opposition, N.Z. Govt.), 98
McGeachie (Mr. Duncan), 136
McLeod (Canoubar Run), 194
MacMillan (Justice), 141
MacNamara, (Mr. D. L.), 113
Macquarie Lake, 136
McVilly (N.Z. Railways), 62, 98
Malietoa Laupepa, 213
Malietoa Tanumafili, 213
Manawatu River, 66
Markham (Panama Canal Officer), 220
Martin (Brig.-General), 130
Martinique, 229
Marton, 65
Maryborough, 189
Massey (Rt. Hon. William), 50, 59
Mataura, 97
Maungatapu, 75
Maxwell (Mayor, Brisbane), 183
Melbourne, 101
Mereweather (Sir Edward), 230, 232
Miller (Sir Dennison), 125
Milner (Dr. F.), 95
Miraflores, 19
Mitchell (Premier, W. Australia), 141, 144, 149
Moana Hotel, 215
Mokoia, 55
Monserrat, 231
Moonee Valley, 117
Morgan (Mr. F. H.), 62
Mosgiel, 97
Moulder (Mayor, Adelaide), 164, 169
Mountbatten (Lord Louis), 39
Mount Egmont, 63
Mount Wallace, 97
Mui (Colonel), 222
Mundaring Weir, 154
Murchison, 78
Murray River, 110
Mutch (Education Minister, N.S.W.), 127
Myowera, 194
Napier, 67
Napier (Admiral), 238
Nelson Park, 67
Nelson, 74, 75
Neptune on the _Renown_, 35
Newcastle, 135, 136
Newdegate (Sir Francis), 141
_New Mexico_ (U.S.S.), 23
New Plymouth, 63
Newport (Surgeon, Commander), 151
New South Wales, 116
New York Hospitality, 26
Ngata (Hon. Mr. A. T.), 57
Ngaruawahia, 53
Ngauruhoe, 63
Niall (Canoubar Estate), 194
Nichols (Senator, Dominica), 230
Noble (Captain, R.N.), 239
North (Captain, R.N.), 36
North Island, 59
Nullarbor Plain, 158
Nyngan, 195
Oamaru, 95
O'Brien (Sir Charles), 10
O'Donovan (N.Z. Police), 98
Ogden (Tasmanian Govt., Opposition), 171
Oliver (Shire President, Coonamble), 193
Otira, 81
Otway Forest, 107
Pahiatua, 68
Palmerston-North, 66
Panama, 15, 219
Parallah, 174
Parramatta, 135
Parkerville, 141
Parry (Archbishop, Demerara), 224
Patea, 64
Patrick (Lt.-Commander, R.N.), 130
Port Adelaide, 168
Port Augusta, 163
Port Chalmers, 96, 97
Port Melbourne, 118
Port of Spain, 221
Port Phillip, 100
Portsmouth, 1, 241
President of Panama, 20
Pukikura Park, 63
Queanbeyan, 131
Queensland, 176
Quorn, 163
Rai Hills, 75
Railways (N.Z.), 88
Rangitoto, 48
Red-legs, 13
_Renown_ (H.M.S.), 3
Reefton, 79
Rhodes (Mr. Tahu), 98
Rice (General), 224
Riley (Archbishop, Perth), 144
Rimutaka, 69
Roberts (Mrs.), 170
Robinson (Lt.-Colonel), 209
Rodondo Island, 100
Rodwell (Sir Cecil), 42
Rosenthal (Major-General Sir C.), 130
Rotorua, 57
Ruahine, 65
Russell (Judge, Trinidad), 222
Rust (Mayor, Port of Spain), 222
Ryrie (Major-General), 130
St. George's, 226
St. Joseph, 222
St. Hilda, 102
St. Lucia, 228
Sale of West Indies, 14
Saluting the Quarterdeck, 16
Samoa, 212
San Diego, 22
Scholefield (Professor Guy), 62
Scott (Mayor, Suva), 42
Scott (Sir Bickham), 46
Seddon (late Prime Minister, N.Z.), 79
Seddon (Mr. Thomas), 79
Shapcott (Organizer, W. Australia), 209
Simonin (Monsignor), 16
Sleeman (Lt.-Colonel), 61, 98
Smith (Sir Alfred), 222
South Australia, 163
Southern California, 22
South Island, 73
Spencer Gulf, 163
Stephens (Governor, California), 23
Storey (Premier, N.S.W.), 123, 124, 125
Stratford, 64
Steer (Organizer, Queensland), 209
Strong (Colonel), 127
Subiaco, 146
Suva, 211
Swan River, 141, 145
Sydney, 119, 176
_Sydney_ (H.M.A.S.), 142
Tahua Ceremony, 43
Taranaki, 63
Tarawera, 55
Tate (Colonel R. W.), 212
Taylor (Captain, R.N.), 38
Tekuiti, 63
Temuka, 95
Terowie, 163
Thacker (Mayor, Christchurch), 81
Thakombau (King), 42
Theodore (Premier, Queensland), 178
Thomas (Sir Godfrey), 37
Thomas (Mr. Joyce), 227
Tiaro, 189
Timaru, 95
Toowoomba, 191
Toronto, 136
Trinidad, 221
Tuamarina, 73
Tuimale Fana, 213
Tudor (Leader Opposition, Victoria), 104, 113
Tunbridge, 174
Turakina River, 65
Victoria, 100
Visiting the Ship, 16
Vowles (Leader Opposition, Queensland), 185
Waikiki Beach, 30, 215
Waimarino Forest, 63
Waipukurau, 68
Wairarapa, 69
Waitaki River, 95
Walcott (Mr. H. B.), 221
Wallangarra, 178, 192
Walsh Island, 136
Walter (Mr. Robert), 230
Walters (Captain, R.N.), 118
Wangamoa, 75
Wanganui, 64
Ward (Sir Joseph), 87
Ward-room Mess, 6
Warwick, 181
Watt (Mayor, Hamilton), 53
Weigall (Sir Archibald), 163, 164
Wellington, 69, 206
Werribee Plain, 105
Western Australia, 140
West Maitland, 177
Westport, 79
Wheatley (Dr.), 118
White (Major-Gen. Sir Brudenell), 112, 209
Whitehead (Organizer, Victoria), 209
Yearwood (Mr. Graham), 11
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Transcriber's notes:
Fixed up various commas and full-stops.
Hyphens are determined by the majority with or without--
Taken hyphen out in 'countryside'.
Put hyphen in 'blue-jackets'.
Taken hyphen out in 'foreshore'.
Taken hyphen out in 'flagship'.
Put hyphen in 'out-turn'.
Taken hyphen out in 'pressmen'.
Put hyphen in 'bare-headed'.
Put hyphen in 'foot-plate'.
Put hyphen in 'hard-wood'.
Put hyphen in 'home-like'.
Taken hyphen out in 'inshore'.
Taken hyphen out in 'pineapples'.
Put hyphen in 'Red-legs'.
Taken hyphen out in 'roadside'.
P.43, 44, 214 & index, 'Khava' should be 'Kava', changed.
P.43. 'Yagona' should be 'Yaqona', changed.
P.50. 'bougainvillias' should be 'bougainvilleas', changed.
P.55. 'Hinomaa' should be 'Hinemoa', changed in text and index.
P.56. 't seems' should be 'it', changed.
P.75. 'Wanganoa' should be 'Wangamoa'. changed.
P.87. 'Reformerst' should be 'Reformers', changed.
P.135 & index. 'Paramatta' should be 'Parramatta', changed.
P.198. 'billee' tea should be 'billy' tea, changed.
P.202. 'gulahs' should be 'galahs', but also known as 'gallahs' changed.
P.206 & index. 'Canoblas' should be 'Canobolas', and the index
should be 'p.206.' changed.
P.206. 'Dubho' should be 'Dubbo', changed.
P.224. Taken out dash from 'sugar-'.
P.237 & P.239. 'bougainvilliers' should be 'bougainvilleas', changed.
P.244. 'Graymouth' should be 'Greymouth', changed.
P.250, index. 'Dubho' in index should be 'Dubbo', changed.
In TEXT version:
Italics is displayed as _Second Editions_.
Bold is displayed as =Williamson=.
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