The city lies at the bottom of eastern Australia, on the banks of the River Yarra, near where it empties into the Bay of Port Phillip. One can walk for six miles along the wharves and count forty bridges crossing the Yarra and other streams in the city and suburbs. Steamers of eight thousand tons, drawing twenty-three feet of water, can come right into the town, but larger vessels anchor at Port Melbourne three miles below it.
In a bend of the river and close by the wharves is the million-dollar municipal market house. This is a three-story brick structure housing hundreds of stalls to which Melbourne housewives come to purchase their supplies. A part of the building is given up to storage rooms for butter, rabbits, chickens, and other things awaiting shipment overseas.
Melbourne is built on a flat plain. It covers many acres and is well laid out on the checkerboard plan. The principal streets are ninety-nine feet in width. The best business blocks and public buildings are on Collins Street, which is the main thoroughfare. St. Kilda’s Road, which runs from the centre of the town past the Botanical Gardens and the official residence of the Governor-General of Australia, is one of the finest boulevards in the world. It was built to honour King George V, then Duke of York, when he came out in 1901 to open the first Federal Parliament.
On all sides of the city are attractive suburbs, the most beautiful of which is Toorak, where the rich have their homes. Their handsome residences are set in large gardens and are generally hidden by high walls from the passerby. In the less pretentious suburbs the newcomer is struck by the number of one-story houses. The reason for this, as well as for the growing number of apartment houses in this and other Australian cities, is the difficulty of getting servants.
Although it was decided at the beginning of this century to build the federal capital on a new site, Melbourne has remained for more than twenty years the “temporary” capital of the Commonwealth. When the states were federated there was hot rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. Neither was willing for the other to become the national capital, so it was provided in the Constitution that a new city should be built, at least one hundred miles from Sydney, and that, pending the erection of the necessary buildings, Melbourne should be the seat of government.
The site for the new capital was donated by the state of New South Wales. It is at Canberra, about two hundred miles southwest of Sydney. The architects of the world were invited to submit plans for the city, and the prize was won by Walter Burley Griffin, of Chicago.
The World War interfered with the construction of Canberra, and it has also been held back by much opposition to the great outlay of money involved. On his visit to Australia two years after the war was over, the Prince of Wales presided at the laying of the cornerstone of the Parliament buildings. Bridges and roads have been built, sewerage and water-supply systems have been installed, and a meeting place for the Parliament has been provided. Nevertheless, it will be some years yet before the Commonwealth’s made-to-order capital is completed.
As the capital of Victoria, Melbourne has the state offices. It has also city buildings and a town hall. These structures cost many millions of dollars. One of them houses the splendid public library containing a quarter of a million books, and under the same roof are the museums of sculpture, technology, and ethnology, and an art gallery. In connection with the art gallery there is a travelling scholarship for art students endowed by the state.
The town hall is a great structure of white freestone on the corner of Collins and Swanston streets in the very heart of the city. It is the home of the mayor and city officials, including the council, and it has also an amusement hall which will seat three thousand, where public entertainments are given at cost prices. For concerts, it has a thirty-five-thousand dollar organ, which, as I have said, was the largest south of the Equator until Sydney bought a bigger one. The city employs an organist to play it twice a week for the entertainment of the people, and any Thursday or Saturday one can drop in and listen to the music for an hour or so free of charge. Melbourne not only provides free concerts for its citizens, but reserves one section of its race track to which the public is admitted without having to buy tickets.
The Australians believe that their cities should be run for the benefit of the people and they do not overlook any opportunity to this end. Melbourne owns its tramways and maintains all sorts of public institutions, such as museums, picture galleries, and baths. It has numerous night schools and a working man’s college with several thousand students. The city keeps up an aquarium and a good zoölogical garden. It has about six thousand acres set aside for parks and pleasure grounds, and its citizens have many organizations and clubs for outdoor amusement. The Melbourne Cricket Club, which was founded about the time the city was begun, now numbers more than three thousand members. It keeps twenty men busy taking care of its property. Already more than half a million dollars has been spent on the nine-acre cricket ground, which is said to be the finest in the world.