The Prince of Wales' Visit to Australia.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3065, 11 December 1878, Page 2

The Prince of Wales' Visit to Australia.

The London correspondent of; the Register (S.A) makes reference to the possible visit of the Prince of Wales to Australia. He says : " This is no longer an idea 'in the air.' The Minister who favored, if he did not actually suggest, the Prince's Indian tour, will shortly return from Berlin flushed with diplomatic triumph. He must look for other worlds than old Europe to conquer, and the Great Britain in the South will naturally attract what his critics call his Oriental fancy. The Prince himself is ready and even eager. An invitation from the Australian Governments would set the ball rolling; and it may be hoped that next year Sir Stafford Nonhcote will have such a Budget to introduce as would warrant an exceptional vote of £100,000 or so for Eoyal expenditure at the antipodes. Some uncertainty as to date may be caused by the arrangements for a dissolution which are still in suspense. Lord JBeaconsfield, I believe, wished to have it this autumn, while the effect of the Congress was at its height, but Sir Stafford wished first to put it out of the power of Mr Gladstone to taunt him - '.". having added twopence to **• T - *lta Tax. The Chancellor* ' "c I™°™ and it is now con*-' • ™». P«*«led. liament w«" '-^ered possible that Parwo , ..i run out its term—namely, . sessions more. /If so, there will be no I dissolution till 1880, and next year may ) be looked forward to as one of compare-

tive peace, when his Royal Highness might bo spared for nine months. The idea is spreading than an Australian tour is one of the probabilities of the imme« diate future. The article I have already alluded in the Morning Post supports it warmly. Its closing sentences assume that the affair is virtually settled:—'The Prince has already had an enthusiastic reception in Canada, and it may not be out of place to express a hope that the period of his presiding over the Koyal Colonial Institute may be,signalised by a visit to a more distant portion of the Colonial Empire on some official occasion which such an event would render for ever

memorable in its annals. The Australian colonists have already expressed an earnest desire that the state of affairs in Europe may permit of his Eoyai Highness undertaking the voyage, and the more intimate connection that he has just assumed in relation to colonial interest! will certainly strengthen their universal wish for the honour of the Prince's yiiit."