 Led by the mercurial and stridently racist William Lane, the group created New Australia (near the town of Coronel Oviedo), a utopian colony espousing socialism, teetotalism and the ethnocentrism that had already produced an official White Australia policy in their homeland.The New Australia colony soon collapsed in dissension, and its members obtained freehold land instead.A fire in his parents' home in 1904 forced the Cadogan family to leave the colony.