Outside the big market in Rendal Street, beneath a wide arch built on one side with vegetables, and on the other with apples and oranges, a pretty function occurred, a little girl, daughter of the oldest gardener doing business with the market, presenting the Prince with a bouquet, and a small boy, the son of the oldest packer, with a basket of fruit, offerings that symbolized pleasantly enough the very considerable business done in South Australia in garden produce.
Further on, in North Terrace, a more touching spectacle was presented where hundreds of beds from the hospitals, each with a nurse in attendance, lined the route, and the Prince paused for a word of greeting with the patients. Medical students, apprentices, and yet more cadets, were lined up near the fine stone buildings of the Art Gallery, the University and the Exhibition, which are here grouped together. The procession ultimately entered and ended in the quiet gardens of Government House, where H.R.H. was to spend the week of his visit.
Amongst functions which took place at Adelaide during the next few days, was a state dinner at the leading hotel, at which three hundred sat down, including everybody of importance in the South Australian Government. Mr. Barwell proposed, and Mr. Gunn, spokesman of the Labour Party, and Leader of the Opposition in the State Legislature, seconded the toast of the Prince's health. The Prince replied and the proceedings throughout were of the usual cordial nature. A climax was reached after the dinner was over, and it was time for the Royal guest to get home to bed. It was then discovered that the streets outside were so solidly packed with people that it was quite impossible either for the motor-cars to reach the door or for the party to walk to where they were posted. The Prince was brought back into the building, whence he addressed the crowd, at first from an upper window, and afterwards from a roof on which he climbed so as to be nearer the throng. In the end, a way out was found through a side street, by a door much affected by bridal couples.
In the course of his speech at this dinner, the Prince referred sympathetically to the recent death of Premier Peake. He went on to express appreciation of the welcome given him by Adelaide, "the garden city of the Commonwealth," and dwelt upon the fine war-services of South Australia, and the magnificent opportunities which this State offers for development. He also mentioned the extent to which the future of Australia, as a whole, depends upon a broad far-seeing railway policy, a railway policy in fact "that is continental in scope." Continuing he expressed regret at having been compelled to omit his originally proposed overland journey from South Australia to Queensland, and announced that, to make this up, it had now been decided, in consultation with the Queensland Government, to substitute at least one week in the back-blocks or interior of Australia, for the proposed visit to the new mandated territory at Rabaul. "I am very sorry," the Prince added, "to have had to cut out Rabaul, but as I had to choose between the two I am delighted to think I shall now be able to spend some days in seeing bush and station life for myself in the real heart of Australia." This decision met with general approval. Rabaul stands for the mandated territory of tropical New Guinea, formerly in German possession, and now allocated to the Commonwealth. It is a territory bigger than England and Wales but only sparsely inhabited, partially developed, and with no specially outstanding features. No interest it offers could compare with that of Australia itself.