The Prince was cheered by gatherings at many wayside stations, including Parkerville, where a number of children, in charge of gentle-faced sisters in black robes, sang patriotic songs in the chill morning air as the train went through. About noon he alighted at Perth, capital of Western Australia, an extraordinarily beautiful city, with wide streets and solid masonry houses, situated on the low banks of the picturesque Swan River--here so wide as to be almost a lagoon.
The streets were decorated and lined with cheerful people. Those who received the Prince included the Governor, the State Premier, the Mayor, Mr. Lathlain, the Chief Justice, Sir R. MacMillan, the leader of the State Opposition, Mr. P. Collier, the Chairman of the Reception Committee, General Sir Talbot Hobbs, also most of the other members of the local houses of Parliament and of the Perth municipal corporation. The Prince went through the usual inspection of naval and military guards-of-honour, and then proceeded by motor-car through the city, which looked delightfully fresh in bright winter sunshine. The crowd was lined up behind wooden barriers on either side of a lane kept by blue-jackets from H.M.A.S. _Sydney_, also men of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve, and returned soldiers, cadets and scouts. The route taken was some two miles in length. It lay through the principal business and residential streets, the crowd extending the entire distance, clapping, cheering, laughing and flag-waving as the Prince went by. The procession disappeared inside the shady grounds of Government House, a place of green lawns and rose-bushes blossoming in the shade of banana-trees and Insignis pines.
Later on H.R.H. visited the principal theatre, where he addressed several thousand returned sailors, soldiers and nurses. He congratulated them on their services, alike during the war and since their return home, where they had shown that they stood for the maintenance of law and order. From the theatre the Prince went on to a big civic luncheon in the Town Hall, where Mayor Lathlain told an appreciative audience of their guest's keen personal interest in the welfare of the people of the Dominions. He also mentioned the fact that the Prince had come as representing "the dear old Motherland, the heart of the Empire, the land upon whose Navy so largely depends Australia's ability to carry on her peaceful avocations." H.R.H. was loudly cheered when he rose to reply, and his pleasant little speech evoked the greatest enthusiasm. He felicitated Perth and Western Australia generally upon their wonderful progress, of which much had been achieved within the memory of the present generation. He said he knew Western Australia's record in the Great War, and desired also to congratulate its women--alike those who had gone abroad and those who had worked at home. An investiture at Government House and a State ball completed the day's work.