The Lone Hand

Cover of The Lone Hand, 2 December 1907

The Big Five in The Lone Hand

The Commonwealth Crisis in The Lone Hand

The Lone Hand magazine was first published in 1907 with the lofty ideal of producing a quality magazine offering a refreshing, more light-hearted approach than its parent publication, The Bulletin. While The Bulletin had been providing Australians with political and financial information for over quarter of a century, it was hoped that The Lone Hand would celebrate the intangibles which make life more enjoyable for the majority of people. Its founders aimed to appeal to, and be a reflection of, everyday matters for people, regardless of class. They also wanted to encourage and financially reward local writers and artists (The Lone Hand prospectus reproduced in Taylor pp. 83-84).

In the early years of The Lone Hand, general community anxiety concerning Australia’s vulnerability to invasion was reflected in the magazine. Its serialisation of Ambrose Pratt’s The Big Five and Charles H. Kirmess’s The Commonwealth Crisis (later retitled The Australian Crisis when published in book form) are examples of invasion literature published by the magazine. 

Pratt’s The Big Five tells the story of a group of five friends who, despite many setbacks, ultimately show the superiority of the Australian ‘mates’ and their manly bush skills as they triumph over an Asian invasion of Australia.

Kirmess’s The Commonwealth Crisis tells a similar story. A number of reviewers have noted the similarities between The Big Five and The Commonwealth Crisis and speculated about whether or not they were actually written by the same person. Whatever their authorship, what is commonly agreed is that these serialised stories were an example of The Lone Hand reflecting the wider Australian community’s apprehension about being invaded, with the most likely invaders being an Asian ‘horde’.

Kirmess highlights this in the Preface to his work when he writes: “THE AUSTRALIAN CRISIS” is the final result of an attempt on my part, early in 1907, to write a magazine article dealing with the dangers to which the neighbourhood of overcrowded Asia exposes the thinly populated Commonwealth of Australia (The Lone Hand, 1 October, 1908, p. 683).

Kirmess goes on to describe his belief that a novel, rather than a factual article, was the most effective way of presenting such a complex issue. By writing the novel, he hoped to give voice to the generalised invasion anxiety that he observed in the community. He also hoped that the novel would garner support for a more proactive approach to the protection of the nation’s shores and help to reduce the level of fear that he observed about him. The aim of using fiction to reflect community apprehension whilst encouraging changes to national defence policies are central themes in invasion literature.