CHAPTER VI. 



POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SURVEY OP THE EARLY SEVENTIES. 



DOBING the period covered by the preceding chapter public atten- 

 tion had sometimes been temporarily diverted into more cheerful 

 channels than those torrential disputes which rent the political 

 world. One of these intervals of abandon marked the visit of the 

 Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria, who arrived 

 in command of the Galatea, and landed at Sandridge on the 23rd of 

 November, 1867. All classes of the community vied in expressing 

 their regard for the young sailor Prince in his representative capa- 

 city, and during a stay of six weeks he received over 120 addresses 

 from all sorts and conditions of men. The members of the Legis- 

 lature, members of Corporations, City, Town, Borough and Shire ; 

 the University Council ; the heads of all the churches ; the old 

 colonists, Oddfellows, the Civil Service, through all possible grades 

 down to the Chinese residents of Melbourne, declared in slightly 

 varied terms, and with the aid of more or less brilliantly illuminated 

 parchment and gilt morocco, their loyal and dutiful attachment to 

 Her Majesty, and the pleasure they felt in welcoming the son of 

 such a noble mother. 



Of the adult population at this date fully two-thirds were im- 

 migrants from the old world, and it is easy to understand how 

 such an event stirred national feeling. It was deeply impressed 

 upon the children the founders of the coming Australian Natives' 

 Association by the prominent part allotted to them in all the 

 public welcomes, when throughout the colony thousands of infantile 

 voices were lifted up in the National Anthem. Preparations for 

 the reception had been made on a generous scale. Parliament 

 voted 15,000 in anticipation. When all the bills were paid the 

 total was nearer 40,000 ; and if to this was added the outlay by 



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