WELLINGTON: A CANOE IN THE PETONE PAGEANT
"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 inspectedinsisted 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 coastport 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 greenstonemereor battle-axe, and a fineWharikiwoka—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,néeDalrymple. 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 browsingsheep, 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 solidmarket 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 bycheering 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, receivedthe 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 theMembers 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 barqueEndeavourin 1779, also that of the Reverend Samuel Marsden and other missionaries from the merchant-shipTorythirty-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.
The still, crisp, autumn morning of the 22nd of May brought theRenowninto 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 nationalhakasin 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 andWangamoahighlands 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 theCathedral. 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 oftree 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-foliagedRimu, or red pine, used for the interiors of houses; of the light, easily workedKahikatea, 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 theMatai, 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 towardsthe 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 againmagnificent. 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-leavedkiakiacreepers, 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.Calliopewhen 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.
WESTPORT CHILDREN: A TUMULT OF FLAGS AND FLOWERS
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 weremaking £2 5s.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 ofthe 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, andshook 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 theRenownwas 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-longrailway 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 excellencethe 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 loonyto 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 stakein 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.
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 themselvesReformers, 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 theSouth 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 thework. 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 independentof 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 qualifyingexamination. 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 isallotted 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 NewZealand, 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 holdingto 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 ranthrough. 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 PortChalmers, 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 theRenownfor 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 theRenown, 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 forsome 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.
The voyage from Lyttleton to Melbourne was rough but uneventful. TheRenowndid 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 theRenownpassed between the dark shadowy hills of Wilson's promontory and the grey rounded cone of Rodondo Island. The following morning, however, found theRenownstill 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 theRenownas 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. TheRenownmeanwhile 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 theAnzac'squarter-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 theAnzacin 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 shedsflaming 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—theHygeia—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 anyway, 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 theOpposition. 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 Victoriasent 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 inthe 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 newpreparation, 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 aboutin 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 entireestablishment 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.