Peculiar

People

Late 19th century social pro tests put the mass street demon strations of today into the amateur class. Nineteenth cen tury life was tough and earnest, but new concepts of justice and dreams of socialistic Utopias were taking hold of men’s minds.

Foremost among these was the New Australia experiment in Paraguay. Gavin Souter’s new book, A Peculiar People, is about this Utopia, the people who tried it, and the reason it failed.

In 1893 two shiploads of Aus tralians about 600 in all sailed from Sydney and Adelaide, around the Horn, to Paraguay where the Paraguayan Government had granted them a large tract of land.

There they intended to set up a model colony, based on the Aus tralian principle of “mateship”, plus the socialistic concept of equality.

The men, for the most part, were bush workers and tradesmen, but there was a sprinkling of what today might be called academics; married couples predominated and children abounded.

Although the idea of the perfect social set-up had been in the fore front of the minds of reformers for a long time, the move itself was crystallised by the industrial troubles of the 1890’s and, specifically, by the Queensland shearers’ strike of 1891.

Throughout the industrial troubles the labour forces had been inspired and, according to some, manipula ted, by an unprepossessing-looking Englishman with a club foot and weak eyesight called William Lane.

He had arrived in Brisbane in 1885 and, very quickly, became one of the most widely read journalists in Queensland. He launched the pro- Labour weekly Boomerang in 1887 and in 1890 became the first editor of the Labour newspaper, The Worker.

Utopian settlements had engaged his mind for a long time and after the great socialist debacle following the end of the 1891 strike, and the coincidental efforts of the Paraguayan Government to attract new settlers, his ideas began to take a more concrete form.

It was William Lane who organised

he New Australian Co-operative lettlement Association. On July 16, 893, he led the first contingent of ew settlers on to the Association’s essel, Royal Tar, and to South America.

Paraguay is a small land-locked ation 800 miles up the waterways >rmed by Rio de a Plata, the arana and Paraguay rivers. The Zionists, therefore, left the Royal ar at Montevideo in Uruguay and avelled upriver in another boat to suncion, Paraguay’s capital. From icre they went by train 100 miles ► Villarrica and thence, by bullock irt, 27 miles to the site that had Jen chosen for them. The Paraguay overnment, in a gesture of merosity that seems incredible these lys, had granted the colonists 13,100 acres of land free of all arge.

On its part, the association under ok to settle 1,200 families there thin six years. Of course, it never J, but the Paraguay Government ntinued not only to be incredibly nerous but also to be everlastingly rebearing with its bickering Aus ilian colonists.

Dissension

Dissension among the colonists had eun even before the first contingent led from Sydney, and before they i reached the South American ist the division into “Royalists” ro-Lane) and “Rebels” had begun, thin a few months of arriving at w Australia, the settlement had t a third of its population, some these establishing themselves else ere in South America or other mtries; some eventually returning Australia. fhe dissension was mostly the It of human nature. Although the colonists embraced “union iciples” and considered themselves mmunists” they were, in fact, ged individualists. •ome of the blame for the early ntegration can, however, be ibuted to the leader, William ie. His writing had inspired the 3msts initially but although he ►te screeds about mateship and ality, when it came down to js he kept his own counsel, made isions without consulting anyone

and was cut to the quick when any one questioned his authority.

He was not, on the other hand, Big Brother with a Big Stick. When people disagreed with him, he was more likely to pay them off and let them go—or to go himself—rather than try to impose his will upon them.

He had spasms of religious fervour, as well as a great many theories about morality, strong drink, “straightness”, trust and, of course, mateship. All of these ingredients were mixed up with trade union jargon and formed a set of rules by which the colonists were expected to live. They were rules more suited

to religious fanatics or angels than to ex-shearers and tradesmen from the Australian bush.

In the year following the establish ment of New Australia. William Lane and his Royalists them selves seceded. The long-suffering Paraguayan Government made avail able another parcel of land, of 23,000 acres, about 45 miles south of the original settlement.

By June, 1894, 63 persons were living in the new colony, which they called Cosme.

From this time on, there was little communication between the two Australian colonies but events at each ran parallel courses. New

olonists arrived in both settlements •ut in numbers they were always xceeded by withdrawals.

In August, 1899, Lane himself, dth his wife and four children, quit 'osme and South America for good, le went to Auckland and became ;ader-writer of probably the most onservative newspaper in the outhern hemisphere, the New ealand Herald. In 1913 he became le Herald’s editor. He died in 1917.

He apparently withdrew from osme without any attempt to justify is departure or even to explain it.

By 1904, in Paraguay, only a mdful remained in both Australian ittlements and with these it became »mething of a war of attrition. It as obvious that, sooner or later, e colonies, as such, would be >andoned and that these who re amed to the end would share what mained.

Those who stayed inevitably be me South Americanised. They arried into local families and now. their third generation, have almost it their Australian identities, most, but not quite.

In 1965, when Gavin Souter irted to write this book, he was anted a Fellowship by the •mmonwealth Literary Fund and is therefore able to travel to raguay and to meet those still ing, who mostly had been children the time they migrated or had in born at New Australia or •sme in the first years. He was le to revisit the original settlements i trace the subsequent history of >se who had played leading parts the experiment. iVhile this is, perhaps, one of the st interesting parts of the book, whole of it is carried through h the meticulous attention to re rch and detail that we could >ect from the author of New inea: The Last Unknown. t doesn’t sing along in the delight prose that is characteristic of the er Souter book, Sydney Observed, then the subject doesn’t call for This is stuff for an Australian md, of which Australia has few ugh. The Great South American >enment, thanks to this treatment it. can now take its place among exploits of the Kelly gang at nrowan; Burke and Wills; and the eka Stockade.—lT. l rt SE ,o gg, PEOPLE Angus “ d