Australia -- Description and travel; New Zealand -- Description and travel; Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894-1972
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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