AUSTRALIA DAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1940, Page 6

AUSTRALIA DAY

OCCASION TO BE CELEBRATED. AT CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. (By Telegraph—Press Asociation.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The one hundred and fifty-second anniversary of the Commonwealth of Australia —known as Australia Day—will be celebrated today with a special reception at the Australian Pavilion at the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition. Mr C. E. Critchley, Australian Trade Commissioner in New Zealand will be host, and the guests will include Senator Mcßride. Assistant Minister of Commerce in the Federal Government. The reception will be held between 5.30 p.m. and 7 p.m., and the pavilion will be closed to the public between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. January 26 has always been a day of celebration in Australia. It marks the founding of the first British settlement in Australia, by Captain Arthur Phillip. R.N., at Sydney Cove, in 1788. The big southern land had been known at least 150 years earlier, but it was not till Captain James Cook had made a thorough exploration in 1770—after he had taken possession of New Zealand—that England realised its possibilities as a colony.

On the site cleared by Phillip’s men Sydney now stands. The city is named after the Viscount who as Secretary of State for Home Affairs had appointed Captain Phillip to command the expedition. Sydney is the third largest city in the British Empire, with a harbour which Phillip described in his diary at the time as "the finest in the world." The Australian Pavilion at the Exhibition is a gesture to New Zealand in recognition of this country’s centennial, but today is Australia’s day, and the reception in the afternoon is to record the passage of a notable chapter of the Commonwealth’s march of progress.