War of the Worlds as imperialism metaphor

[Walloon]

Speaking of H.G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds, as many threads here are, many claim Wells meant the novel as a metaphor for imperialism. For example, from Wikipedia:

The book has been viewed as an indictment of European colonial actions in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Justification of the conquest of non-European peoples was usually along the lines of might-makes-right; i.e., the Europeans had vastly superior technology and so must be naturally superior people and so are perfectly justified in taking the lands for themselves.

I've read the novel twice, but I just don't see it. British and European colonialism occurred as lengthy interactions between the natives and the imperialists, and it virtually always hinged on either enslavement, or trade of raw materials. In The War of the Worlds however, there is no interaction with the Martians. No enslavement, no trade, no puppet government, etc., or any of the hallmarks of the colonial relationship.

Can anyone identify anything within the novel itself that would convince me otherwise?

[Speaker for the Dead]

How about

SPOILER:

one nation being wiped out by a disease common to the other side

?

[Larry Mudd]

The metaphor is established pretty much from the opening paragraph. Imperialism is presented as a recursive process.

With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same.

Wells wasn't being too coy about what he was getting at:

No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable.

Old World: "Europe, Asia, and Africa, regarded collectively as the part of the world known before the discovery of the Americas." The idea of recursive empire is presented, and in the very next line, the invaders are described as coming from an older world.

Before the "discovery" of the New World, native Americans went serenely about their little affairs, struggling for dominion of their corner of the world. Then colonialists, armed with more advanced technology, came from across an unimaginable gulf and took over.

It's pretty straightforward:

I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away.

[Manatee]

And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species was wrought not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

Pages 4 and 5 of the Bantam Classic edition.