A SOCIALIST COLONY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2095, 1 June 1907, Page 1

A SOCIALIST COLONY.

' \ 7 ery little has been heard for a considerable time of the Socialist Colony, which a party from New Zealand and Australia tried to form several years ago in South America. The general impression was that the venture liad entirely collapsed. AVliat has happened is thus related by one oi' the adventurers wh orcceutly made a trip to-tho Forty Mile Bush-to see his mother and relatives aud then went- hack again :—*

The rules of the colony provide that tho funds are held in common, and settlers are on an equality before all laws, and there I? absolute independence to the Paraguayan Government. Among the rules to he strictly adhered to is that relating to purity of the 1-aco, Most of the immigrants wero single men and there were “black sheep” among them. They started interfering witli the natives and fomenting discord in the settlement,

but as purity of race was maintained > there was nothing left but to expel i these “black slieop,” or part company i with them. Mr. Lane and tho men of principle wsth him decided to adopt tho latter course, and started a fresh settlement. All the money these men had was invested in the old settlement, and when the division took place those in the old settlement stuck to almost everything. Thoso in the new settlement struggled on without money and very few tools,

but can now boast of a creamery, school, church, music hall, horses, ploughs and other agricultural implements. 'The separator in use was bought from Mr. Daniell, of Masterton. Those who wanted .wives got them from tho Old Country, and tho onco almost depleted colony- is beginning to increase in numbers. Purity of race is maintained, and prosperity is beginning to smile on tho settlers, although they have great difficulty in marketing tlieir produce, having to send it a thousand miles by a navigable river to Buenos Ayres, with only one or two boats plying thereon. Tho name of the settlement is Cosmo. Norv as to the fate of the old settlement. After Mr. Lane and his party left, tho settlement- came under the Paraguayan laws and rules, and now some of the original settlers own the whole of the land, tho remainder who stayed living with the natives, having adopted tho latter’s habits and customs, and lead a miserable existence.