Ideals fall to nature as usual

Should you ever find yourself in eastern Paraguay, you might encounter a small township called Nueva Australia (New Australia). Therein lies a fascinating tale, known by informed Australians, but I've never met a New Zealander familiar with it.

Its roots go to 1890 and a Queensland shearers' strike which spread to other unions and into New South Wales.

Such was the hatred between striking workers and bosses, it reached potential civil war, illustrated by 1400 troopers being marshalled with mounted infantry, a machine-gun and a cannon. Some of the 10,000 strikers were ready to face them despite having only 800 guns.

But the authorities prevented a blow-up by arresting their leaders and charging them with conspiracy, culminating in a trial and imprisonment. Now leaderless, the strike was broken, leaving in its wake a deep resentment.

William Lane, a Marxist zealot and editor of Australia's first labour newspaper, The Queensland Worker, now concluded there was no hope for the oppressed working man in Australia.

He promoted the idea of building a new society elsewhere, which he labelled "New Australia". Utopian escapist communities, inspired by socialist thinkers were voguish in the late 19th century, and several collectivist settlements from as far afield as Sweden and Germany had been established in the Americas.

Lane's idea caught on, resulting in numerous working families, including some from New Zealand, eagerly signing on. On behalf of the new society, agents travelled to Argentina. Land had been offered free in Patagonia, but it proved too harsh. The investigators went to Paraguay, where they were enthusiastically welcomed by the government and offered a large tract, similar to southeastern Queensland in climate and soil.

There was good reason for this big welcome. Twenty-five years earlier, Paraguay's then-dictator, a lunatic called Lopez, in a moment of madness declared simultaneous war against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, an action akin to Lydia Ko taking on Mike Tyson. When it was over, children excepted, there were only 14,000 men and 150,000 women left in the nation.

With land secured, excitement and fund-raising intensified in Australia, and alarmed the authorities. Newspapers ridiculed the venture, becoming increasingly concerned at the possibility of a mass working-class exodus. The Bulletin made dire predictions for New Australia, with cartoons of the migrants being hunted down by savages.

But the New Australian idealists were not to be dissuaded, a sailing ship was purchased and, in two trips, almost 500 people headed for the promised socialist utopia.

When the first lot arrived, they were welcomed on the Asuncion wharf by the Paraguayan president and, in carts and on horseback, embarked on the trek to their allocated land.

Suffice to say, the venture failed. Like the Soviet Union, it collapsed because its goals flew in the face of human nature.

The New Australians' objectives were communal ownership with no individual property rights, no alcohol and no mixing of races. But, the New Australian utopians included a large number of single men, going to a "land of women", as a book about Paraguay at that time is titled.

The indigenous Guarani women are extremely pretty. Unsurprisingly, nature took its course. So, too, with the alcohol prohibition, which was ignored in this land of cheap rum.

But, primarily, the New Australia dream failed because humans are not ants. While never reaching an Orwellian Animal Farm situation, Lane's puritanical insistence on enforcing the rules soon led to a bitter factionalism, and a large breakaway group began its own nearby settlement called Cosme.

Also, the physical hardship in starting from scratch inevitably led to some wanting to return home.

As news reached Australia of the troubles, new recruits dried up. In 1899, Lane, now immensely unpopular, left New Australia. The settlements evolved into a small town without the original rules; now private property, marriage with the locals and alcohol were accepted.

Today there are 2000 descendants of those original utopians, bearing their forefathers' Anglo-Saxon and Irish surnames but speaking Guarani and Spanish.

Apparently, they're acutely conscious of their Australian ancestry and greet warmly the steady trickle of Australian visitors, wishing to see for themselves this unusual facet of their history.

Paul Holmes became excited about this saga when I told him about it in the late 1990s, resulting in us going to have a look. We set out early one morning in a rental car from Asuncion but, half-way there, a more appealing diversion arose, as happens in Latin America, so we never made it.

Similar communal societies continued to sprout in the 20th century, perhaps Israel's kibbutzes being the most notable. So, too, separatist Christian collectivist communities which have rejected the materialist, secular world; one exists just out of Greymouth. But New Australia was different, having materialist goals and, it goes without saying, was a disaster in its denial of individualistic human nature.