The Notes of Colonia Nueva Australia
Occasionally, very occasionally, examples of paper money issued in Paraguay’s Colonia Nueva Australia [New Australia Colony] appear on the market. Two popped up in an April 2004 auction of Status International. Interest was intense. Both realized A$17,475 [U.S. $11,228] apiece.
Nueva Australia was the world’s first experiment in applied communism. It was founded in 1893 twenty-four years before the Russian revolution. Down Under all artefacts associated with the Colony hold considerable historical significance.
At least sixteen of these notes are known to have survived. Eleven are held in public archives. Two are known solely from illustrated publications. Just three are in private hands. Undoubtedly others exist.
DREAMING THE GREAT DREAM
Colonia Nueva Australia was the utopian dream of English-born Labour activist and journalist, William Lane. He and his wife and child had migrated to Brisbane, Australia, in 1885. There he achieved success as a popular journalist promoting extreme socialist ideas laced with explicit racism.
Come the 1890s Australia underwent great social unrest. Strikes became commonplace as did runs on banks. Unemployment was rife. Soup kitchens were the norm. It was a time when social reformers, such as Lane, could dream great dreams.
The defeat of major shearers’ strike in 1891 convinced Lane that there would be no real
