NEW AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1260, 23 April 1896, Page 38

NEW AUSTRALIA.

Some interesting information regarding “ New Australia ” is contained ill a letter received by Mr E. Tregear, of the Labour Department, from Mr H. Greenaway, formerly of Batea. Mr Greenaway lias been in Paraguay for some 15 years, and on tlioarrival of the first batch (4 settlers acted as interpreter ill their iuteivoiirse with the Indians, and subsequently threw in his lot with the settlers. Mr Greenaway says in his letter :

“ I fear we are all in a bad way' here, and things are not as good as one might have expected. Our chairman, Mr Kidd, has resigned, and I have followed him. His chief reason was the inability of the mass of the people to uphold their own laws and decisions, and they were constantly making him look like a fool. The great majority of tho people are not yet ready for selfgovernment, and consequently do not know how to make laws or rules or to keep them. For example: wo are financially in a very bad way, and without one dollar to our name, and no credit. Our people for tho most part are badly clothed and have few tools or implements. The food wo have is plentiful but rough, and wo cannot produce all that. Our engine and boiler aro now useless on account of a breakage, and our sources of revenue are at present nil. Wo have, it is true, 700 head of stock, but cannot get rid of that

iat any cost. Knowing (his, you will be surprised when I tell you the Government 1 of Paraguay have offered us a gift of 800 | dels a month for some time to get I meat, salt, Ac., as they say wo cannot j exist without meat (which we can only get once a week, and then not much fat in it), or fat or oil, which is only too true, for all I our men are feeling it. They have also i offered us the freehold of s;{ leagues of | fine land where wo are settled, and offer to | hold in reserve for the colony the balance | of the 31 leagues for some three years, and J hand it over at the rate of one league for I every 12 families settled on our land, four ' adults to count as a family. Most of us ! thought this a just and fair offer on the j part of tho Government, as we are vir- | tually a failure as far as introducing ! people into the country is concerned, but the people at a public meeting overthrew the decision of the Board of Management and the President, and the latter has consequently resigned. The man «ho is responsible for this now takes the affair in i hand, and as chairman will try to extract ; tho colony from its present perilous posi- : tion. As for myself and my friends I we are satisfied that communism is I not for us, or indeed for people of the : present decade, that it only tends to doI grade those who are a little in advance of | the mass, and, in fact, it is not what I j should call a happy state at all, and I do J not see much hope for its success in Hie • future. All I ever hope for is to see free i land and equal rights to overy man and j woman in the world. So we are going on and a few months must see either tho end j of what was to bo an object lesson for tho i good of humanity or an object of ridicule I to tho whole world.”