A letter from Sydney, the principal town of Australasia

Written by Edward Gibbon Wakefield while in Newgate Gaol and edited by Robert Gouger, A letter from Sydney purports to describe the nature of immigration to New South Wales and the problem of managing the supply of land and labour. The appendix, 'Outline of a system of colonization', describes Wakefield's proposal for a system that would provide an efficient supply of both of those essential commodities.

Wakefield proposes nine articles, including that land in a new colony should be sold and not granted, but that land already granted be taxed at a percentage of the rent, and that the proceeds from land sales be used to form an emigration fund to transport British labourers free of cost. By these measures it was hoped the supply of labourers would be 'proportioned to the demand for labour at each settlement; so that Capitalists shall never suffer from an urgent want of Labourers, and that Labourers shall never want well-paid employment'. It was also proposed that preference be given to young emigrants with as near as possible equal numbers of the sexes in order that the population in time would become self-sustaining. These articles can be seen to have informed the South Australia Act in 1834.

The book contains a map of the world, with Australia placed centrally much as we are accustomed to seeing the world today. However in 1829 this was a novel idea, when world maps were usually centred on the Prime Meridian at Greenwich in England. By cutting a map and re-arranging it, Wakefield shifted the focus and placed Australia centrally: it was no longer tucked away 'down in the corner' as his grandmother described it. Wakefield's reasons for doing this are explained in his book A letter from Sydney in pages 114-120 where he says 'There is a great difference, in short, between looking to a place and looking from it; and my grandmother thought there was no difference.' Several pages later he explains further 'Thus it becomes evident that Australasia, instead of being positively "out of the way" offers all at once, better means and greater motives, for a more frequent intercourse with a greater variety of nations ... than any other country without exception.'

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