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