[Editor: This review of The Coloured Conquest (1904) is an extract from the “Recent publications” section published in the Evening News (Sydney, NSW), 13 August 1904.]
Recent publications.
We may differ in opinion from others as to the consequences of Japanese victory over the Russians. Not being in Germany, we may even differ from the German Emperor with impunity. There may also be many good opinions on our side, but let us admit that there is something to be said on the other side. That something seems to have been said locally with considerable force and an air of conviction which is often as effective as real reason.
“The Coloured Conquest,” by “Ratsu,” gives a perfectly terrible ending for the white race as a consequence of victorious Japan. The Japanese who have such a Mongolian tinge, the Mongol peoples, the Negroids, the coloured people all over the world, in fact, unite. Japan, dominates and rules. Specially selected white couples are placed in colonies — in Australia and New Zealand particularly — much after the fashion of a human stud farm, and everywhere the coloured man rules.
Under the guise of a novel, with a live story, all this is told, and, it must be confessed, told well, even if we decline to follow the reasoning, or to agree with the conclusions. And as the chief centre of interest in the novel is placed in Australia, it may be admitted that there are many shrewd and fair hits at certain of our politicians for their blindness to the fact that because Australia may not care for military or naval defence, she is immune from the ambition of other nations.
“The Coloured Conquest” is an interesting, well-written, and useful book, even if its conclusions are to our thinking absurd. But it contains undoubted and most seasonable warning. “The Coloured Conquest,” is published by the Railway Bookstall Company.
Source:
Evening News (Sydney, NSW), 13 August 1904, p. 2 (of the Evening News Supplement)
Editor’s notes:
In this review, about a book which has for its theme a Japanese takeover of Australia, the author of the book, “Rata”, is referred to as “Ratsu”; it is not clear whether the incorrect spelling was a typographical error, or if it was a deliberate tongue-in-cheek mistake, so as to make it appear that the author was using a Japanese-style name. As the latter is a possibility, the incorrect spelling has been left as is, and has not been corrected.
The review also refers to the book’s publisher, the N.S.W. Bookstall Company, as “the Railway Bookstall Company”; either that was an inadvertent mistake, or else the reviewer was having a sly dig at the publisher, by implying that its publications were just cheap books, fit only for selling at railway bookstalls.
The reviewer was either very careless and inaccurate in his wording of the review, or he was a clever satirist who was having a bit of fun at the expense of the book’s author and publisher.
live = full of life; full of liveliness, pep, and energy; full of vim and vigour; full of vitality; full of enthusiasm; lively
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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