Nueva Australia

by Ken Bell

The year is 1893, and all is not well in the colony of Australia. The mining boom of the 1850s is over, and the lower classes are at the mercy of wealthy businessmen, who were all too aware that there weren’t enough jobs to go around. With poor wages and horrid working conditions the order of the day, a number of socialists became increasingly disillusioned with the direction Australia was taking.

 Chief among them was William Lane, a prominent figure in the Australian Labor movement, and founder of the left-wing newspaper, The Queensland Worker. Following a split within the Australian Labor movement, Lane – or, as he was known to his friends, “Willy” – decided that the only logical course of action was to establish a utopian society outside of Australia. Willy’s plan was to build a society based on brotherhood.

 “Come and work as free men for each other, to labour on the common land for the common good, and not for the self alone, or for the selfish greed of another! One man by himself is powerless, but men in a body are strong!” spake "Willy".

 A bunch of sober pinkos

 After scouring the globe for a location, Willy finally decided on Paraguay as the site for his new colony. The Parguian government agreed to set him up with some free land, as they were desperate for white settlers. Apparently they were also in dire need of bland food and acoustic surf rock.

 Willy, along with 237 men, women and children, set sail for Paraguay – and on the 28^th of September 1893, established Colonia Nueva Australia (or, as it was known to the locals, “Loco Gringosville”).

 The commune was a relative “who’s that?” of Australian socialism, and included poet Mary Gilmore (who’s current image graces the ten dollar note); and radical Australian feminist Rose Summerfield. What the commune didn’t include, however, was anyone who knew how to grow crops, build houses or raise animals.

 While the group was never wanting for poetry or intellectual discussion, neither of those things were edible, and it wasn’t long before a crippling lack of food saw tensions begin to rise. Complicating matters was “Willy” Lane’s stubborn insistence that the colony be alcohol-free. As you can imagine, this did not sit well with his chardonnay-sipping, pinko comrades.

 Willy pulls out

 By the time a second shipload of colonists arrived in 1894, the commune was falling apart. Arguments raged over ideological differences, “Willy” Lane’s incompetent leadership, and the relative merits of prohibition – until, eventually, “Willy” Lane cracked. He, along with 58 of his equally useless followers, left the colony to form yet another colony, Cosme. That’s right: Lane formed a colony after he left a colony to form another colony… Which he left. Confused? I know I am.

 Not so much at the immature actions of the fickle “Willy” Lane, but that there were actually 58 people stupid enough to keep following him. And it’s not as if they were drunk.

 Shortly afterwards, the whole sorry affair came to an end, with the Paraguayan Government disbanding Nueva Australia in 1897, and Cosme in 1909, breaking the community settlement up and giving each settler their own piece of land. You know. Like they do in the real world. While most of the settlers moved back to Australia, a handful remained – with many of their descendents still living in Paraguay today.

 Important lessons

 If nothing else, we learnt three valuable lessons from the New Australian experiment: 1. Socialism may work on paper, but in practice it’s a load of shit; 2. In a survival situation, left-leaning intellectuals are utterly useless; and 3. Alcohol is indeed the opiate of the masses, and completely necessary for any civilisation to function.