Emigrants of the New Australia Association at Port Adelaide ready to embark for Paraguay, South America on the sailing ship Royal Tar on 25 December 1893.

On 17 July 1893, radical idealist William Lane and his followers left Sydney on the Royal Tar for Paraguay, where they planned to establish the socialist colony of New Australia. The New Australia Cooperative Settlement Association had been formed following the suppression of the maritime and shearers' strikes of 1890-91. More than 230 adults and their children left Australia seeking a workers' utopia in South America.

However, even on the outward voyage, disputes arose under Lane's authoritarian leadership. Factions formed at the settlement and in 1894 Lane was forced to resign. He established a separate community at Cosme, but by 1898 this had also failed to develop as a socialist settlement. In addition to the ideological disputes and personality clashes, the inhospitable climate and difficult living conditions all took their toll on the settlers.

Lane left for England, and later New Zealand, where a conservative change to his beliefs became apparent in his writings as a journalist and editor. Many of the colonists became disillusioned and returned to Australia, and those who stayed eventually abandoned communal living and the land was divided between them.