The Sun.
London, England, 1840-11-06 00:00:00

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,—In your paper of Friday last I observed an
editorial articla on South Australia, in which you con-
demq.what tai arc pleased to cal the Wakefield or
South Australian System of Colonization. In the first
place, allow me to tell you, that both of these appella-
tions are wrong, the system having been first proposed
in 1830, by the Rev. Dr. Lang, of New South Wales,
and carried into effect in that colony in 1831. It was
not until 1834 th.t Mr. Wakefield propounded it, and
in 1833 only was it acted upon in South Australia. In the
second place, to prove that the system is not bad, but
the reverse, we find by the speech of Sir George Gipps,
the Governor of New South Wales, on opening
the L.!,,aislative Assembly of that colony last
July, that after paying all the expenses of
the colony, he had in hand the sum of 150,000/. to
be dedicated to the purposes of further immigration,
since which period no leas a sum than 103,000/. has
been realized from the sale :of land in the Port-Philip
district of the colony, and from the existensive emigra-
tion constantly going on to it, there is little doubt that
a much larger sum than has been before obtained will
be realized before the end of the year.
If people will embark for deserts in place of flourish-
ing settlements, they must lay their account with such
evils as have occurred in South Australia.
Birmingham, Nov. 4, 1840. MARK Tms.

Our Correspondent is in error. The principle of
the Wakefield system is adopted in the United
~tales, whence it was borrowed, both by Dr. Lang
and Mr. Wakefield, with this difference, that
whereas the Government of the United States did
s nnething for the people who bought the land, such
as secur d them in their possession, and defended
them, Mr. Wakefield and his friends can do
no ling whatever. Moreover, the sum for which
Mr. Wakefield sells land is six times as much as it
is sold for in the United States, while he does no-
thing for the buyers, but transport labourers to be
their se; fs, unless the said labourers escape into the
Bush and act for themselves. The example of
South Wales, which is a felon colony, goes
for nothing. Neither does the receipt of large
stuns of money for the sale cf land. We were never
convinced toa/.the Poyais Loan, however much the
Cacique migfit have raised in the market, wa.:,
either very profitable or very creditable to the len-
ders. Land may have been sold in New South
Wales for a large sum, without it being a necessary
c insequence that the speculaticn will ultimately be
a !zo Al one. Our Correspondent alludes to Ade-
laide Lein;; a desert, hut it is the necessary conse-
quence of Mr. Wakefield's scheme that a whole
communi,v should he Iccated in one spot, and if
that happen to be barren the evil is vast, if tt it
,rreparahle ; while individual colonists
setting down in a swamp or a sand would soon
perceive their iniAake, and remove their tents with-
out much loss. What has most astonished us in
Mr. Wakefield's scheme is the announcement of
I.6rd Eliot, that it made reserves for the aborigines.
That the persons who go out to New Zealand, and
meet the savages face to face and hand to hand,
whether to fiidit or to deal, should seize or buy
their land, we can excuse, though it involves in it
the injury ci"' the aborigines ; but that a few gen-
tlemen or merchants of London should claim-1
never mind how acquired—a right to that land,
and should mock the natives and mock us by pre-
teraling to reserve for their use some part of their
oNn posse,s'ons—and all this done in the name of
Christ ,rcy and love—is what we can neither
excuse nor justify. We admire the adventurous
s,iirit of our comntrytren, which carries them to the
o:her side of the globe to establish another Britain
th::re, but cannot admire the insatiable avarice,
which, resting secure here, seeks to gather riches
by their toils.