MELBOURNE'S DAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21935, 19 October 1934, Page 10

MELBOURNE'S DAY

The day for which Melbourne has been waiting has come and gone, the day of formal opening of Victoria's centenary celebrations by the Duke of Gloucester. Other days of festal ceremony are to follow, through a programme of rejoicing in which a century of remarkable progress is recalled and a hopeful forecast of the next hundred years is indulged. Except for the tramway strike, which seems to have exerted no check on popular enthusiasm, the festivities have begun under happy auspices, with every prospect of continued success. In his acknowledgment of the enthusiastic welcome, the Duke has praised the dignity and beauty of the city. This tribute is no idle gesture of compliment. In Melbourne is visibly commemorated the achievement now given centennial honour, and the Royal visitor could not fail to be impressed with this evidence of British capability in occupying a new land and winning material prosperity in it. Melbourne is itself a monument of the valiant past that added the south-eastern portion of Australia to the wealth and power of the British realm. The naming ot' the infant State and its capital after- the young Queen and her trusty Prime Minister betokened the sturdy British loyalty that marked the years of early development, and in Melbourne thoroughfares is many a reminder of the turning of colonial thought to the Homeland, for street after street is named after one or other Minister of the Crown holding office under William IV. So it was in the beginning, and so it has been in the three reigns following, as Victoria emerged from dependent province to separate colony, from colony to State, and then to ft proud place in the federal Commonwealth. To a region persistently and consciously British by its own determination this Prince of the Royal House has come, and the sight of the city and the ardour of its welcome have manifestly gratified him. Melbourne will be central ,in his memorable tour, by virtue of Victoria's centenary, the main occasion of his presence in this part of the world ; and that distinction will not be begrudged. New Zealand, through the attendance of. its Governor-General and its warships, not to name representatives, official and non-official, present in eager support, shares in paying honour to the pioneering past and the achieving present, to both of which the King's message makes happy referenceGlad hands stretch out across the Tasman as the festivities set Melbourne on its pinnacle of British interest.